Sean Malyon Photography

So has the cold

2012-02-02T19:01:00.000Z

I'm overnight in Kilmarnock on day seven of my annual, epic Celebrate Success shoot for The Prince's Trust. Been shooting all over Glasgow today - the light has been amazing. So has the cold

The green, green grass of Banwell

2012-01-30T17:01:00.000Z

Just back from a Gardens Illustrated shoot at the delightful and quirky Banwell Bowling Club. Thanks to all at the club for making us so welcome, particularly John Amos, whose voice is uncannily like Timothy Spalls. The images will appear in the March issue of the magazine.

The green right in the middle of Banwell

Amy Grenham, stylist, John Amos and me in my favourite old-git hat.

The president of the bowling club's dog.

From The Roost and Ruby House

2012-01-19T14:32:00.001Z

I can now show off some of the Duo images from our November shoot which started in London and finished in Marrakech. These first images were shot in London at The Roost, Hackney, and Ruby House in Stoke Newington.

The model is Kristina Antanaityte of Colours in Glasgow.

Cindy's Lighter Life

2012-01-17T17:06:00.000Z

A short video from a shoot I recently did for Lighter Life magazine is on YouTube. The shoot was done in Bristol just off Park Street, Brandon Hill and in Goldbrick House cafe and bar.

Cleaning up the act

2012-01-17T16:51:00.001Z

The start of a new year and I'm going to clean up my act on the blogging front. What has inspired me is that I've just landed a job from someone who told me they'd been following my blog for a while.

So here goes…

Top ten jobs of 2011

2011-12-22T11:30:00.002Z

Looking back isn't something I'm particularly keen to do but at the start of a new year I can allow myself a little look back at the previous 12 months.

My image stats for the year were 41,356 images on a Nikon D3S camera, 3,012 on a Nikon D3X and 2,120 on a Nikon D700. In among the 46,488 presses of the shutter, these are the ten jobs that stood out…

10
Downend School, sport stars, January

This was in my top 10 last year and probably will be for as long as I do this job. Talented kids, who like to look moody. Read more about the job here.

9
Sea Cadets, August

A fairly simple job - two portrait shots for the Sea Cadets annual report. The first was in Caterham, Surrey, the second in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. What made this one stand out was how much fun both my subjects were to photograph. So a big thanks to Jo Piper and Zoe Jones.

8
Adam Henson, July

At some point in the year I seem to end up photographing the BBC Countryfile presenter Adam Henson. Adam is always full of energy and enthusiasm, making my job a lot easier. This shoot was to celebrate harvest time. The light was gorgeous and I got to ride in a combine harvester - can't ask for more than that. Read more about it here.

7
Nick Brackley, Lighter Life, August

I've done a few shoots for Lighter Life magazine this year but the one of Nick Brackley was the highlight because it made the cover.

6
Charlotte Ridley, January

Charlotte is the marketing manager at The Prince's Trust and in the early part of the year she was suffering with Hodgkin's lymphoma. She asked me if I could take some pictures of her to make a record of her illness. I was hugely humbled to be asked and a little concerned about doing a good job - I hope I did.

5
Duo Boots, Marrakech, November

This was Duo's spring/summer 2012 shoot completed in a beautiful riad in this crazy city. The model Kristina was excellent and it's always good to get some winter sun on your back. Can't show you any pics until next spring.

4
Atrium, Cardiff, September
This was a promotional shoot for Atrium, the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries. It was planned by Gareth Chubb of CR and he always makes shoots fun, energetic and creative. So this shoot scores highly as much for the images we created and for the pleasure of working with Gareth. Read more here.

3
The Prince's Trust, Celebrate Success portraits, February
The fifth time I have done this job and it's become something of a annual tour of the UK. Everyone on this shoot was brilliant but for me the standout shoot had to be Carolann Carlile who runs the Cup Cake bakery in Dungiven, Northern Ireland. After the shoot she packed me off with enough cakes and pastries to sink a battleship. Read more about the job here.

2
Npower, football fans, May
Another whirlwind shoot that took me to Cardiff, Swansea, Huddersfield, Peterborough and Shrewsbury photographing football fans for Npower. I'm not a football fan but the fans I met on this job showed incredible passion for their teams. Read more here.

1
Duo Boots, Norway, March
Without doubt the most amazing landscape I've ever shot in. On the day we landed we had a heavy snowfall - perfect for an autumn/winter shoot. Every day we had to ride a ferry to the shoot location though the most breathtaking fjord surrounded by immense snow-covered mountains. For once the word stunning is no exaggeration. See the landscape here.

And those jobs that almost made the top ten…

St John's Hospital, Bath.

I starters this job in 2011 and it's on-going so I'm saving this for 2012's top-ten. It's a series of portraits of the elderly residents of St John's and I'm very excited about it.

Lidl, rugby shoot
To promote the England, Welsh and Scottish rugby kits being sold in the store during the Rugby world Cup. Really nice people to work with. Read more here.

Rachael Collins, vet, February

Rachael is a research vet in Exeter for DEFRA and the job was to get some images of her conducting a post-mortem. Despite having to shoot through a door, I was pleased with the final shots. Read more here.

Off to art school

2011-11-18T11:46:00.001Z

The first shot from a job I did for Atrium has just gone live. Atrium is the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries. The series of images we took were to represent the various departments of the school.

The creative force behind the shoot was the ever enthusiastic and brilliant Gareth Chubb of CR in Cardiff. The models came from the school and you'd never know that they were not experienced models. The shoot took place at Tactile Bosch in Cardiff, an amazing building to work in. There are two other shots in the series which will be out next year.

A quick thanks to everyone involved: Gareth and Helen of CR; models Katy Trevathan, Alistair Cooper, Nemo, Rebecca and Michael; hair & makeup by Dav & Lara of Ken Picton Hair salon; and not least Jayne & Emily for the styling.

Marrakech to Norway

2011-11-11T13:04:00.007Z

It's all Duo shots at the moment. Just back from a few days in Marrakech dodging scooters and haggling in the souks, as well as shooting the spring/summer 2012 campaign. I can't show you any of those images for a while but some images from the autumn/winter shoot in Norway have just been released.

These images were taken in Øye, which is about 150 miles north west of Oslo.
They were taken on 29 March, when spring was just reaching the UK but it was still a way off in Norway. It was freezing and there were frequent snow showers, which looked beautiful but make focusing a camera very tricky.

So while the final shot looks great I've also included a shot taken as the snow made things impossible and another of us under cover.

Kitting up for Lidl

2011-09-16T18:28:00.000+01:00

The Rugby World Cup is taking place in New Zealand at the moment and a few weeks ago I did a shoot for Lidl to promote the England, Wales and Scotland rugby kit they are selling in their stores.

We did the shoot at Clifton Rugby Club in Bristol with former pro player Alistair Chay McKenzie and Mustard model's Kim Senior. Both were brilliant models. Ali was particularly impressive hulk of a man and a thoroughly nice bloke to boot.

The style was to make the lighting dramatic and punchy as you can see from how Lidl used the images - right up my street. I've also included some additional images that didn't make the final cut.

Norwegian wood

2011-09-13T18:40:00.005+01:00

The first image from the shoot I did for Duo boots in Norway back in April has just gone live.

It was taken in a wooden boat shed beside a fjord in Øye, a very remote village in the western part of the country. These sheds were everywhere but this one was the most photographic we found. We had done some shots outside the shed but then we peered in and found this Aladdin's cave of old boats and fishing nets. Norway is the most incredible country I've worked in so I've also included a couple of pics of the environment around the boat shed.

Adam in a field of barley

2011-08-23T12:52:00.000+01:00

Feet and earth are hardly making contact at the moment so only a couple of minutes to flag up a quick cover shot I recently did for Countryfile magazine.

It's of the always energetic and enthusiastic Adam Henson standing in a field of barley. The day after this shot it was harvested and by now will be turning itself into a lovely hoppy ale. Also, on the shoot I got to ride in a combine harvester - tick that one off the list.

The magazine is the September 2011 issue and will be in your newsagents any day now.

First Duo pic from Eltham

2011-07-27T15:45:00.000+01:00

First picture from the autumn/winter shoot I did for Duo Boots. This one was taken at Eltham Palace in south east London.

Bristol Le Monde style

2011-07-06T12:50:00.003+01:00

Just received a copy of last week's Le Monde Magazine containing some pictures I took for a feature on Bristol. The article was written by comedian Mark Watson describing the five best things about living in the city. He chose Aardman Animations, St Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol Balloon Fiesta, The Clifton Suspension Bridge and Clifton Downs.

I took the images back in May when the weather was amazing. The trickiest shoot was at Aardman Animations because they were not filming at the time but fortunately there was a Wallace & Gromit set in reception which did the job nicely. Also, the Balloon Fiesta isn't until August but I managed to dig a picture out of the archive.

A big thanks to all-round top chap Chris who got up early on a Sunday morning so I could get some shots of a runner and his dog on Clifton Downs. Unfortunately the picture desk at Le Monde didn't use one of these shots but at least I get the chance to show off a couple here.

In the shadow of a castle

2011-06-15T07:51:00.017+01:00

Last week I completed the autumn/winter shoot for Amari Designs at Thornbury Castle. As you can see from these behind-the-scenes pics, we had a lot of sunshine so it was a case of heading towards the shadow.

I've never been to Thornbury Castle before and it was fantastic for a shoot, Lots of grand rooms and a beautiful exterior as well as lovely gardens and some ruins. The main problem was trying to avoid all the flowers that were in full bloom - one flower head in an autumn/winter shot would spoil the illusion.

The pictures were taken by my assistant Rachel Richards - great job Rachel.

Thanks to Amelia, Polly and John of Amari, our fab model Sarah Beaufoy and to Charley Brunskill for doing her usual great job with the hair and makeup.

As big as a swimming pool

2011-05-31T09:28:00.008+01:00

I've never had my images printed as a big as a swimming pool before but that's what happened yesterday at Wembley. Two of my images, one of Swansea fans Steve and Will Meredith and another of Reading fan Mark Horseman, were printed at 25 x 16 metres and put up on the side of Wembley stadium for the Npower Championship Playoff Final.

I also had large posters put up on Old Trafford of Torquay fan Nigel Jeffrey, Peterborough supporter Terry Russell and Huddersfield fan Sam Preest.

The images were taken at the playoff semi-final matches the week before. On a week-long shoot I packed up my mobile studio and set it up before the games at Swansea, Cardiff, Huddersfield, Peterborough and Shrewsbury football clubs. I shot all the images on a 25-megapixel Nikon D3x camera, with the images then being sent overnight to WPA Pinfold in Leeds who completed all the artwork. The images were then printed on giant canvas posters in Austria.

Beware: this post contains dead animals

2011-04-14T14:09:00.005+01:00

Apologies to those who don't like dead animals, guts and blood but I can now show you some pics from a fascinating shoot I did for DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) a few weeks ago.

The shoot was to for a 'day in the life' article on Rachael Ward who is an investigative vet at a research lab near Exeter. Her job is to conduct post mortems to find out why animals die, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when the first thing I encountered was a dead calf on the floor. As well as the calf, I asked if I could photograph some blood and guts and a large cow's heart was placed on the examination table. I'm not squeamish and I found the whole experience absorbing.

The magazine the pictures appeared in is called Landscape and is published for DEFRA by Seven publishing). Here's how the final article looks plus some additional images from the shoot.

A final view of Norway

2011-04-01T21:32:00.009+01:00

Our last day shooting the Duo boots autumn/winter campaign in Norway's fjords. An early start tomorrow to catch a flight back to Heathrow but before then I thought I share some more pics from the incredible landscape we've been working in.

Two things about Norwegians

2011-03-29T21:37:00.007+01:00

Day one of the Duo shoot in Norway. We are based in the west of the country in a small village called Oye and in between the sun and blizzards I've learnt a couple of things.

First is that Norway has two languages, both called Norwegian, and they are both written languages. The spoken language is a dialect and there are many of these throughout the land.

The second thing is that Norwegian drivers have no fear of icy roads. We were doing 60mph along a road I would barely have touched 20.

Anyway, here are a few pics of the amazing landscape we are working in.

Behind the scenes on the Duo shoot

2011-03-26T20:04:00.007Z

A little flavour of this week's Duo shoot. Shots were taken on an Olympus Pen E-PL2, and because it's my new toy, the art filters had some over use. Locations: Steam Museum, Swindon; Avon Valley Railway, Bitton; and Eltham Palace, London. Next week the shoot moves to Norway.

It's not noir but it's moody

2011-03-17T15:52:00.008Z

Just back to the office after a shoot with comic writer Rob Williams. Rob often gets requests from magazines and websites around the world who want pictures of him to accompany articles about his work. Up to now he's made do with casual snaps but he now wanted something a little more stylish.

Rob is a regular writer on Ghost Rider and Daken: Dark Wolverine for Marvel comics, and wanted some images that reflected the look of his stories - film noir. To create the noir look you need dark ambient conditions but today we've had a brilliant spring day - nothing like giving yourself a challenge. Rob also wanted an industrial look to the images, which turned out to be easier to achieve than we first thought.

Not too far from Rob's home is the town of Portishead and looking out to the Bristol Channel is a quirky little lighthouse with a steel walkway and industrial feel that ticked all the boxes. With some careful exposing of the camera and heavy use of the black slider and vignette in Adobe Lightroom, I think we have managed to create something quite moody, although it's not really noir.

We say 'pah!' to bright sunshine.

One man's meat

2011-03-12T14:06:00.008Z

You may have seen that I shoot stock images for Photolibrary. They are always after new images from me and a perfect tie-in with a local business has helped stock up the library with images and our fridge with sausages.

This is Vincent Castellano, proprietor of Castellanos Delicatessen in Bristol, all-round top chap, master charcuterer, traiteur, maker of award-winning pate and producer of the finest sausages this side of anywhere you care to mention. Vincent is never one to shy away from a camera (he has recently been on the TV on Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers and The Secret Supper Club) so he's the perfect model to illustrate a local trader and how vital it is to support them.

I must also give a mention to Bob Atkins who took the b&w images and taught me just about everything I know about photography.

Berlin By Light

2011-03-08T08:56:00.004Z

While in Berlin last November for Duo I became slightly obsessed with getting a good shot of the view out of the window of Soho House. I've now taken one of the images and had a play with it in Adobe Lightroom.

I used various settings to show the enormous range of ways that you can alter an image with Lightroom. I outputted the image 27 times and have put it in a short video.

Singing for supper

2011-02-28T16:46:00.004Z

A few weeks ago I took some portrait shots of the soprano singer Pippa Goss. She needed some fresh new images for her redesigned website, and this has now gone live. Click here to see her site.

Tale of two covers

2011-02-21T14:17:00.007Z

Matt Baker is on the cover of the latest issue of BBC Countryfile magazine and it was me behind the camera. However, it wasn't the image we intended would be used for the cover.

On 10 January the editor of the magazine Fergus Collins, art editor Tim Bates and myself schlepped from Bristol to a farm in Cheshire to grab some pics of Matt Baker while he was on a shoot for the TV show. The idea was to get pics of Matt with a sheep dog to go with the 'working dogs in the countryside' theme of the March issue. Unfortunately, the weather was against us and everything looked dull, drab and soggy. A long way from the weather conditions you want for a cover shoot.

So instead the shot on the cover was taken nearly two years earlier at The Devil's Dyke in Sussex, when the weather was more in our favour. This is the ninth time I have shot the cover for Countryfile.

The second cover also comes from the archives. This was for The Prince's Trust's Enterprising magazine and features Candace Mohamed from Leeds, who I photographed a year earlier at Leeds City College. With help from the Trust she has gone from being a convicted drugs dealer to being a trainee chef on Cunard's luxurious Queen Victoria liner (read her story here). Meeting people like Candace and hearing how they have turned their lives around is why I love working for the Prince's Trust.

Berlin swathed in red

2011-02-16T13:47:00.006Z

Several images from the Duo shoot I did in Berlin back in November have now gone live. The interior shots were taken in Soho House, while the outside image was taken in the Tiergarten, Berlin's oldest park, which looked amazing in its autumn colours. The rich image swathed in red velvet was taken in the cinema in Soho House.

Busiest three weeks of my life

2011-02-15T11:26:00.005Z

2,496 miles on the road, two hire cars, four flights, four Travelodges, two Premier Inns, one Thistle Hotel, two private hotels, 12 Costa flat whites, one pint of Guinness and one car park pillar reversed into. Those are the stats that make up the last three weeks while shooting for The Prince's Trust. Ridiculously busy but I loved it.

The job was to take portrait images of the 22 people all over the UK who have been nominated for the Celebrate Success Awards held in the Odeon Leicester Square and attended by Prince Charles. It's the fifth year I have done this shoot, but this time was the most intense with the shoots packed into three weeks rather than the usual four.

I'll post up some of the images after the awards on 23 March but I have to keep them under wraps until then. A huge thanks to all the people who allowed me to photograph them. Most of them have been through a lot and it takes a good deal of courage to pose in such a confident way to a stranger with a camera.

Also a big thank you to Laura Coyle and Jade Murphy of The Prince's Trust for organising my life over the last few weeks.

These are the locations of the shoots and order in which I covered them:
Margate, Kent
Roehampton, London
Norwich
Lincoln
Everthorpe, Humberside
Huddersfield, Yorkshire
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Llanelli, Wales
Blaina, Wales
Inverclyde, Greenock
Brechin, Angus
Edinburgh
Omagh, Northern Ireland (two shoots here)
Coventry, Warwickshire
Walsall, West Midlands
Sportcity, Manchester
Bedlington, Northumberland
Blackpool, Lancashire (two shoots here)
Nottingham
St Helens, Merseyside

No faces and lots of keys

2011-01-26T19:59:00.007Z

Day three of my three week shoot for The Prince's Trust's Celebrate Success Awards and today was my first visit to a prison. I was at HMP Everthorpe near Hull to photograph inmates who have made a garden that will be at the RHS Garden Show at Tatton Park. The only problem was I couldn't show the faces of any of the inmates.

I expected a lot of security getting into the prison but never expected to have to pass through so many doors that all had to be unlocked and then locked as we passed through them. Also, everything my bag had to be itemised and if you've ever seen a photographer's bag you'll know that it's full of more stuff you can shake a stick at. So I had to quickly empty the bag in the boot of the car to whittle down the gear so I wouldn't be there all day writing a list.

The garden was amazing and the work and skill that has gone into making it is very impressive. With the limitations imposed on me and because the garden is fallow in January, I mainly took close up crops of hands and feet using various garden tools. But I think it went well.

THE STATS SO FAR:
760 miles covered
2 fill ups
2 Travelodge breakfast bags - hmm!
4 salad pots bought at M&S
1 tongue burnt on tomato soup
696 images taken

It's cool to be good at something

2011-01-14T08:16:00.006Z

Persuading teenagers to respond to the camera is a challenge that photographers are familiar with. They can be very self conscious and it's difficult to gain their trust. This made the job I did this week at Downend School particularly tricky.

This school has many students who are brilliant at sports but because of teenage angst and peer pressure, they often prefer to blend into the background rather than to stand out and be noticed. The shoot is aimed at challenging this rather British character trait by showing that it is cool to be good at something.

The school uses the images by putting up posters around the walls, school prospectus and on their website.

We did have a couple of drop outs at the last minute but a huge thanks to the 14 students who were brave enough to put their heads above the precipice and be shot. We had six sports covered: football, cricket, squash, equestrian, motorcross and athletics.

Click on the images to enlarge.

I'm now overground

2011-01-09T19:22:00.005Z

Andy Smith, brilliant snapper and all round good guy, has just sent me these pics taken in London today…

I've gone underground

2011-01-06T10:51:00.010Z

I can now post up the finished images for the ESPN FA Cup job I did in December, plus a quick snap of my handiwork taken this morning in Chalk Farm tube station.

The job came through BDA (www.bdacreative.com) after they saw a picture I took of a farmer, butcher and fisherman for BBC Countryfile magazine. They wanted a similar style for an image of a football fan who turns his white van into an open-top bus for the winning team.

The second image is of another obsessed fan who sculpts the FA Cup out of mashed potato on his dinner plate as his wife looks on suspiciously. The third shot hasn't been released yet but will be soon.

We did all three shots in Camberwell, the first on a sports field and the second two in a private house. The image of the mashed potato was taken in a dark basement kitchen while it was pitch black outside. Had to do some creative lighting to create daylight. Because the images were going on a billboard, I hired a Nikon D3x for the job (thanks to the guys at the Bristol branch of Calumet for going the extra mile). also a big thanks to Richard and Paula at Allset for doing a great job with the sets, particularly the mashed potato FA Cup.

You can also see some videos that were shot after the stills were done here.

If anyone sees any of the posters about the UK, I'd really appreciate a quick snap. Email it to me so I can post it up. I'll give you a credit.

Look out for the posters in this Saturday's (8 January) Sun, Mirror, Star, Times and Telegraph and in the Sunday editions of the Sun, Mirror, Star and possibly a few others.

Top 10 jobs of 2010

2011-01-02T19:27:00.006Z

From the Scottish highlands to the beaches of Mallorca, from a tower block in Sunderland to a swanky hotel in Berlin, 2010 has been a rich year from me. So at the start of a new decade it's a good time to run you through my favourite jobs of 2010…

10.
Ian McLauchlan, Loch Lomond, February for The Radio Times
This was my third promotional shoot for Chevrolet cars and this one featured Scottish rugby star of the 1970s Ian McLauchlan. You don't often get the chance to shoot in such amazing scenery.

9.
BBC Gardens Illustrated magazine, various locations, throughout the year
I've been shooting on a more-or-less monthly basis for this beautiful gardens magazine for five years. Most of my other work involves people so this makes quite a contrast. We spent a lot of time getting each shot just right and along with the stylist Niki Goss, we've got it down to a fine art. We also get to shoot at some amazing garden locations.

8.
Sporting students at Downend School, May
I've been shooting for this school for a couple of years. I'm always given free reign to be creative, the shoots are challenging and a lot of fun. This shoot was to promote the sporting excellence of certain students at the school, who because of peer pressure, tend to be very quiet and modest about their achievements. This was a chance to put them in the spotlight for a while. I hope my efforts do justice to the talents of these young people.

7.
Advertising shoot for ESPN to promote the FA Cup, December
Can't tell you much about this at the moment because the images haven't gone live yet. A busy one-day shoot but it all went very smoothly.

6.
Adam Henson cover shoot, Cotswolds, for Countryfile
I've photographed TV presenter Adam many times now and it's always a pleasure. He's got bundles of energy and we always have a great laugh. This shoot saw him trying to control two lambs and a concerned sheep. See here.

5.
Lady Soames, National Trust, June
Lady Soames is the daughter of Winston Churchill and this shoot was at the home she grew up in, Chartwell House in Kent. It was quite an amazing experience to follow her around the rooms of the house and to realise that this is the daughter of the most famous of Brits. The day didn't produce my best shots of the year but the experience of meeting this 80-something tour de force was unforgettable.

4.
National Youth Arts Wales campaign images, various locations, June
This was an ambitious series of shoots around Wales involving an orchestra, jazz band, dancers, actors and a choir. A recipe for chaos but it all went so well. A huge thanks for this goes to Gareth Chubb at CR in Cardiff who planned the shoots and was rewarded when the our work won best Creative Campaign Design at the Cardiff Design Festival. See a video from the shoots here.

3.
The Prince's Trust, Celebrate Success, January & February
This was my fourth annual tour of the UK for the Trust and took me from Devon to Belfast, to Glasgow and to London. It's a job that involves a lot of driving but the people I get to photograph are amazing. They have often experienced great trauma, loss or rejection in their lives but the Trust has helped to turn everything around for them. I'm starting this job again later in January - really looking forward to it.

2.
Duo Boots, Berlin, November
My first time in Berlin and we stayed in and mostly shot in Soho House hotel, which has the best selection of chairs and sofas I have seen. Great books in the library too. A very cool place to do a shoot. I can only show you this one shot as the others haven't been released yet so keep an eye on the Duo website.

1.
Seasick Steve, for Guitar World magazine, April
I'm a huge Seasick Steve fan so when an email arrived in the inbox asking if I was available to shoot Steve for this US mag I couldn't believe my luck. Steve was very charming and very happy to pose with his 1952 Chevvy station wagon. He also takes great care over brewing his coffee.

Honorable mentions…
Paddy Renouf, Jack Barclays's Bentley showroom, Berkeley Square, London, June.

The England Netball squad for Sportsister, Guildford, August.

Beth Tweddle for GK Sportswear, Liverpool, March.

John Craven for Countryfile, Northumberland, July.

Duo Boots, Mallorca, November.

Sean 1, Snow 10

2010-12-21T19:19:00.002Z

Finally I got a job done today. Must have had 10 jobs canceled in the last few weeks because of the weather. I had two shoots today for The Prince's Trust annual review, the first in Cardiff and the second back in Bristol. The outskirts of Cardiff were under about a foot of snow but I got the job done. Good to get one up on the snow for a change.

Berlin goes live

2010-12-13T09:19:00.006Z

The first shot from the Duo shoot in Berlin has gone live. This is model Lisa Cooke in Soho House in Berlin.

We wanted the style of the shoots to be more edgy than we have done in previous years. I've mainly used natural light for Duo shoots but this time lights were used to make for a sharper look. Click on the image to enlarge it.

EasyJet on the Roads

2010-11-08T17:25:00.012Z

My first picture has appeared in easyJet's magazine, which I saw on last week's trip to Berlin.

The photograph is of Lisa Roads an entrepreneur who runs a company that manages properties in Cyprus (www.lifestyleassets.co.uk). She is one of six people featured in the article titled 'The New Jet Set' about people whose lives have been changed by easyJet. I photographed Lisa in her office in Dursley, Gloucestershire.

See the article here and here are a few additional images from the shoot.

Berlin stats

2010-11-03T20:12:00.007Z

Berlin from the hotel window during the Duo shoot. Stats: 1,873 shots, 2 beers, 1 train ride, 5 slices of pizza, 1 heavy downpour (it's still raining), 8 pillows on my bed, 4 showers (best shower ever), 1 fire alarm (it wasn't us).

The final stats: 2,757 shots, 2 lens used, 7 pizza slices, 7 beers, 1 amazing chocolate filled croissant, 0 Cowshed products taken from hotel, 3 inspections of my gear at airports.

In the middle of Duo

2010-10-29T18:23:00.013+01:00

I'm in the middle of the Duo spring summer shoot for 2011. Last week were we in Mallorca shooting the high-summer images and next week we're in Berlin for the spring images.

In Mallorca we shot on the beach, in the alleyways of Palma, at cafes, bars and at an amazing market in Sineu. I can't show you any pictures of the shoes yet but here are a few incidental snaps to give you a flavour of this beautiful island…

On the cover again

2010-10-22T17:34:00.004+01:00

The latest issue of BBC Countryfile magazine is out and I've managed to bag the cover shot again. The shot is of John Craven with Dunstanburgh Castle in the background. It's for an article on the nation's favourite ruins.

Dressing up and gooey eyes

2010-10-14T08:27:00.013+01:00

Just done a shoot with personal shopper and all-round style guru Niki Whittle. Niki wanted some new shots for her website so it was a good excuse to do some dressing up - for Niki not for me.

Niki is brilliant at putting clothes together and I'm hoping to use her skills on a few shoots in the future.

I don't often go all gooey eyed on a shoot but I did this time - with Niki's springer spaniel Hendrix. I grew up with a springer called Penny and have always had a fondness for these great dogs. If I wasn't rushing about so much my best friend would be a springer.

Paddling with an orchestra

2010-09-20T13:38:00.011+01:00

Back in the early part of the summer I did a shoot for National Youth Arts Wales. The brief was to take unique and inspiring images to promote the various arts - choir, brass band, orchestra, jazz band, theatre and dance.

We shot a lot of video and I've finally got round to editing it into a short movie. It give an insight into an exciting and fun shoot.

The work was commissioned through CR design and advertising agency in Cardiff.

www.nyaw.co.uk

How to illustrate a garden

2010-08-25T15:18:00.019+01:00

I've been shooting regularly for BBC Gardens Illustrated magazine for getting on to five years now and I don't make enough of a noise about it. If you haven't seen GI it's a lavish picture led magazine - the perfect thing to decorate your coffee table with.

Being a regular photographer on the magazine has been very good for me. A couple of years ago I picked up a tasty job for Waitrose and John Lewis on the back of my work in GI. I also regularly receive emails from photographers (nearly always from the US) commenting on my images. So even though in circulation terms the magazine isn't big, it does get read by all the right people so it's very influential.

Whereas the majority of my photograph is heavily lit and styled portrait work, for Gardens Illustrated I only ever use natural light which is only slightly modified with reflectors. it's all about very careful composition, tight crops and textures - it makes a great change to my usual work.

I've just received the September 2010 copy of the magazine which includes the latest shoot I have done for GI. The shoot took place at Tyntesfield House just outside Bristol and the theme was ways to preserve the summer's bounty for the winter month.

At the top is the main image from the article and I've also included some pictures taken by Natalia Earp who is the sister of Niki Goss the deputy art editor on Gardens Illustrated. Natalia came along on the shoot to get some work experience and thanks to her for taking some behind-the-scenes shots. Niki does all the amazing styling on the shoots which makes such a difference on images like these.

Buzzing about Brighton

2010-08-14T12:58:00.007+01:00

I've been doing quite a bit of work on Peugeot's owner magazine Rapport recently. My first job has just been published and it was to head to the south coast to photograph journalist Liz Scarff buzzing around the streets of Brighton on a Peugeot scooter.

There's no shortage of great locations around Brighton, from the see front, the pier, the Laines and numerous cafes. It's a while since I've been in Brighton and the what surprised me was how many people were just hanging out - does anyone in Brighton work?

I've just completed a two-day shoot for Rapport which will feature a van, the new RCZ sports coupe, a 3008 hatchback, a bicycle and another Peugeot scooter. More on that later. I must give a mention to Specialist Publications who are kind enough to give me the work.

Getting sand blasted

2010-07-12T18:47:00.017+01:00

Here are a couple of behind-the-scenes videos that were taken when I did a shoot for the Summer 2010 issue of Lighter Life magazine back in April.

Lighter Life is a weight loss programme and the two subjects for the day, Philip James and Paula Collis, had lost an enormous amount of weight while following the course. The shoot was to show how fit and active these people now are, so we did the first shoot with Phil on a golf course and the second with Paula performing tai chi.

The brief for Phil was to get him to hit a few bunker shots towards the camera (thankfully, without a ball) and as you will see both myself, assistant Nicki Musgrave, my camera and lights got covered in sand. In the end the magazine didn't use one of the bunker shots but I'm really pleased with how the feature looks. Does anyone know a good shampoo to get sand out of your hair?

I was commissioned to do the shoot by Specialist Publications.

Fish and chips on the way

2010-07-05T19:23:00.006+01:00

The great summer weather we've been enjoying has taken its toll on my blog. When the sun is out I don't want to be spending any more time on a Mac than I need to. But I do need to tell about the hectic and exciting job I did last week.

I was commissioned by The Prince's Trust to take a series of portraits for a book they are publishing about starting your own business. Every year The Trust help fund lots of young people to set up a business and my job was to photograph some of them.

It was a five-day shoot starting on Monday in Swansea, then on to Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Scarborough, Nottingham, Northants, London and finally Southampton on Friday - a total of 1049 miles. I photographed a musician, two enterprise teachers, a shopkeeper, a guy who runs a laser shoot-'em-up game, a roofer, an eco creche, jewelry makers and a guy who set up a community radio.

I always enjoy working for The Prince's Trust and this job had the added benefit of allowing me to call into Whitby on my way from Newcastle to Scarborough to get fish and chips - superb.

The book is out later in the year and I can't show you any pics yet so here are a few snaps taken on my phone in Whitby.

Seasick Steve portrait goes Stateside

2010-06-07T16:45:00.008+01:00

My Seasick Steve portrait is in the latest copy of the American magazine Guitar World. I've just received a copy of the article and it looks great.

The brief from the magazine was to photograph Steve with his array of weird and wonderful guitars but while I was with him I also managed to fire off a few other shots, including some with his 1952 Chevrolet Station Wagon.

Making an oversized photocopier look good

2010-06-04T17:52:00.008+01:00

When the call came from Canon's Think Digital magazine to photograph the owner of a print firm alongside his Canon digital printer I foolishly thought that it would be straightforward.

So off I headed to Park Lane Press in Corsham, near Bath to be confronted with a small office room with what looked like an oversized photocopier. I was hoping for a huge printing press with printed pages flying off it but what I got was a grey box. The output from the Canon digital printers is amazing but pretty it ain't.

I started by photographing the owner Phil Sudwell in the finishing room in among stacks of printed pages but after that it was time to head to the small room with the grey box. My only option to get something interesting was to use lots of light in an attempt to create some interesting shadows and angles. I put a blue filter over a background light, used a softbox on my sibject and used a range of lenses to make the best of the job. There wasn't a lot of room around the printer and the ceiling was low, so it took a lot of effort to get something good but hopefully I did. What do you think?

Keeping up with Peggy

2010-05-14T12:40:00.007+01:00

This is Peggy Moore, one of the most delightfully eccentric people you could wish to meet. I photographed her a few weeks ago for an article in HSBC's Liquid magazine about people over 50 who live very active and exciting lives.

Peggy is an incredibly fit and vital 84-year old who sells designer accessories and furniture from Wells Emporium in Somerset. The brief was to photograph her in her store and to show her vibrant personality. It wasn't difficult, in fact the most difficult thing was keeping up with her. Peggy rides to work on a scooter wearing a 'Viking' helmut and now wants to mast something 'kooky' like a penny farthing. It was a pleasure to meet her.

In Anne Keothavong's firing line

2010-04-20T12:40:00.005+01:00

The Sportsister crew had another great day out with a sports star last week when we visited the LTA HQ in Roehampton to photograph the British number-three tennis player Anne Keothavong. Anne was briefly in the UK after flying back from Belgium after a semi-final appearance there, and kindly gave us loads of time to get our cover pictures for the magazine…

It's great shooting for Sportsister because they tell me who I'm photographing, when and where and then they leave me to get on with it. I need to make sure I got some good cover portraits of Anne in the bag and after that I can experiment.

With the portraits done I wanted to try some action shots by putting myself in the firing line. I figured that Anne is a top-ranked pro tennis player and could easily strike the ball within a few feet of the camera without hitting me, and I was right - although there were a few close misses. Anne was brilliant and relished having a photographer as a target.

You'll also see that Anne is wearing a white outfit, which as any photographer will tell you is a nightmare to take pictures of in bright sunshine. She left her other kit in a hotel in Spain and was waiting for Wilson to send her some new kit. Anyhow, it's my job to cope with such things and I hope I did.

Afternoon coffee with Seasick Steve

2010-04-16T09:53:00.006+01:00

Yesterday was a very good day. I got to meet and photograph one of my favourite musicians, the blues phenomenon that is Seasick Steve…

I was commissioned by the New York-based magazine Guitar World to take some portraits of Steve for a forthcoming article which will tie in with the launch of his Man From Another Time album in the States. It's always a thrill to share a cup of coffee with a guy you've previously respected from listening to their music or watching from the back of a packed theatre.

Steve was an absolute gent posing happily with his assortment of make-shift guitars. He also got out his his 1951 Chevrolet station wagon and we were able to take some great shots around that. What a guy.

I'll post up some pictures after the magazine has published them.

PE and drama

2010-04-15T11:35:00.011+01:00

When Linda Taylor got in contact to ask if I was interested in taking some fitness shots of her and her fella Dylan I jumped at the chance. I've photographed Linda many times wearing Duo boots in Spain and Lanzarote and she's one of the best models I've worked with. Along with Dylan she is now working as a personal trainer and wanted some pics to help promote her new career.

So in the middle of March we took over a room at a gym in Islington with no brief other than to try something creative with light. Linda and Dylan wanted some dramatic images so that's what we aimed for and this is what we got…

When I've got a moment

2010-04-01T16:19:00.005+01:00

Slack is how I would describe my attention to the blog lately but I have been ridiculously busy. Since my last Radio Times entry I have been shooting for the following:

HSBC's Liquid magazine in Wells

CSMA Club in Combe Martin, Devon

BBC Gardens Illustrated in Tyntesfield and Hanham Court

Canon Think Digital magazine in Corsham

The National Trust at Sissinghurst

Beth Tweddle for GK Elite Sports in Liverpool

The Prince's Trust in Cardiff

Duo Boots on an eight-day shoot in and around Frome

Pregnancy & Birth magazine in Bristol

National Youth Arts Wales in Caerphilly, Penarth and Llantwit Major

And I've just got back today from photographing tennis star Anne Keothavong at the LTA HQ in Roehampton for Sportsister.

I've got loads of images and videos to show you when I've got a moment.

Avoiding the snow for the Radio Times… just

2010-03-23T12:35:00.004Z

My pictures of Scottish rugby legend Ian McLauchlan are in the Radio Times this week. The shoot was the third part of a series of promotional articles with rugby stars and the Chevrolet Cruze car. Here's a short behind-the-scenes look at the shoot.

Several shakes of a lambs tale

2010-03-08T13:24:00.005Z

So what exactly goes on behind the scenes of a magazine cover shoot?

If it's for BBC Countryfile magazine it involves two tiny lambs, a concerned mother and Countryfile presenter, and now star of BBC2's Lambing Live, Adam Henson.

When the shoot was planned Adam didn't have any lambs on his farm so a quick phone around the local area was needed to track some down. Mrs Quinn, whose farm is in one of the most beautiful parts of the Cotswolds, came up trumps.

Adam is an absolute star when it comes to handling the animals while at the same time keeping on his 'to-camera' face. Commentary on the video comes from Fergus Collins who is the editor of Countryfile magazine.

A legendary tour of the UK

2010-03-03T13:09:00.014Z

The second of my features for the Radio Times is out this week. I've shot three Chevrolet advertorials for them recently, all around the theme of a driving tour of GB & I with a legend of the game. It's to coincide with the the Six-Nations rugby tournament. I've done the Welsh, English and Scottish parts of the series and this week the star in a reasonably priced car is David Duckham…

David played for England in the 1970s and was part of the legendary Barbarians side of 1973 – he still proudly wears the scarf. We met David near his home in Chipping Campden in the Cotswold, took a few shots there and then headed up to Coventry Rugby Club, where David played his club rugby. David is a charming and lovely man and happily posed all day while I fiddled about.

After finishing the shots of David I had to drive to Scotland to shoot Ian McLauchlan in Glasgow the following day. A crazy drive after a long day but it had to be done. The results of the Scottish shoot will be in Radio Times from March 16.

My previous shoot in this series was of Graham Price in and around Pontypool in south Wales. We tried to take some pictures of him in Big Bit, a coal mining museum, but when we did the shoot back in January there was so much snow about it made it virtually impossible. We did manage some pictures of Graham around Pontypool Rugby Club, where he is the president. I've included some below.

Here's a link to the Rugby legends tour of Britain and Ireland.

Here's David Duckham in all his pomp: YouTube link

I can't find a good video of Graham Price but if anyone knows of one let me know.

Boring landscapes with a new camera

2010-02-23T17:21:00.008Z

This is not usually the place where I write about a camera but I've got to tell you about this great little toy I've just bought. It's a Panasonic Lumix LX3, which sounds nerdy but what this camera can do is very cool. It's even got me taking boring landscapes…

I picked it up a couple of weeks ago to use for taking behind-the-scenes shots and videos on shoots, as well as being a pocket-sized camera to take on holidays rather than lugging about an SLR. Little did I know when I got it just how good the images from it can be.

We've just had a few days in Scotland, staying in the village of Luss beside Loch Lomond. I did a job there for the Radio Times earlier this month and it's such a beautiful spot we cleared the diary for a few days and headed up there.

I'm not a fan of landscape photography but I couldn't help myself. The scenery was amazing and the little camera was liberating to shoot with. Normally the camera hardly comes out of the bag during a holiday but I took more than 200 images in four days. A lot of them rubbish snaps but one or two landscapes that are almost worthy of a second look.

I also have used the camera to shoot some footage at a couple of shoots, including the Radio Times gig in Scotland and a cover shoot for BBC Countryfile. I'll post this up as soon as the magazines are in the newsagents.

Liz Yelling photoshoot

2010-02-13T17:20:00.007Z

This will probably give it the kiss of death but whenever I shoot for Sportsister magazine the sun comes out. This was just as well because for the latest shoot of top-class international runner Liz Yelling the brief was to make it look a bit like spring. For a February shoot that can be a tall order but we got lucky…

The shoot was planned on the beach at Sandbanks, Poole in Dorset, near where Liz lives. Although with the sun out and the sea looking blue, creating spring in winter wasn't too tricky but what you can't see in the video is just how cold it was.

While we wrapped ourselves up against the cold, Liz kept warm by running up and down the beach and promenade until we got our shots. Thanks Liz for all your patience while I fiddled about until I was happy. It was worth it because we got some really dramatic images.

The video was shot by Danielle at Sportsister on my new toy, a Panasonic LX3 camera. I'm really impressed with this tiny camera. Not only does it shoot great stills but also really good video.

How to catch a cold

2010-02-07T15:16:00.003Z

I've just finished one of my most epic tours of the UK shooting for the Prince's Trust, the Radio Times and a few others along the way. In the last month I've done shoots in (in this order)…

Pontypool, Belfast, Edinburgh, Sunderland, Nuneaton, Pontefract, Manchester, Leeds, Scarborough, Sheffield, Coventry, Leicester, Slough, central London, Eltham, Tonbridge, Bristol, Poole, Chipping Campden, Coventry, Glasgow, Preston and Gloucester.

I'm now back in Bristol and coming down from the trip. Not surprisingly I've caught a cold.

The Prince's Trust shoots have been for the annual Celebrate Success Awards that will take place on 1 March at the Odeon Leicester Square. This is the fourth year I've photographed all the finalists for the awards and I love every minute of it - I get to meet lots of inspirational people.

I've also just started working for the Radio Times. I've been shooting some the rugby legends Graham Price (Wales), David Duckham (England) and Ian McLauchlan (Scotland) in various locations around the UK with as Chavrolet car. The results of these shoots will start appearing in the 13-19 issue of the magazine.

Finally, I've photographed the runner Liz Yelling striding out in Poole for Sportsister and Jess Vaughan of Jess's Ladies Organic Milk for BBC Olive magazine.

I'll post up more details and pics from the shoots as soon as I can. In the meantime, where's the Lemsip?

A numbers game

2010-01-16T12:02:00.006Z

You never know who is going to call up next with the offer of a job. So when the phone rang and the voice on the other end said: "Hi Sean, this is Mark Tuchman calling you from New York City. How are you today?", I wondered what he was selling.

As it turned out, Mark is the Art Director for the School Library Journal and he wanted some portraits taken of Rachel Ward, a novelist from Bath who has written a book called Numbers, which is set to be a big hit in the States.

Mark explained that all the shots needed to be taken against a white background and that I had to get a 'numbers' theme into the shots. The problem is that the numbers in the book are in fact dates when someone is going to die, so I thought it was best to give any actual dates a wide berth.

Instead I thought I would keep it simple. So after a trip to Staples to buy some coloured card, and an evening spent in front of the telly with a pair of scissors, I had a collection of giant numbers that I could use to scatter around Rachel. Rachel liked the idea and the magazine had their shot, as you can see here.

Belly dancing in the snow

2010-01-11T20:34:00.007Z

Who would have thought that I'd spend a Saturday morning in a village hall surrounded by snow photographing a belly dancer. That's the great thing about photography - you never quite know who or what you will be taking pictures of next.

Rosie Cook is a belly dancer and belly dancing teacher who got in contact a few months ago about getting some pictures for posters to advertise he shows and for her upcoming website.

Rosie needed some clean images against a white background but we also had time to try some slightly more creative images and she was even brave enough to step into the arctic conditions outside and get some shots in the snow.

My school report

2009-12-21T14:56:00.012Z

When I got a call from Nick Smith at Downend School in early 2008 asking if I could do some photography for them I was surprised. When I think of school photography I think of hundreds of repetitive portraits and I was working out how I was going to tactfully explain to him that it wasn't really my thing. Thankfully he had something else in mind…

Nick wanted to use my portrait style for the various prospectuses the school produces. Since then I've completed several shoots at the school and I've just received a copy of the post-16 prospectus. It looks great.

All the design work is completed in-house by Nick, who runs the school's repro department, as well as being a talented graphic designer. It may seem like a luxury for a school to have a full-time designer on staff but when there is so much competition between schools to attract the best pupils, sending out professionally produced brochures that communicate important messages is becoming ever more important.

On previous work we've staged the shots and carefully lit scenes. For the post-16 work Nick decided that we needed a looser, more reportage style. I used natural light and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. I focused on details that would sum up life as a young adult, such as shoes, mobile phones and relationships.

Capturing personality and the sea

2009-12-04T15:32:00.005Z

For the second time I've got the cover image on The Prince's Trust Enterprising magazine (my first cover was three years ago). We did the shoot in Bournemouth in September and was of a young woman called Lindsay Lyall who, with help from the Prince's Trust, has turned around her once troubled life.

I've done a lot of work for The Prince's Trust over the last three years and the shoots are always great fun and very rewarding. All the young people I meet have gone through some sort of trauma and have come out the other side thanks to The Trust's work and a great deal of determination on their part. They are all full of enthusiasm and hope for the future.

The brief was to show the warmth of Lindsay's personality as well as showing a bit of the sea. We did the first shots on the clifftop in Southbourne and then went on to the beach at Hengistbury Head.

The magazine is published for The Prince's Trust by Beetroot.

Beth Tweddle - jumping out of the frame

2009-11-27T11:34:00.006Z

The cover star for the January 2010 issue of Sportsister magazine will be world champion gymnast Beth Tweddle. The shoot was planned for London and we thought it would be good to show her in a 'grass roots' gym setting. This was easier said than done.

So much lottery money has gone into Olympic sports that all the gyms now look modern. Danielle and Louise from Sportsister had a bit of a crazy day location hunting and at the last minute found St Gabriel's Halls in Pimlico, which turned out to be perfect.

Beth was an absolute star and was happy to go along with all my suggestions. As you'll see on the video we asked her to do some jumps. I pre-focused the camera and pointed it into the air where I expected her to jump. On the first image she went straight out the top of the frame. Of course she's going to jump really high. She's a world champion - what was I thinking?

Beth is in contention to with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2009. She thoroughly deserves to win it.

Taylor Wessing - drawing a blank

2009-11-18T12:52:00.005Z

Popped into the National Portrait Gallery on the weekend to check out the Taylor Wessing portrait exhibition. I've been to this exhibition for the last few years and have always found it stimulating. This year I was left feeling slightly blank by most of the images on show.

While there are some terrific images there - Paul Floyd Blake's portrait of the swimmer Rosie Bancroft, Inzajeano Latif's female boxer and Michal Chelbin's image of a 15-year-old Russian boy sentenced to murder - there were so many that left me feeling nothing. I'll not name any of the images but there are plenty there to look at. All of these seemed to be shot in the same style: the model adopts a blank, emotionless look to camera that unsurprisingly left me feeling blank and emotionless.

This is obviously a style of image that the judges seem to be favouring. I'm not against this style, and have shot a couple of images like this myself, but when this is the overriding image on display it doesn't create enough variety

I want a portrait to move me, to make me wonder about the person's like. I want to see life in the portraits not a feeling of nothingness.

So next year I'm going to enter something. It will certainly not be of someone with a blank look to camera.

A weird landscape but the wine's pretty good

2009-11-09T14:04:00.014Z

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.

Early snow fall

2009-11-04T09:37:00.008Z

Sportsister - Nov/Dec 09 issue cover shoot. from James Yeomans on Vimeo.

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.

Stocking up the midnight snacks

2009-10-19T07:33:00.012+01:00

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.

How dramatic can you go?

2009-09-09T10:21:00.008+01:00

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.

Twenty-20 vision

2009-08-26T11:46:00.009+01:00

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.

Becoming Drink Aware

2009-08-21T14:18:00.007+01:00

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.

Turning it up to 11!

2009-08-06T12:09:00.005+01:00

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.

Neil Oliver cover shoot for Countryfile

2009-07-29T12:36:00.008+01:00

No matter how many times you see your images in magazine, there is still a thrill when one of them finds its way on the front cover, and a recent shoot with BBC Coast presenter Neil Oliver has just found its way into the prime spot of the August issue of BBC Countryfile.

We did the shoot on 20 May in the tiny and beautiful Pembrokeshire hamlet of Porthgain. Neil Oliver was filming an episode of Coast there so I only had about half an hour to get the shots done during his lunch break. Fortunately we had recced the location before Neil arrived, and with the sun being kind to us, we were able to get all the shots we needed.

Here are some of the other images from the shoot…

Bryony Shaw photoshoot - first video on Nikon D90

2009-06-09T18:54:00.004+01:00

I've just got a Nikon D90 mostly for its video capability. With this gem of a camera I'm hoping to show you some behind-the-scenes action from shoots (as long as I can find someone to reel off some footage). First up is Bryony Shaw, the Olympic bronze medal windsurfer who achieved notoriety with her colourful language live on the BBC after just finding out that she'd won a medal in Beijing.

This shoot was for Sportsister and it took place on 2 June 2009 at Portland near Weymouth on the site of the 2012 Olympic sailing centre.

From the Circus to Neil Oliver via Lords

2009-05-27T08:52:00.013+01:00

I've been a bit rubbish keeping the blog up to date recently so here's a quick run through the last few weeks - or at least the interesting bits.

9 April: My first job for BBC Olive magazine. I was despatched to The Circus Cafe & Restaurant to photograph owner and chef Ali Golden. The pictures were for a feature on beating the credit crunch and will appear in the July issue of the magazine which will be in the shops in June.

14 April: Sheepdrove Farm in Lambourn, Berkshire, to photograph Juliet Kindersley with her solar- and wind-powered chickens. Sheepdrove is leading the way in new techniques to farm organically and ethically, including powering the chicken coups with wind and solar energy. The pictures will shortly appear in BBC Countryfile magazine.

15 April: A fantastic day at Lords cricket ground to photograph Charlotte Edwards the England women's captain. The staff at the ground laid out the red carpet allowing us free roam of the empty stadium, except for the famous Long Room, of course. The images have just appeared in Sportsister magazine.

17 April: A job for The Prince's Trust magazine Enterprise to photograph a group of employees at Admiral insurance in Cardiff who had raised £37,000 for the Trust. The brief was to create a Dragon's Den look - "something dramatic" they said. So I went for it and probably used more light than I've ever used on a job. I can't show you the pics yet but I'm very pleased with the results.

20-22 April: A couple of days in Glasgow to photograph The Prince's Trust Young Ambassadors. I packed up the studio in the car and drove the 370 miles, which was no hardship because I love these jobs - the Young Ambassadors are always such energetic and positive people. Glasgow is also a great city to spend a couple of days in.

29 April: A job for a new client RISE, an organisation that promotes and helps develop social enterprise. The day started at the bus depot at Bristol Community Transport, then to the SOFA Project, followed by The Pierian Centre conference and meeting place, then a short drive to The Watershed media centre and finishing off at Bristol Wood Recycling Project. A busy day. The job came to me from Chrisl Wilson at Blu Inc Graphics.

5 May: My regular job photographing products for BBC Garden's Illustrated magazine at a new venue. Hanham Court is one of the most fantastic venues we have used on the magazine, it's only about five miles from my home and I didn't know it existed.

7 May: More Young Ambassadors, this time in Leatherhead in Surrey. I stayed in the Travelodge the night before so I could get an early start. Has anyone tried to find the Travelodge in Leatherhead? It's not easy is it.

12 May: A week off in Mallorca. I never realised what an amazingly beautiful island it is.

20 May: Not long off the plane from Palma and we were heading West along the M4 towards Pembrokeshire for a shoot with Neil Oliver, the presenter of the BBC's brilliant Coast series. We met Neil at the hidden-away hamlet of Porthgain. Because he was in the middle of filmng we only had about half an hour to get the shots, which are going to be used on the cover of BBC Countryfile magazine.

Teaching myself Aperture… quickly!

2009-04-06T18:04:00.007+01:00

I'm conducting a workshop at the Apple retail store in Bristol's Cabot Circus this week. It's going to be about how people can improve their portrait photography and then how to use Apple's Aperture software to edit and refine the images. Showing a group of amateur photographers how to take better pictures of people is easy but the problem is that I don't know how to use Aperture…

I've been editing my RAW images with Adobe Lightroom for the last couple of years so it's been a bit of a crash course over the last few days to adapt what I know in Lightroom and apply it to Aperture. At the moment I prefer Lightroom, partly because I'm used to it but also because it's quicker and because of the graduation and mask tools. A couple more days of familiarising myself with Aperture so let's see what I prefer then.

Dodging the showers

2009-03-27T21:40:00.004Z

My last post from the Duo shoot in Cornwall and we're nearly done. For once in a UK shoot the weather has been kind to us with today being the only day of the week where we've had to dodge showers.

Fortunately we are staying in a great house called The Vean which gave us some great interior locations. Here's Lisa being made up by Charley in the dining room, making it very handy for lunch after the shot was done.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to the beach to capture a little more of the Cornish coastline and as long as the weather is kind to us we'll be done - the autumn/winter catalogue in the bag and my fourth shoot for Duo completed.

Hands up for Duo

2009-03-26T21:13:00.004Z

So what's going on here? Is this Duo shoot so much fun that we are waving our hands in the air? Are the models dancing?

The real reason is that I have to take a lot of cropped shots of the models from the waist down to emphasise the boots and shoes and we don't always want to show hands and arms. Here I thought it would be fun to show you how ridiculous the models have to look sometimes.

Duo shoot day three - early mornings

2009-03-25T21:24:00.008Z

Another image to show the lack of glamour behind-the-scenes of a photoshoot - although I can think of worse things to do than sitting on a sun-bathed beach in Cornwwall at 6.30am. We were trying to capture some early morning light and for once we got lucky - the pictures we took of the two models Nicola and Lisa sitting around a camp fire look stunning.

The reason that everyone is sitting about is because we were waiting for the campfire to get going - there was precious little drift wood to help us.

After our early-morning shoot on the beach we spent the rest of the day at the Lost Gardens of Helligan and were equally lucky at the end of the day with some gorgeous light in an amazing location.

Cornish wear

2009-03-24T21:44:00.004Z

My job on this Duo Boots shoot in Cornwall is to make the models, boots and clothes look great in pictures, but the behind-the-scenes view is not always so emaculate. Here is Lisa in some modified jeans which are then clipped together prior to a shot to ensure a good fit. Until then she had to walk around the Caerhays Estate with her arse hanging out - modeling is such a glomorous job.

Winter follows spring in Cornwall

2009-03-23T21:11:00.011Z

The week after the early arrival of spring in the UK I'm in Cornwall shooting the autumn winter range of shoes and boots for Duo. Thankfully the weather cooled off a little today (you'll not hear me say that very often) and the landscape does at least look a little wintry.

Today we were in the Lost Gardens of Helligan, tomorrow we'll be in the Caerhays Estate. I'll try to post up an image from each day, although I can't show any of the shoes. So instead here's a picture of one of the models Lisa Cooke having her hair and makeup touched up and boots cleaned before the first shot of the day.

Julia Bradbury, John Craven, Matt Baker and a fickle wind

2009-03-12T17:59:00.026Z

This week included one of those challenging jobs. I was commissioned by BBC Countryfile to take some pictures of the two new presenters of the show, Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker, alongside the legend that is John Craven. The images will be used on the cover of BBC Countryfile magazine as well as being used as promotional images for the new format of the show, so they had to be good…

The location was the Chilterns Gateway high on a hill near Dunstable. When the location was reccied the week before the sun was doing its thing but when we arrived to do the shoot the clouds were dark and it was blowing a gale – even the gliding club at the base of the hill weren't flying. It's situations like this that test out your photographic mettle…

We set up the first shot in a fairly firm breeze with John Craven and Matt Baker, and managed to get a couple of good images thanks to Tim Bates, the art editor, holding on to my light for dear life. You'd never guess from this image how strong the wind was. But five minutes into shooting and we were frantically packing up the gear and making a dash for the nearby visitor centre to get cover from the storm that was sweeping in.

For the next hour we sat in the cafe looking out on the rain-lashed, grey-murk around us. Everyone else was enjoying their lunch, but Tim and me were looking desperately out of the window for any sign of hope. It's at times like this that you start working on your speech to the editor to explain why you haven't got the pictures.

Then… a miracle. From out of the gloom some light appeared and the rain eased up. We grabbed the gear and charged out to the location. Although it wasn't the spring day look we were after it was bright enough to get the shots done.

Everyone was brilliant, with Matt and Julia bouncing about with loads of energy which always helps any shoot, particularly on a dull day. We even got lucky with some late afternoon sun and managed to get some moody images of Julia.

So in the end the weather gave us just enough to get the job done. One of the images will be on the cover of the April issue of BBC Countryfile magazine. Check it out, it's a great mag.

Tim Bates, Julia Bradbury and myself looking a lot happier with the job in the can.

Rebecca Romero: the unrecognised champion

2009-03-06T18:51:00.012Z

The end of another busy week with the highlight being a photoshoot with double Olympic medalist Rebecca Romero. The venue was beside the Thames in Richmond, trying to keep out the way of cyclists, walkers, pushchairs and dogs. It was amazing that no one recognised Rebecca – don't they know that she's only the second women in history to win medals in two different sports at the summer Olympics. She is an amazing athlete but doesn't get the recognition she deserves.

In case you don't know, Rebecca Romero won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Games as a rower in the GB quadruple skulls and in 2005 she won a gold medal in the world rowing championships. Then in 2006 she retired from rowing and got on her bike. Two years later in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing she won the gold medal in the individual pursuit. To win one Olympic medal makes you an elite athlete but to win medals in two different sports puts you in a whole other league.

The pics were for Sportsister magazine. You can read a really good article on Rebecca Romero at TimesOnline.

Matt Baker: from Blue Peter to Countryfile

2009-02-22T15:21:00.010Z

Last Friday's job was to take some images of Matt Baker for BBC Countryfile magazine, who, alongside Julia Bradbury, is the new presenter of the Countryfile show. The location was the Devil's Dyke high up on the South Downs.

The images will appear later in the year so I can't post them here just yet but thankfully the sun burnt off the mist just in time so we got some good stuff.

Matt was a presenter on Blue Peter from 1999 to 2006, he currently presents Open Country on Radio 4, is a former gymnastics champion and is a hang gliding world record holder. And apart from that, he turned out to be a lovely bloke.

Cavan Scott the editor of BBC Countryfile with Matt Baker, the new presenter of the TV show Countryfile and his dog Meg.

Recreating a master and taming some dragons

2009-02-13T16:07:00.016Z

Tom Phillips, the editor of Venue magazine got in touch recently about shooting some two covers for them. Both would be a recreation and the first shoot would be a modern take on Robert Doisneau's 'The Kiss'. Tom said that for years they had wanted to recreate The Kiss on the cover and so for the Valentine's Day issue the task fell to me. No pressure then.

The location for this reenactment was Bristol's new shopping centre Cabot Circus on 20 January 2009, some 59 years after the original. Two models were provided by Gingersnap and thankfully, seeing as they had to spend half an hour kissing each other, they were a couple. I decided to try to keep the method as close to Doisneau's original by using a 50mm lens and natural light. The beret-wearing man in the background was Tom Phillips the editor.

As the shot was for the cover I had to shoot in portrait format, rather than the landscape format that Doisneau used. Despite this, how did I do?

The original

My modern take…

The other cover shoot was to be in the style of the BBC's Dragon's Den opening title sequence. It would be used to illustrate Venue's list of the 100 most powerful people in Bristol and Bath. Tom Phillips found the perfect den for our dragons in Little King Street behind Queen's Square and despite having to get out of the way for a handful of vehicles all five committed to fully invest in the shoot.

Our dragons were (l to r) Mike Bennett (Bristol Media), George Ferguson (former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects), Kate Brindley (director of Bristol's museums, galleries and archives), Alex Reilley (owner of more of Bristol's bars than you can shake a stick at) and Jason Collard (MD of Urban Splash South West).

Defying the crunch

2009-02-13T15:05:00.017Z

Despite the sound of credits being crunched, I've been flat out since the start of 2009, hence the absence of any new posts here for a while. Since the start of the year I've been doing a huge chunk of work for The Prince's Trust, the usual work for BBC Gardens Illustrated, completing two cover shoots for Venue magazine, taking pictures for Asda staff magazine and even managing to do some of my own stuff. Long may it continue.

The Prince's Trust work has been taking me all over the UK from Brixton to Blyth (on the Northumberland coast) to Belfast. I've been taking more pics of the charity's Young Ambassadors as well as photographing the finalists in the Celebrate Success Awards 2009. More on this later.

Freezing in January: Myself with Niki Earp (designer and stylist on BBC Gardens Illustrated magazine) and Anne-Sophie Olive who was assisting on the shoot.

My snow spattered schedule of the last two weeks:
Monday 2 Feb, 6am - drive 50 miles along the M4 towards London. Hit snow. Get a call from The Prince's Trust telling me to turn back.

Tuesday 3 Feb - looking out the window at the snow. Sort some stock for photolibrary.com.

Wednesday 4 Feb - train from Bristol to Paddington, tube to Elephant & Castle, then can't get a cab south of the river. Finally one stops and takes me to Peckham to photograph a teacher and pupil at a school. Running late. Get cab to Met Police HQ at Victoria Embankment to photograph a commander. Take pics outside Scotland Yard. A cliche but time was short. On tube to Brixton to photograph three women who set up community group. Great fun. Back on tube to Liverpool Street, then train to Chelmsford. Sausage and mash, one Guinness and bed.

Thursday 5 Feb - Essex County Council for a quick pic of four women, train back to London and tube to Seven Sisters and walk to Bernie Grant Arts Centre for a pic of Gina Moffatt a florist. Back on tube to Tower Hill to meet a city business man and Trust volunteer. Get some good pics outside the building with the Gherkin in the background. Tube to Paddington and on the train at 5pm back to Bristol.

Friday 6 Feb - supposed to be doing a job for BBC Garden Illustrated but a foot of snow means it's another day in the office sorting pics.

Monday 9 Feb - in Liverpool (drove up through the snow last night) to meet Trust staffer Marilyn. Get some good pics of her in the office and local park. Then it's to Oldham to photograph Lisa, a young achiever for the Trust. Then drive to Leeds for some pics of a student of Wortley School who's done well with help from the Trust. Finish at 4pm and on to Pontefract for the night. Meet up with a mate Andy for a fine curry.

Tuesday 10 Feb - A quick job in the morning photographing Sam at the Pontefract office then drive 120 miles north to Blyth. With wind turbines in the background it's a great location to photograph Arthur, a Trust staffer. Finish at 2pm then drive home. Stopped at a Little Chef in Thirsk to see if Heston Blumenthal has made any difference to the menu. He hasn't. I'm the only one there and there's nothing I fancy on the menu other than a cuppa and carrot cake - £3.95 seems a bit steep. Get back to Bristol at 8pm. 722 miles covered already this week.

Wednesday 11 Feb - a day in the office. I need it.

Thursday 12 Feb - 8.30 flight to Northern Ireland. Meet James at Muckamore Hospital for quick portrait of him up a ladder. Then cab to Belfast to photograph Louise who has a stationery business thanks to some cash from the Trust. By 3.30pm I'm done and it's a mad rush to the airport. My camera bag gets pulled apart at security, as it always seems to at Belfast, and I only just make the flight. Back home by 7pm and the end to a hectic two weeks.

John Craven: photographing a childhood icon

2008-12-12T16:57:00.014Z

This week I photographed John Craven, the legendary BBC broadcaster and journalist.

He is the presenter of Countryfile, but if you grew up in the 70s or 80s, as I did, the name John Craven meant Newsround, the hugely popular BBC children's news show that he fronted from 1972 t0 1989. This means that for a great extent of the UK population he is an icon…

And my mum thinks he's fab.

It's a slightly strange experience meeting John Craven, even though this is the third time I have photographed him this year. He's such a friendly personality, with a warm handshake, a welcoming smile and a good line in anecdotes, but he's still John Craven, the man who made the news interesting when I was a kid.

This week I was meeting him at a farm in Wytham, Oxford, to take some portrait shots of him with various animals for BBC Countryfile magazine. I have previously photographed him at a farm in the Cotswolds for the 20th anniversary of Countryfile and on a canal boat on the Oxford Canal for an article he was writing about his top-10 canals in the UK.

While on the canal boat I asked him if I could take a picture of the two of us – for my mum! John replied, "Why does everyone always say it's for their mum, never their gorgeous sister?"

A few days later I posted a print to my mum who removed from a frame a picture of my neice and nephew and replaced it with the one of John and me. It's still on the mantelpiece. Such is the affection in the UK for John Craven.

Would you replace a picture of your grandchildren with this?

John Craven on the Oxford Canal.

Taken for the cover of BBC Countryfile magazine, with fellow presenters Michaela Strachan and Adam Henson.

Another shot for the 20th anniversary of Countryfile.

0117: shooting a creative city

2008-12-05T15:54:00.020Z

Finally I can tell you about a job that occupied a great deal of my time over the summer – being chief snapper for Bristol's new media and creative magazine 0117.

I had to keep this under my hat until now but today is the morning after the launch party and with a slightly thick head, I am officially allowed to spill the beans.

The purpose of 0117 is to promote Bristol as a creative place to live and work. Thousands of copies of the magazine are now being mailed all over the place (Europe, Australia, the States) to let people know that exceptional creative talent flourishes in the UK outside of London. The work was commissioned by Wildfire Communications and funded through The Regional Development Agency, The Watershed Media Centre and Bristol City Council.

My brief was simple… photograph a whole load of creative and media types in a dynamic and positive way. It's not easy photographing people who have a strong visual sense and are generally the ones directing shoots but I think it all worked out in the end. There was a total of 27 shoots for the magazine and the subjects ranges from animators to advertising agencies, music producers to jewellery makers.

You can see a short video about the magazine here.

Collision Films, music videos

Bolex Brothers, animators

Burrell Durrant Hifle, film makers

Hazel Grian, actor, film maker, script writer

Pardo & Perkins, animators

A few thanks… Firstly, to Ashley Howden at Wildfire who put his faith in me to do the job, to Tamasine Johnson the editor who did a grand job in organising my life for several weeks, to Martin Davies for making my pictures look so good on the page and to Mike Bennett, chief exec of Bristol Media for his enthusiasm and determination to make this project happen.

Never eat at the suggestion of a photographer

2008-12-04T08:54:00.005Z

My favourite photo quotes. I'll add to these as I find them but if you know any good ones let me know…

"Never make a pass at an oriental girl whose Adam's apple is bigger than her breasts; don't put anything in your mouth that involves a bet; and never, ever eat at the suggestion of a photographer," AA Gill, restaurant reviewer, Sunday Times Style magazine, 9 November 2008.

"I found there was a great distortion of contemporary life. Photographers were interested only in certain things. A visually interesting place, people who were either very rich or very poor, and nostalgia," Martin Parr, Magnum photographer.

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer," Ansel Adams, US landscape photographer

Nikon D3x with 24.5Mp - typical!

2008-11-28T18:36:00.006Z

The phone rang yesterday with a market researcher on the other end asking me to complete a survey for Nikon Professional Users. He said is there anything I would like to say to Nikon about my experience of using their equipment so I had a rant. First up, I said they should give some incentive to pros to upgrade their DX lens for the new FX ones; and secondly, can we have some more resolution. So what lands through the letter box this morning than the Nikon Pro magazine with details of the new 24.5Mp D3X. Typical!

The D3X as it appears in Nikon Pro magazine.

For most photographers this kind of resolution isn't necessary but as I'm moving more into fashion, stock and corporate photography I'm finding that clients are more demanding. For instance, Duo, the women's shoe company I work for, recently blew up my images to 6 x 4 feet, and they also like to crop into the images, so the extra resolution will be useful. This monster will output 75Mb files which will almost certainly need an upgrade of my iMac.

So just by looking at the specs this camera is looking very tempting. For those who are interested, this is what the D3X is about…
Sensor: 35.9 x 24mm, 24.5 Mp (FX format)
ISO: 50-6400 (the standard range is 100-1600 with boosts at the top and bottom end)
Autofocus: 51 point MultiCAM3500FX
Processing: 16-bit
LCD: 3-inch, 922,000 pixels
Speed: 5fps at full resolution
DX crop mode at 10Mp and 7fps

The Prince's Ambassadors

2008-11-05T09:34:00.021Z

I've been taking shots for The Prince's Trust for about three years now and it's a real honour to work for them. They tend to give me 'chunky' jobs where for a month or so I'm charging to every corner of the UK photographing enthusiastic young people who have turned their lives around. The latest job to photograph their Young Ambassadors is no different…

This is me in my portable studio in The Prince's Trust head office in London ready to photograph those selected to be The Prince's Trust's Young Ambassadors in our capital city. These are young people who have gone through the various programmes that the charity runs and because they have been so successful they have now been selected to spread the word of the charity.

This is a great opportunity for them because they are taught how to speak in conferences about their experiences, as well being talking to the press and encouraging young people in schools and colleges to turn their lives around as they have done. This means that they are all very positive and energetic people, which makes them great to photograph.

It's amazing to meet these incredibly positive people and then find out that they have come from a violent or abusive past – many of them have been in prison or been drug addicts. I find it very uplifting to meet them.

The Prince's Trust has asked me to travel to each of its 12 UK regions to photograph some of the Young Ambassadors. All the shots are to be taken on a white background and lit evenly and softly. The images will be used in local press but there is also a series of postcards being produced by the Trust.

The first of these shoots was done in Liverpool in September, the second in London in October and I've just completed the South-West region shoot in Exeter.

Here's some shots from the London shoot…

And some of the results…

Fog and ankle groping

2008-10-29T12:13:00.022Z

Just back from a week in southern Spain taking images for Duo, makers of women's boots and shoes. This was my third shoot for Duo and this time we were shooting the spring/summer shoe collection for 2009. In search of some warm, sunny weather we headed to the historic and dramatic town of Ronda but the wet stuff that has dogged the UK throughout the summer followed us out there. This made life interesting…

After a couple of days shooting locations in a couple of villas outside Ronda, we decided to head into town. Ronda sits high up on a rocky cliff with an amazing gorge right through the middle of it. Being this high up can cause problems and on the miserable, wet day we were it was really dramatic to see the clouds rolling towards us across the surrounding countryside moments before immersing us in a thick fog. This is not the ideal weather in which to shoot spring/summer images.

Fortunately, the weather did brighten up and we were faced with another problem when we decided to shoot 'gorrila' style in Ronda's square. The idea was for the model Linda ( see her on Models 1 here) to climb up on a concrete plinth in the middle of the square. With lots of people about the secret is to do this kind of shot quickly and draw the minimal amount of attention to yourself. Just as the model Linda got into place a coach load of tourists walked by who thought it was a great idea to get involved in our shoot. For a few minutes they overwhelmed us as they posed for pictures with Linda and one of them was even cocky enough to grope her ankle. Well, what do you expect when you ask a six-foot, very attractive blonde woman in a mini skirt to pose for pictures on a podium in the middle of a busy town square?

I'll put some pictures up from the shoot when I can but at the moment the shoes are under wraps. Still, here's a few behind-the-scene moments…

Kara and Penny from Duo carrying Linda into position
so that her feet remain dry. We got some great shots
from this location but you'll have to wait to see those.

Linda looking relaxed on a day when her ankle wasn't being groped.

This is Sandy, our production assistant, prop buyer, fixer, sorter, driver
and all-round top bloke to have with you on a shoot. Here he shows his
background creating skills.

Garden Picture Library - first stock shoots

2008-09-15T15:19:00.020+01:00

Earlier this year I got signed up by the Garden Picture Library, part of the photolibrary.com group. Unusually for a photo library they approached me, which doesn't do any harm to the ego.

I've just done my first two shoots specifically for them. The first was in the lovely gardens at Trull House on 21 August with models Andrew and Jessica and the second took place on 10 September in a small urban garden in Bristol with Cherie. All three models were fantastic. Amazingly, the horrible summer weather gave us a break and we had plenty of sun on both days.

The main theme through both shoots was to photograph young people in a garden. Gardening is now something that 20- and 30-somethings do and the plan was to make it look fashionable. Another sub theme was grow your own, something that is going to get ever more popular with the increasing cost of food.

Here's a couple of pics from both days and a behind-the-scenes from the Bristol shoot. When the pictures go live on Garden Picture Library I'll let you know.

A big thank you to Simon Mitchell at Trull House. If you get the chance you should visit Trull where you will be rewarded by lovely gardens and great tea and cakes.

How to kill a D2X

2008-09-06T19:01:00.015+01:00

In January 2008 I was doing a job for Tarmac which involved shooting in a limestone quarry. The job went well and I moved on to the next project. The following week I was doing another job for the Prince's Trust and I began noticing specs of dust on the images coming out of my Nikon D2x.

What can happen when you take a Nikon D2X into a quarry.

I was on the road but managed to get hold of a sensor cleaning kit which was the worse thing I could have done. As soon as the moist cleaning swab touched the dust, which was effectively, cement, it bonded itself to to the sensor and no matter how many times I tried to clean it there was no shifting it.

The camera went back to Nikon where I was told it would cost me £1,100. Fortunately, my insurance covered it. While this was all being sorted out I bought a Nikon D300 as a stop gap camera. But how wrong could I be – see my post on the Nikon D300.

So the moral is, if you take pictures in a dusty, limestone quarry, be very careful.

Getting stuffed: an odd job

2008-09-06T17:53:00.003+01:00

It was the spring of 2007 when the picture editor of BBC History magazine rang me up to say that she had a job for me. "It's a bit of an odd one," she said.

The brief was to go to Ascot, home of the famous horse races, to photograph some stuffed foxes. The foxes were part of a display to illustrate the French folklore story of Reynard The Fox, and now they were in the house of a collector of taxidermy.

The foxes had been assembled into six scenes by taxidermist Hermann Ploucquet for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace. Back in Victorian Britain taxidermy was a big draw, much liked by Queen Victoria, but to me these foxes looked a bit weird. They were also quite a challenge to photograph because they were still in the original cases and because they were screwed to it, they were not coming out.

I'm sure you've got a stranger story than that so let's hear it…

My best cock up

2008-09-06T12:26:00.002+01:00

For my first blog I thought I would post something that every photographer could relate to and keep adding to. So lets' talk cock ups. Now I'm not looking for tales of destroyed lives and severed limbs (unless they're funny) but more those quirky moments that remind us of how human we are. This kind of thing…

I once heard a story about the royal snapper Patrick Lichfield on one of his first assignments to Rome to photograph the Pope. As he was being introduced to the Pope, Lichfield's assistant grabbed his bosses arm and whispered into his ear, with I imagine a good deal of panic, that they didn't have any film. I think the assistant then had to make a quick dash to the Vatican gift shop to sort out the situation.

And my moment…

This happened in 2003 when I was doing a job for the now defunct magazine Living History. The job was to take pictures of a Major Green who had written a book called Stop Line Green about the history of a ring of pill boxes (small concrete forts) built during WWII to protect Bath and Bristol. The Major, the editor of the magazine and myself went on a walk across the Somerset countryside to see this ring of military defences. Major Green was a very sprightly army type who walked at an alarming pace. With a heavy camera bag and tripod, and having to stop to take pictures, it was hard to keep up.

After taking some shots of some feature on the walk I had finished a roll of film - remember film? As I looked up I saw the Major and the editor about 100 yards away, and going even further away by the second. I quickly grabbed my gear and headed off as fast as I could. Puffing and slightly flustered, I finally caught them at the next pill box where the light was perfect to get the picture I had been looking for of the Major looking out through the slit in the concrete.

The Major battled through a load of brambles to get inside the dark and very damp pill box, I got the editor holding a reflector and I fired off about 20 quick shots. The light was great and I had my main shot. Job done. Perfect… Until I realised that I hadn't changed the used roll of film and I had captured precisely nothing. I quickly made some terrible excuse about the camera playing up, changed the film while no one was looking, and asked the Major if he didn't mind taking on the brambles again and redoing the shot. Thankfully, he didn't and this clot of a photographer got his shot.