COMMISSIONED BRIEF

A commissioned brief approaches you specifically to do a job because they know you and your work, they saw what you have done on a website. For example an ex tallis student Billy Rowlinson who received a brief from the Guardian to take photographs of the Hackney in the year of the London Olympics 2012. This an example of an informal commissioned brief. This is the email the Guardian sent to him.

"What I’m looking for is the day as experienced by you from morning

till night: getting to the site, queuing up, lots of nice colour and

atmosphere - festival goers fashions etc, portaloos, drinks etc odd

details, up close party action… bands shot from the crowd, basically

a nice variety of pictures that are lively and tell the story of your

day at Hackney.

If you could file the pictures (max 35) to me via something like

wetransfer by 11am on Sunday that would be great. You could also email

the pictures as individual jpgs to pictures@guardian.co.uk

Can you either put the captions into the meta data, or send me a doc

with file names and corresponding captions?”

 - specific in what his photographs should contain but not how he should take them ‘. They didn’t tell him to take only close ups or long shots of certain things. but they told him to take ‘a nice variety of pictures that are lively’ They want him to capture this event through his eyes. "What I’m looking for is the day as experienced by you from morning till night’. They want him to capture the whole day. getting to the site, queuing up, lots of nice colour and atmosphere - festival goers fashions etc, portaloos, drinks etc odd details, up close party action… bands shot from the crowd,’, They tell him specifically what his shots should contain and how some shots should be taken e.g. 'up close party action' and 'band shots from the crowd'. the aesthetics of the photos 'lots of nice colours and atmosphere'. basically a nice variety of pictures that are lively and tell the story of your day at Hackney. They want a 'variety' of 'lively' shots which they've kind of said throughout but they want him to 'tell the story of your day at Hackney' implying that they want to still add his own style to the photos. ‘basically a nice variety of pictures’ suggest that they trust that he going to do the job right. Also he summarised what he supposed to do in quite an informal way suggesting that they’ve fondly worked with him before so they know he going to do the job well.

 It's a more creatively comfortable environment to work in because you are working with your style and you know they already like your style therefore you have more leeway. A disadvantage of having a commissioned brief is that you have to be consistent with your style because that's what the client expects. To be commissioned you need have a professional standing and experienced in the type of work already and they know he has experience because of a previous competition he won.