Recently I had the opportunity to photograph FreshBritain’s Brand New Britain event at UAL, Central St Martins in London’s Kings Cross. The event brought together industry experts in the form of two panels: the Idealists and the Realists, introduced by Tom Edwards, Head of Radio at Monocle, and the event began with a presentation from FreshBritain’s Co-Founder Bob Sheard, launching his book Brand New Future. The proposal put forward was that both idealists and realists are needed to tackle current challenges in the world, such as climate change and conflict, and that, within business, brands have a role to play in this.

As a photographer my focus is of course on capturing the event but at the same time it is fascinating to hear discussions from areas of business I would not necessarily have access to, and it was particularly interesting to hear about the challenges facing brands in 2025. It also made me ask myself where I lie in the spectrum of idealist and realist (it was agreed that most people are a mixture of both). There were several UAL students in the audience, asking questions and providing a fresh, new perspective, to balance the wealth of expertise of the industry leaders on the panel, which seemed to me a very important mixture.

The Anatomy of Change section of Bob’s presentation (see the photo) resonated as it demonstrated how there is influence at every level, from policy to movement to art.

I couldn’t help but be particularly taken by the final presentation by war photographer Giles Duley who summarised that through interactions he had with people who had overcome immense challenges and in some cases horrific situations, he, in fact, did not photograph war, he photographed love. Although I photograph several genres, the common thread running through all of them is people and connection, and so his comment really hit home.

One of the biggest takeaways of the day was about being mindful of the future: as business owners is there a way to grow our brands without creating more products? A challenge, but certainly an important one to tackle.

Idealist Panel: Eva Karlsson, Olya Kuryshchuk, Tiffany Darke, Fran Gray Wilkinshaw, Rebecca Wright, Dominique Souris, Annabel Thomas
Realist Panel: Marcello Botolli, Roger Wade, Emma Turner, Anna Woolhouse, Kresse Wesling, Fran Millar, Charles Williams