A weird landscape but the wine's pretty good

If you've been to Lanzaraote you'll know that these lines of plants dug into the strange black earth and surrounded by little stone walls are vines. I'd never been to the volcanic Canary islands before so the landscape seemed really strange. Probably a good thing as I was seeing the landscape with fresh eyes.

I was there for four days last week for Duo, the women's boot and shoe maker to shoot the 2010 spring/summer collection. This was my fifth shoot for Duo and and we were hopeful that this would be the first time that the weather would be on our side. Lanzarote , about 80 miles off the Moroccan coast, is known for it's great climate. Well, it wasn't a wash out but the elements did have some fun with us.

Over the four shoot days we had rain on day one, a lot of cloud on day two, one sunny, hot third day and a final day that was so windy it gave the model a headache and saw me shouting at a reflector that was impossible to hold flat in the wind.

I can't show you any of the pics yet because the show designs are under wraps until next year but here's some from behind the scenes.


Linda our model being made up by Charley as well as a lot of attention being paid to her shoes, of course.


Sandy, our sorter, fixer and general go-to guy doing his mafioso pose.


The one day when it was hot.


Never underestimate the power that a small, cuddly creature has to play havoc on a shoot.


Linda taking shelter from the wind…


…While the rest of use weathered it out in the howling gale waiting for the light.


First light over the vineyards. Not like any vineyard I've seen before but the wine is good. • Continued...

Early snow fall

Getting covered in snow was one of the highlights of a recent shoot I did with Olympic snow boarder Zoe Gillings. the shoot was for Sportsister at SnoZone in Milton Keynes and it was flipping freezing.

There's a rather nifty video shot by James Yeomans which recorded the shoot here.





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Stocking up the midnight snacks

Following the shoot I recently completed for the Drinks Aware campaign, one of the models Jane Cheng asked if we could work together to build up her portfolio. No sooner said than done…

I asked Photolibrary.com what they thought Jane would be suitable for and we came up with the idea of setting up a kitchen-based shoot with Jane making tea, chopping vegetables and cooking with a wok. They also wanted a couple of images that demonstrated sleeplessness by getting Jane to sit with a glass of milk. It's not easy to recreate midnight in the middle of the day in a bright, modern apartment but I think we managed to do enough to fool the eye.

The images will appear in the Fresh Food Images section of Photolibrary.com in the next few weeks.



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How dramatic can you go?

For the second month in a row I've bagged the cover image of BBC Countryfile magazine. Don't mean to brag but the day you don't get excited about something like that is the day to hang up the camera. When my dad picked up his copy of the mag from the local newsagents he was very keen to tell them that his son took the cover shot - that's dads for you.

The September issue of the magazine needed an image that illustrated the main food heroes article. We did the shoot at the Riverford Farm in Devon and the results caused some discussions.

We had three food producers lined up for the shoot – Nick Howell a pilchard merchant from Cornwall (www.pilchardworks.co.uk), Jonathan Honeyman a butcher from Aberfoyle (www.aberfoylebutcher.co.uk) and Guy Watson from RiverfordFarm (www.riverford.co.uk). It was a simple shot with a few added props to create the scene. The guys were great, we had a great locations and were well organised. We soon got the shot in the bag.

While we still had some time, and while a very interesting sky was forming over our heads, I decided to play with the lighting and try something a bit different. The results were certainly dramatic and not the style of image you would normally expect to see on the cover of Countryfile magazine.

There was some debate in the Countryfile offices about whether this was a suitable image for the cover and in the end the original image (which I'm really chuffed with) found its way to top spot while one of the dramatic images was used on the contents page.

Thanks to Tim Bates and Caroline Rose on Countryfile magazine, to Tor for taking the background pics and the three guys for making it such a successful shoot. And a final thanks to Jonathan for supplying us all with the best meat we've ever tasted after the shoot was done.


















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Twenty-20 vision

With cricket very much in the news following England's Ashes victory, it was fitting that I should get the call to take some portraits for the Twenty-20 finals programme. I was to photograph two of the four teams that had made it to finals day - Somerset and Northamptonshire. I did the same job last year and lit the cricketers in a dramatic way and the brief for 2009 was to do the same thing.

The first session was at Taunton to photograph the Somerset players Marcus Trescothick, Justin Langer and Peter Trego, who I have photographed before for Spin magazine. Trescothick is one of the finest batsmen in the country but a depression prevents him from playing for England. His autobiography Coming Back to Me has been hailed as one of the best sporting books ever written. So along with Langer (one of the best and most dogged of Australia's opening batsmen) and Trego (the only 'star' to ring me up after a shoot to tell me how much he liked the pictures) we had a great trio.



A couple of days later I was in Northampton to meet Nicky Boje, Andrew Hall and David Willey. I'm afraid I don't have stories about these guys, although David Willey was very keen to see the images after the shoot and said, "Thank you very much indeed. Some great pics!" I hope you agree.

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Becoming Drink Aware

Just completed a very exciting shoot for the charity Drink Aware, which was organised by digital agency Enable Interactive. The images will be used online and will be part of a huge new campaign aimed at promoting sensible drinking for people aged 18-24. This will probably result in my images being seen by the biggest audience yet.


I can't tell you anymore about the shoot or show you any images until the campaign goes live in September. We did shoot a video so I'll also be able to show you some behind-the scenes footage then. • Continued...

Turning it up to 11!

Not often do I get a job when the client says that they want the shots to be as dramatic as I can make them. This happened recently in Cardiff when I was doing a job for Beetroot Publishing who put together the Enterprising magazine for The Prince's Trust.

The job was to photograph a group of workers from Admiral insurance who had turned a £3,000 grant into £17,000 for the charity. It was a wet Friday afternoon in Cardiff and with limited time and the logistical problems of asking six people to tramp round the city looking for a good location, I needed to find a good spot nearby. Fortunately the car park under the company offices was suitably grotty, particularly on a damp day.

To create the most impact I turned the lights up to 11 in true Spinal Tap style. This created a spotlight effect and I got the impact I was after. The people at Admiral were great and totally got the idea by pouting beautifully at the camera.

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