Photographing the Braun Design Collection in Berlin – Stills & 360 Virtual Tour

Braun has an extraordinary history in industrial design, particularly in audio equipment. Its radios, turntables, amplifiers and speakers are as interesting visually as they are as pieces of technology.

I travelled to Berlin to photograph the Braun-Sammlung Ettel, a specialist collection of Braun products, using a combination of still photography, environmental portraits and a high-resolution 360 virtual tour.

As a commercial photographer with a background in advertising art direction, I've always been interested in how products are designed, how they look and how they're presented. The Braun collection was a particularly interesting place to explore that relationship.

Display of historic Braun radios, cameras, clocks and household products at the Braun-Sammlung Ettel design collection in Berlin.

A selection of Braun products from different decades, photographed at the Braun-Sammlung Ettel in Berlin.

Inside the Braun-Sammlung Ettel

The Braun-Sammlung Ettel was established by Werner Ettel, a former art teacher with a long-standing interest in Braun's approach to product design.

It brings together decades of Braun products, including audio equipment, televisions, cameras, clocks and domestic appliances.

What makes the collection particularly interesting is the way everything is displayed. Rather than presenting a handful of objects in a minimal exhibition, the rooms are packed with products from different periods, often arranged alongside related designs.

It's possible to see how Braun's products developed over time, from the overall forms and proportions to smaller details such as controls, materials and typography.

For a photographer, it's a fascinating environment, with something interesting in almost every direction.

Environmental portrait of Werner Ettel standing in front of shelves filled with design books at the Braun-Sammlung Ettel.

Werner Ettel, founder of the Braun design collection, photographed among the books and reference material.

Photographing Braun's Audio Equipment

The audio equipment was one of the main reasons I wanted to photograph the collection.

Braun's historic radios, receivers, turntables and speakers have a distinctive visual language. The designs often appear simple at first glance, but the proportions, materials and arrangement of the controls have clearly been carefully considered.

Photographing these products in the collection was very different from photographing individual items in a controlled studio environment.

The equipment was surrounded by other objects, with shelves, displays and reflections all influencing the compositions. I wanted to concentrate on the individual products and their design details without losing the character of the space.

Vintage Braun hi-fi equipment, including a silver radio receiver and turntable, displayed together in the Braun design collection.

Historic Braun audio equipment photographed within the design collection, with attention to the products' forms, materials and details.

Looking more closely at the equipment, it's the smaller details that become particularly interesting: the typography, tuning scales, buttons and controls, and how the different components work together visually.

These details are an important part of product photography. Whether photographing a historic piece of audio equipment or a contemporary product for a manufacturer, understanding what makes the design distinctive helps determine how best to photograph it.

Close-up of vintage Braun audio equipment showing tuning scales, control knobs and coloured buttons.

A closer look at the typography, tuning scales and controls of Braun's historic audio equipment.

Vintage wall-mounted Braun audio system with a central radio unit and two black speakers.

A wall-mounted Braun audio system, showing the simple forms and arrangement of its components.

The People Behind the Collection

Alongside the products, I photographed Werner Ettel and Simon Krohn during my visit.

I enjoy environmental portrait photography because it gives the viewer more information about a person than a conventional headshot. The surroundings become part of the photograph, helping explain someone's interests, work or connection to a particular place.

In this case, photographing people among the historic Braun equipment and design books helped connect the objects with the individuals involved in the collection.

Werner Ettel and Simon Krohn photographed together beside historic Braun reel-to-reel audio equipment in the design collection.

Werner Ettel and Simon Krohn alongside part of the collection's historic audio equipment.

Exploring the Braun Design Collection in 360

Alongside the still photographs, I created an interactive 360 virtual tour of the collection.

The still images allow me to concentrate on individual products, design details and portraits. The 360 photography serves a different purpose, allowing viewers to explore the rooms and understand how the collection fits together.

This is particularly valuable in a space like the Braun-Sammlung Ettel, where the sheer number and variety of objects are such an important part of the experience.

Visitors can move between viewpoints, look around the rooms and explore the displays in their own time.

Combining Still Photography and 360 for Design Collections

Photographing the Braun collection was a good example of how conventional photography and 360 can complement one another.

Stills are ideal for drawing attention to particular products, materials and design details, as well as the people associated with a collection. A connected 360 tour provides a wider view, showing the arrangement of the objects and how the space works as a whole.

Together, the two formats create a more complete photographic record.

For museums, galleries, manufacturers and organisations with important collections, this approach can be useful for documentation, websites, exhibitions and marketing.

Historic Braun turntables, radio receivers and amplifiers displayed in front of shelves of design books.

Vintage Braun turntables, receivers and other audio equipment photographed as part of a wider industrial design collection in Berlin.

Commercial Photography for Products, Design and Specialist Spaces

The Braun collection brought together several areas of photography that I particularly enjoy: products, industrial design, environmental portraits and interiors.

My work as a London-based commercial photographer takes me across the UK and internationally, photographing for brands, agencies and businesses.

I'm particularly interested in working with manufacturers, audio brands and design-led companies that need photography of their products, people or spaces.

You can explore more of my commercial photography, product photography and 360 virtual tour photography.

If you have a product range, collection or specialist space you'd like photographed, get in touch to discuss the project.

Automotive PR Photography – Creating Press & Marketing Images for Car Brands

Automotive photography for PR and marketing needs to do more than produce one strong picture of a car.

Manufacturers, PR teams and agencies often need a varied library of images that can work across press releases, websites, social media, advertising and wider campaign use. That can mean hero shots of the vehicle, details and interiors, moving images, people, event coverage and photographs that place the car convincingly within a particular location.

I’ve photographed automotive projects for brands including Ford, Rolls-Royce, Lexus, Toyota and Turo, working across everything from test tracks and automotive events to city locations and remote landscapes.

A large part of the job is understanding what the photographs need to do afterwards — and creating enough variety during the shoot to give the client useful options.

Lexus UX photographed on a mountain road in Glencoe, Scotland.

A speculative location shoot with the Lexus UX in Glencoe, exploring how landscape and location can shape the character of automotive photography.

Finding the right location for the car

Location can completely change the way a vehicle is perceived.

Sometimes the client already has a location or event in place. On other projects I can collect the vehicle and work independently, taking it to a location that suits the car and the brief.

That might mean finding strong contemporary architecture in London, an open road or dramatic landscape elsewhere in the UK, or working within a test track or automotive facility.

I enjoy that part of the process. My background in advertising art direction means I tend to think about the relationship between the vehicle, location, composition and eventual use of the photograph rather than treating the surroundings simply as a backdrop.

The aim isn't just to find somewhere spectacular. The location has to make sense for the vehicle and for the story the client wants the photographs to tell.

Land Rover Defender 90 photographed on New Bond Street in central London.

Bespoke Defender 90 photographed on location in central London for marketing, website and social media use.

Creating automotive photography for PR

PR photography often has slightly different requirements from a single advertising image.

For Ford UK, I photographed the Ranger Raptor at Abingdon Airfield, creating a mixture of static and action photography for PR, website and social media use.

Ford Ranger Raptor photographed at Abingdon Airfield for Ford UK.

Ford Ranger Raptor at Abingdon Airfield, part of a set created for Ford UK for PR, website and social media use.

Ford Ranger Raptor driving at Abingdon Airfield during a Ford UK photography shoot.

Action photography from the Ford Ranger Raptor shoot, adding movement and variety to the wider set of PR and marketing images.

Working with a vehicle like the Raptor meant showing both the design of the car and some of its character. Alongside cleaner static photographs, the shoot included moving images that gave the finished set considerably more energy and gave Ford different options for different channels.

I've also photographed the Ford Focus RS at Dunton Test Track. Working in a genuine automotive environment created another kind of opportunity: the vehicle itself, driving photography and photographs involving the driver could all form part of the same set.

Ford Focus RS photographed at Dunton Test Track for Ford UK.

Ford Focus RS at Dunton Test Track, photographed for Ford UK for PR, website and social media use.

Ford Focus RS with driver photographed at Ford's Dunton Test Track.

Including the driver alongside the Ford Focus RS created an additional set of people-focused images for PR and brand communications.

For a PR or communications team, that variety can be more useful than returning with twenty versions of essentially the same hero photograph.

From PR photography to advertising campaigns

Not every automotive brief is primarily about press coverage.

My work for Turo included photography for a wider advertising and marketing campaign, with vehicles including the Audi TT, Jeep Wrangler and Porsche Cayenne photographed at Tobacco Dock in London.

Audi TT photographed at Tobacco Dock in London for a Turo advertising campaign.

Audi TT photographed for Turo at Tobacco Dock in London as part of an advertising and marketing campaign.

The shoot needed a broader mixture of imagery. As well as the cars themselves, I photographed lifestyle moments and interiors so the finished library could work across advertising, marketing and social media rather than feeling like a conventional vehicle catalogue.

Lifestyle photograph inside an Audi TT during the Turo automotive campaign in London.

Lifestyle and interior photography created as part of the wider Turo campaign, giving the client imagery beyond the exterior vehicle shots.

That distinction is important.

A car can be photographed beautifully but still leave a marketing team without enough variety to build a campaign around it. When I'm shooting, I'm continually looking for the additional frames — details, people, context, interiors and alternative compositions — that make the final set more useful.

Interiors, details and the experience of the vehicle

The exterior hero image is often the obvious photograph, but interiors and details can be just as important for press and marketing.

With an automotive shoot I will normally look beyond the overall vehicle and consider the elements that help describe its design and character.

Range Rover Evoque interior photographed on location on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.

Range Rover Evoque interior photographed on the Isle of Skye, using the surrounding landscape through the windscreen as part of the image.

An interior can be photographed very cleanly, but it can also retain a sense of place. A Range Rover Evoque I photographed on the Isle of Skye is a good example: the interior is the subject, while the landscape visible through the windscreen becomes part of the photograph.

It gives the client something quite different from the exterior images while still belonging naturally to the same story.

Automotive photography for manufacturers and brand communications

Some projects sit somewhere between PR, events and wider brand communications.

I photographed the Rolls-Royce 103EX at Goodwood, producing imagery for PR, website and social media use. The environment and people around the vehicle were part of the story, rather than something that needed to be excluded from every frame.

Rolls-Royce 103EX photographed at Goodwood with guests around the vehicle.

Rolls-Royce 103EX at Goodwood, photographed as part of a set for PR, website and social media use.

Similarly, photographing Lexus vehicles at the Drive & Dine Theatre and Toyota at Bestival meant working around live branded environments and creating photographs that showed the vehicle within the wider activity.

Toyota C-HR GR photographed at Bestival at Lulworth Castle in Dorset.

Toyota C-HR GR photographed within the Bestival environment at Lulworth Castle for website and PR use.

These situations require a slightly different approach from taking a car away for a dedicated location shoot. You have less control over what is happening around you, so it becomes a matter of finding strong compositions quickly while still showing the context of the event and brand.

Giving a vehicle a sense of place

At the other end of the scale, having the freedom to take a vehicle to a carefully chosen location opens up completely different possibilities.

I've photographed cars and 4x4s in locations ranging from New Bond Street and the City of London to Scotland, Yorkshire, Dorset and the Lake District.

One of the photographs in this series shows a Lexus UX in Glencoe. This was a speculative image rather than a commissioned Lexus PR shoot, but it demonstrates the kind of location-led imagery I can create when there is freedom to take a vehicle somewhere specifically for photography.

Likewise, work with Bespoke Defenders has ranged from a Defender 90 photographed around New Bond Street to a Defender 110 at Wast Water in the Lake District.

You can see more from these shoots, including the different London locations and Lake District photography, in my Bespoke Land Rover Defender photography case study.

The environment completely changes the character of the photography.

For a manufacturer or agency planning a launch, press campaign or new image library, deciding where the vehicle should be photographed can be as important as deciding how it should be photographed.

Land Rover Defender 110 photographed beside Wast Water in the Lake District.

Bespoke Defender 110 photographed on location at Wast Water in the Lake District for marketing, website and social media use.

Building a useful automotive image library

The strongest automotive shoots tend to produce a body of work rather than one photograph.

Depending on the brief, I might be looking for hero images, front and rear three-quarter views, details, interiors, moving shots, environmental images, people and more spontaneous lifestyle photographs.

Not every client needs all of those things. The important part is understanding where the photography is going to be used and making sure the shoot produces the right balance.

That could be a tightly defined PR brief, a new vehicle launch, a set of press assets, ongoing marketing content or a broader advertising campaign.

I work directly with automotive brands as well as PR, advertising and marketing agencies, and can work from an established creative brief or help develop the photographic approach and locations where required.

Based in London, I work throughout the UK and internationally.

See more of my automotive photography →

PR Event Photography in London – Wear A Hat Day for Brain Tumour Research

I was commissioned by marketing and communications agency Carswell Gould to photograph the launch of Brain Tumour Research’s 2026 Wear A Hat Day campaign, held at Lock & Co. Hatters in St James’s, London.

It was a great brief for event photography: a historic London location, a strong campaign identity and a mixture of celebrity supporters, charity ambassadors, media and guests.

My job was to document the event naturally while making sure Carswell Gould and Brain Tumour Research came away with a varied set of photographs that could continue to work across PR, social media and wider campaign communications.

Candid event photography at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day launch at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Candid photography from the launch of Brain Tumour Research’s 2026 Wear A Hat Day campaign at Lock & Co. Hatters in St James’s, London.

Photographing a PR event for an agency

Working for an agency on an event like this means thinking beyond a straightforward record of who attended.

Carswell Gould had brought together the charity, venue, campaign and guests, so the photography needed to show all of those elements. I photographed the campaign branding, celebrity supporters and key moments, but also concentrated on candid conversations, reactions and the atmosphere as the event unfolded.

Those less staged photographs are often some of the most useful afterwards. They give an agency a much broader library of imagery to work with across press coverage, social media, websites and future communications.

Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day campaign branding at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Wear A Hat Day campaign branding inside Lock & Co. Hatters for the 2026 Brain Tumour Research launch.

Guests at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day PR event at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Guests gathering at Lock & Co. Hatters for the Wear A Hat Day launch, photographed for marketing and communications agency Carswell Gould.

Celebrity and candid event photography

The event brought together a mixture of recognisable guests, charity supporters and media, which meant moving between more formal PR photographs and completely unscripted moments.

Among the guests were Alfie Boe OBE, Clare Grogan, Debbie McGee, Vicki Michelle and Danny Clarke.

The more formal photographs are important for PR and press use, but I also look for the interactions happening around them — people trying on hats, conversations between guests and the spontaneous reactions that give a set of event photographs some life.

Debbie McGee and Vicki Michelle at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Debbie McGee and Vicki Michelle photographed at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day launch at Lock & Co. Hatters.

Alfie Boe OBE and Clare Grogan at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Alfie Boe OBE and Clare Grogan during the Wear A Hat Day launch at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Danny Clarke with guests at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Danny Clarke with guests at the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day launch in St James’s, London.

For PR and marketing teams, having both the key names and campaign branding and genuine candid moments makes the finished photography considerably more versatile.

Candid guest photography during the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event in London.

A candid moment during the Wear A Hat Day launch, part of the wider event photography created for Carswell Gould and Brain Tumour Research.

Capturing the venue as part of the story

The location was an important part of this event.

Lock & Co. has been making hats in St James’s since 1676, and the character and history of the shop gave the event a setting that was worth documenting in its own right.

Rather than concentrating only on the main event, I photographed details around the shop and behind the scenes as well.

Lock & Co. Hatters employee amongst traditional hat boxes during the Wear A Hat Day event in London.

A member of the Lock & Co. team amongst the shop’s traditional hat boxes — part of the wider venue and behind-the-scenes photography from the event.

One photograph shows a member of the Lock & Co. team returning a hat to the shelves amongst rows of traditional hat boxes. It’s a simple observational image, but it immediately establishes where the event is taking place and gives the wider set a sense of the character and history of the venue.

Environmental portrait of a Lock & Co. Hatters craftsman in the workshop at St James’s, London.

Environmental portrait of a Lock & Co. craftsman in the workshop during the Wear A Hat Day event.

I also made an environmental portrait of one of Lock & Co.’s craftsmen in the workshop, surrounded by the wooden hat blocks, tools and materials he works with.

That photograph wasn’t part of a separate commission from Lock & Co.; I saw the opportunity while covering the event and made the portrait as part of the wider story.

Lock & Co. subsequently used the photograph on its own social media.

For me, that’s an important part of photographing commercial events: looking beyond the obvious shot list and recognising opportunities to create useful images while I’m there.

More than a record of the event

A good event gallery shouldn’t consist of dozens of variations of essentially the same photograph.

For this project the final photography covered the people, campaign branding, venue, celebrity supporters, media activity, candid interactions, group photographs, speeches, details and behind-the-scenes craftsmanship.

Speaker addressing guests during the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event in London.

A speaker addressing guests during the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day launch at Lock & Co. Hatters.

Guest trying on a hat during the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event at Lock & Co. Hatters.

Guests trying on hats created plenty of natural moments to photograph alongside the more formal PR and campaign coverage.

Guests with Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day campaign branding at the London event.

Guests photographed with Wear A Hat Day campaign branding during the Brain Tumour Research launch in London.

That breadth matters when the photographs are going to be used by different teams and across different channels. The image required for a press story isn’t necessarily the one that works on Instagram, a campaign page or an agency case study.

My background in advertising art direction probably influences the way I approach this. I’m documenting what’s happening, but I’m also continually thinking about how an image might actually be used afterwards.

Event photography for brands, agencies and organisations

I photograph corporate events, PR events, brand activations, experiential events, conferences and product launches for agencies, brands and businesses in London and across the UK.

For agency commissions in particular, the photography needs to do more than show that an event happened. It needs to give the client a useful body of imagery that can continue working across PR, marketing, social and digital channels after the event itself is over.

Candid photography from the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

A spontaneous moment during the Wear A Hat Day launch, capturing the reactions and atmosphere that sit alongside the more formal PR photography.

Two guests trying on hats and taking photographs during the Wear A Hat Day event at Lock & Co. Hatters in London.

Guests trying on hats and photographing each other at Lock & Co. Hatters — a natural moment that captures the atmosphere of the Brain Tumour Research Wear A Hat Day event.

See more of my Event Photography in London →