Happy Birthday Icon!

By Matt Gore owner and founder iconphotomedia

There we were 10 years ago in The Tramshead pub just outside Saltaire (the Victorian model village near Bradford http://www.saltairevillage.info/), Guzelian photographers Matt Gore and Robin Hammond were hatching a plan to launch a photographer's agency that was to become iconphotomedia.

If memory serves me rightly (we were in the pub) some of the company names being banded around included:

Photo Republic
Untitled (we just got a kick out of visualising this in print as a byline)
M6 Pictures
Magenta 

Eventually, we agreed on iconphotomedia and have been lucky to be so well supported by a core of great clients for the last decade.

Our very first job - by Matt Gore for the Times Educational Supplement, who went on to become one of our biggest clients - was shot in Harrogate as Matt packed up his rental flat to move to London to start icon with Robin.

Picture by Matt Gore/iconphotomedia 

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) published in the Times Educational Supplement

Even on the drive down to London, Matt stopped off in Leeds to shoot a commission for Leeds Metropolitan University..

Picture by Matt Gore/iconphotomedia
University students dress up WW2 style to entertain a local school visiting for a history lesson

Of course, we had no idea then that icon would go on to become such an outstanding success. In the early years we applied a very simple principle - to provide eye catching broadsheet style photography for a wide range of editorial and commercial clients. 

Here are some interesting numbers....

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped icon survive and thrive over the past decade; our lovely clients and suppliers, a lot of which have become good friends, and also to our friends and family who have put up with the sometimes crazy lifestyle choice that is Professional Photography. 

Matt Gore

2013 in Pictures!

by Iconphotomedia

To start our New Year we thought we would throw together a quick gallery slideshow featuring some of our favorite work from 2013...We thank all our clients for their support in 2013 and we are very much looking forward to working with you more in 2014. 

 If you aren't a client already then we very much hope to be working with you this year!

icon photographers shoot themselves

Most Photographers should shoot themselves...
It's a great way of learning, trying out kit and technique and also getting together example images.

Here's one from the Archives! Vicky Matthers first job for icon way back in 'nineteen hundred and frozen to death'

Matt on a video shoot for a well known Spanish bank!
He's laughing as he has just recorded a piece of audio 'Gold' ...Vicky Matthers singing a tuneful little song down the radio mic! 

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Vicky working at the rugby league challenge cup final, Wembley

"I am not a number"

"Hey Numbnuts he's to your left...no the other left!"
Matt Photographing in Bordeux.


Showing a sitter and example image of exactly what you would like to achieve in the shoot is such a powerful tool. Part of our job is getting people on side and manipulating the situation - to get people to do things they may not necessarily want to do (or think they want to do) 






In editorial work we may want to illustrate the story in a certain way - This example involves Lib Dem Politican Ed Davey. He's a big guy and given his role in the Liberal Demorcrats I wanted him to look like a bit of a bouncer guarding the door. 






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