Photo in this weeks Time Out magazine

Picture of mine in this weeks Time Out magazine - In article titled '100 London Moments that shook the world'. Funny considering the picture is from Al-Nakba clashes in Palestine...the link apparently being that the Balfour declaration drawn up in London.

Skatepark photoshoot: Behind the Scenes

My first attempt at timelapse video - hopefully the first of many behind the scenes videos. Lighting-wise I have one of my Elinchrom D-lites on camera left and another hidden camera right slightly behind the subject using a Tronix explorer battery pack.

fashion revisited

My attention has recently been directed towards some excellent photographers whose websites I've been spending much time on over the last week. They are Nadav Kander, Dan Winters, and personal fave of the week, Frank Ockenfels. If you haven't heard of them or seen their work before then it's well worth checking out. Thanks Kendrick for the heads up on these.

The picture above is from a shoot I had earlier this year.

Ban Ki-Moon

The 8th UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon. 16th June 2008

Hospitals..

...they creep me out.

Recent science/corporate portrait

Taking pictures with your mouse

This interesting online feature was recently brought to my attention - a virtual shoot. The idea is you take pictures of the new Subaru Forester for the 2009 calender in an online studio complete with props, assistant and sumo wrestlers (yes the last bit confused me too). Then you can submit the images you take into a online gallery. Anyway a great little way to waste your lunch hour. Check it out here

I found the link to the above item at a gem of blog that I recently discovered. A Photo Editor
is the blog of Rob Haggart, a former director of photography at Men's Journal. The articles he writes are fascinating and informative especially for photographers wanting an insight into the other side of the industry. In fact my only regret in finding the blog is the amount of time it's kept me glued to my computer screen. I've even had to start a new folder in my bookmarks titled 'TO READ'. It's a blog well worth checking out.

Work from Israel/Palestine up online

This is just a quick post to say that work from my recent trip to Israel the West Bank can be found here. Click on the tab titled "Israel/Palestine: 60 years on" to watch the slideshow.

Maximo Park shoot - Ibiza

Last week I was lucky enough to get a job that saw me going to Ibiza. Part of the work involved shooting the British band Maximo Park. As always with PR events getting time with the talent can be quite difficult and often time spent shooting is minimal. This of course is frustrating because often you can see so many great opportunities that you know you're going to miss, but at the same time it's understandable and you can't always expect your wishes to take priority. In this case I was able to spend about 30 seconds grabbing a couple shots inside before the band had to rehearse, if I'd had another minute I would have stuck a flash behind them just to pop them out from the background and make it a tad more interesting (see above). As it was this shot wasn't going to be much use for the client as it didn't involve any of their branding so I was lucky to be able to grab it all (I'd obviously shot the image that I new client wanted prior to this).

Afterwards however I felt that since we were in Ibiza it would be a real shame not to get a shot of the band which really showed that off. Towards the late afternoon the band arrived a villa for more media interviews and as most of these were being filmed for web it meant I couldn't do too much working around them. This meant I had to sit and watch the beautiful light fade, and with it my chance of getting a great photo...


You can see in the images below how it was getting darker...

...and darker...

..before...ziiiip..the light vanished. Another 30 seconds to shoot but by this stage all Balearic scenic splendor was gone. bugger.

It was frustrating but just one of those things, as I said before these images weren't priority and the interviews were, so there wasn't much that could be done. It could have been a lot worse too, everyone from the client company was incredibly easy to work and get along with - making it a pleasure to be there. The band, it has to be said, are some of the most grounded individuals in the music industry I have ever met. They're not pretentious or at all aloof as some others in the music industry tend to be, just five guys who love making music. Hopefully one day in the not too distant future I'll be shooting them again.