Unlocking Ambition

About the project

In 2018 our work with long-term client Scottish Enterprise travelled a different path with a brand new initiative backed by Scotland’s First Minister. Unlocking Ambition is a £4m challenge fund created by the Scottish Government and delivered by Scottish entrepreneurial ecosystem partners.

Over the course of a year, Scottish Enterprise supported a cohort of 20 established entrepreneurs to help them accelerate the growth of their business. These businesses included Alan Mahon from Brewgooder, Stephanie Terreni Brown of Clean Water Wave, Hey Girls’ Celia Hodson and Steve Regis of Arx Maritime.

The SE UA project team asked us to get involved at the outset and follow the programme throughout the year to document it in still event imagery. In keeping with the visionary nature of the whole programme, our brief took a fresh approach for corporate photography: we were asked to avoid a traditional business look in favour of candid and relaxed observational images that spoke of engagement and collaboration.

The programme involved a series of workshops and masterclasses which took place in a variety of modern spaces in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. For this project, Alan had to be particularly discreet as most of his photo opportunities took place during live sessions. Long lenses were employed and large apertures compensated for low light and the avoidance of a distracting flash. This resulted in an extensive observational and intimate study of both people and process that gradually built over 11 photography sessions into a legacy illustration of a year in the life of a project.

Post-event our images were uploaded to the Scottish Enterprise Photo Library which is also managed by McAteer Photo.

See more of our people photography here.