Philip Bedford

Philip Bedford is a professional photographer and art & photography teacher. He has run his own freelance photography business for over twelve years and is continually developing a broad portfolio of photographic work, . He also teaches at numerous education organisations, including schools, adult education colleges and organising workshops for other photographers with the Royal Photographic Society. He has experience in curriculum management, marketing, administration, and digital skills co-ordination within the education sector, from his work in education as a Digital Learning Curriculum Co-ordinator, Marketing Officer, and Internal Quality Assessor. He also has a diverse range of business and management skills from running his own photography company.

Professional Photographer- Philip Bedford Photography & Philip Bedford Wedding Photography

January 2010 – Present

Past & Present Corporate Clients include:

Babel PR, BACA, Brighton & Hove City Council, BRYTLYT, Comic Relief, Concordia, Create.Net, CWM Cirencester, Denwell Coaches, Devoy & Smallbone Properties, East Sussex County Council, FinchPartridge, The Fostering Network, Friends Centre, Global Web Index, Halpern, ISC2, Liberty Communications, Lusso London, Microsoft, Momentum Worldwide, Morsecode Management Ltd, Moss, Naked Translations, Opto Financial, PACA, Propellor PR, Samsung Ads, South Downs Society, University of Brighton & YooMoo 

• Running a successful photography business on a freelance basis.
• Building a strong client base of new and returning customers and regularly receiving recommendations from past clients to new ones. 
• Developing marketing and social media strategies to drive leads, engage with existing clients and secure maximum reach
• Producing highly acclaimed professional wedding, portrait, landscape, and corporate digital and printed photographs
• Managing PR activities, which has resulted in regular press coverage in wedding magazines.
• Establishing great working relationships with clients and industry professionals, through a practice of building a trusting business relationship, organising contracts, and working together to produce quality results. 
• Website development and maintenance, search engine optimised to receive inbound enquiries, minimising ad spend.
• Developed keen skills in photo editing through retouching photographs and compiling book proofs and album designs.

Teacher of Art & Photography & Internal Quality Assessor 

Sessional teaching at numerous organisations, both past and present – listed below: 

A selection of accredited and non-accredited courses taught at various colleges:

• Planning courses; writing and updating the scheme of work in line with exam board criteria, writing project briefs, lesson plans, handouts, and exercises. 
• Developing teaching and learning activities with formative and summative assessment strategies that are interesting, engaging and comply with the OFSTED educational inspection framework. 
• Developing online resources using Google Suite & Padlet as part of my own website to drive further business back to me, and, as my work is sessional, I also promote courses through email marketing (Mail Chimp) & social media channels to maintain learner enthusiasm, class retention and encourage re-enrolment.
• Implementing Safeguarding and Prevent Duty policies and encouraging ICT skills, Differentiation, British Values, Problem Solving and Resilience.

Digital Learning Curriculum Co-ordinator - CALAT

October 2020 – December 2021

• Co-ordinating, monitoring and evaluating provision effectiveness with learners, staff and other partners through regular collection and analysis of feedback and contributing to quality improvement.
• Mentoring and coaching a team of curriculum digital champions, programme managers, curriculum co-ordinators and tutors in relation to digital skills development.
• Organising, supporting, and taking responsibility for training and mentoring programmes for CALAT curriculum digital champions and designated tutors.
• Contributing to the development of a broad and balanced CPD offer, including the development of e-learning across the service.
• Organising the digital skills analysis of CALAT digital champions and teaching staff to decide on a programme of CPD and support.
• Working effectively with the business support teams and other CALAT staff
• To contribute to developmental target setting for curriculum staff in relation to digital skills development.
• Managing the Google Suite, including users, organisational units, groups, devices, apps, and admin roles.

Marketing & Support Officer – Friends Centre

July 2013 – April 2018

• Managing Friends Centre’s social media channels to promote news, engage with users and stakeholders, publicise classes and drive enrolments, and communicate Friends Centre’s ethos to the wider community. This involved creating content calendars and implementing strategies for promoting services further with instant and scheduled posts to increase course enrolments and customer interaction.
• Creating and implementing Friends Centre’s branding policy and consulting with team members on design features for promotional material. 
• Compiling media lists and drafting and distributing press releases, resulting in coverage in targeted local media outlets and liaising with journalists and external agencies. 
• Managing Friends Centre’s Google AdWords account and updating keywords and campaigns. 
• Designing and creating email-marketing campaigns using Mail Chimp that have 20-30 percent open rates, which are consistently above the industry average open rate of 16.39 percent, then evaluating campaign activity and using insights to adjust strategy to improve results. 
• Website design and content management, with a focus on W3C accessibility, and developing a SEO strategy.
• Dealing with customers in a face-to-face reception role and over the phone – often speaking with people from all walks of life including those with physical and/or mental disabilities, those with low levels of spoken English, literacy, or numeracy skills and/or from LGBTQ or BME backgrounds.