Who is Chris’s most famous client? It’s only Scotland’s favourite son – Oor Wullie!

It’s been a year since Oor Wullie’s BIG Bucket Trail was out on the streets of Scotland. Do you miss those colourful, smiling sculptures in your city? I certainly do. I was thrilled to be involved in this amazing public art project as official trail photographer.

If you picked up a map to collect all the statues, downloaded the app to tick them all off, or visited the website or social media then you definitely saw some of my photos.

The trail team needed individual photos of every single Oor Wullie to feature on the maps, the app and the website. The statues needed to be captured in the same light, at several angles, and with the same background, so they would all look the same in each format. It wasn’t a small job!

At the start of the summer, I visited five top secret locations all over Scotland where the Oor Wullies were being stored before the trail launched. Setting up a mini studio with lighting and backdrop, I took photos of over 500 – five hundred! – Oor Wullies before editing and renaming over xxxx files and uploading them so the project team could use them in all the publicity materials.

And, in between, it was back to the day job of wedding photographer on the Saturdays before and after!

Jings Crivens Help Ma Boab, as the wee rascal himself would say!

It was also an honour to be asked to take photos at the official launch of the trail at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, as well as capturing the Oor Wullies on location across the country for the souvenir guide and the calendar.

I love the variety this job throws up and so it really was a joy to be the official photographer for this brilliant project. Working with the three charities – Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity, Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, The ARCHIE Foundation – as well as DCT Media – home of Oor Wullie – and Wild in Art was a privilege and such great fun.

The auctions at the end of the trail raised an amazing £1.2 million for the charities. What an achievement!

I love unusual assignments like this & the Oor Wullie Bucket Trail was an absolute joy. If you’ve got a project or assignment & need a passionate, creative photographer, please do get in touch.

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