BAOMS Annual Scientific Conference 2025, London

The first thing to say about this shoot for The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, is the venue Guildhall, is incredible. It is one of those buildings that when you stumble up on it whilst walking the backstreets around Bank, you feel quite unprepared to see this beautifully ornate building with its wide open courtyard, just appear in front of you.

The conference took place over three very warm and sunny days in June 2025. I was there to take photos of every speaker during the event (which takes quite a bit of logistical planning!), and to get candid and posed images of participants. And to shoot the two evening events (about 20 hours in total). The brief included same day delivery of images so that they can be posted on social media channels the next day.

I arrived at 8:30am, to make sure that I could get some nice photos of the exterior of the building and people arriving before the conference kicked off. The first group of attendees I met were over from Japan and were an indication of the diversity of the event. There were attendees from all over the world - Australia, Canada, China, Spain to name a few, which was something that I really loved about being a part of it.

The subject matter was also incredibly interesting and it gave me a huge respect for surgeons and their dedication to improving people’s lives. A stand out was the talk by Leo Cheng about Mercy Ships and the work that they do providing free surgery to people in developing countries who are unable to access any sort of treatment.

Shooting conferences are, for me such a great experience as I get to meet people and learn about things that I would not have had the opportunity to do otherwise and as a freelance photographer it is actually quite nice to sometimes work on the same project for a few days in a row!