Michael Howard is commissioned for his creative approach by designers, advertising agencies and resort managements. He has spent most of his professional life in Portugal, following a period as a freelance photographer specialising in unusual colour effects for advertising campaigns in London. He and his wife Sue work as a team, initially travelling to tropical islands, Greece and Spain, either on commission or to take stock photos. Over time the work became focused on Portugal. He supplies his choice of photo-libraries with an unparalleled collection of stock photos of the country, while the commissioned work is typically of interior and exterior architecture for European clients in the tourism industry.

Michael sums up his views on commissioned work “Good photography is an investment and not an inessential expense. In a recession it is

very clear that the resorts and villas with an enticing, relevant collection of photos attract the bookings. Clients sometimes argue that their pictures will ’only be used on the web’, believing that they do not need quality images; but good photography is as vital for website thumbnails as for large brochure spreads. Producing an impressive image when reduced to a few pixels is quite an art.”

Of his work photographing villas a client wrote “For a villa rental company today professional photography on the website is essential. We have had a big increase in sales for the villas Mike Howard photographed.” Another reported that within a fortnight of uploading the pictures they had fully booked the villa for the year and even for several weeks of the following season. A villa owner summed it up: “Mike’s photographs proved to be the best investment we made.”

Michael is often commissioned to produce credible images of resorts with building works in progress for the next season’s brochures. His retouching and montage work for hotels and tour operators by seamlessly ’planting’ digital gardens, ’filling’ pools or removing cranes has helped them to achieve good occupancy in the difficult first year.

He is very aware of the importance of supplying correctly balanced files for reproduction due to his years of practical experience of printing processes in designing and publishing books of his photographs of Portugal, calendars and postcards. Michael’s stock library sales are Rights Managed and exclusively handled by his agents. Links to his work in these libraries can be found on the Contacts page.