Tearsheets: Vegas in HUCK magazine

If you get a chance to pick up this months 'On the Road' issue of Huck magazine then I'd thoroughly recommend it. Not only is it full of interesting articles and beautifully designed pages, it also includes an extract of mine and Adam's Vegas story. The full story "Las Vegas: Delving into the Underbelly of the American Dream" can be seen on my website here.

New Moving Image work: s.ecret.me

I had the pleasure recently of being asked to shoot a video for s.ecret.me, an organisation that, as the name suggests, is rather intriguing and secretive. It's quite hard to explain without giving too much away but think of it as hostile environment meets spy finishing school. The whole thing is by invitation only and incredibly high end - most of the instructors are either ex-special forces or from government agencies. Needless to say it was a fascinating and exciting shoot to be commissioned for.

Myself along with friend and colleague Sam Strickland, filmed and produced the trailer in one weekend. Paul Trewartha added his motion graphics and editing expertise, putting in an 18 hour edit day to get it all finished, and Ben Wiseman composed the score for the piece.  


S.ecret.me from Greg Funnell on Vimeo.

Fuji x100: Vietnam snaps

My Fuji x100 is a camera I've had a real love hate relationship with, it's something I enjoy using but don't use enough, it's a camera I'm constantly trying to decide when to use. I've only made the problem even more difficult by recently getting a Fuji x-Pro1. The thing is that for most snaps now I use my phone and for anything more serious I use my DSLR, so in order to use the x-series camera's I really have to put the effort in and make a conscious decision to take them out the bag. I hoping over time - with more use that will change as I get more comfortable with them. The x100 certainly proved useful on a recent trip I had in Vietnam; I was there on a filming assignment, so my 5D was usually attached to some sort of rig or strap-less which meant I increasingly went out with just my x100. On Monday I'm off to India and I've still yet to decide if I'll be taking the Fuji X-Pro1 - I'm pretty sure I know the answer. These snaps below are some of the x100 results from Vietnam.

Recent Tearsheet: Nick Pentelow, Financial Times Weekend magazine

The other day I had the pleasure of photographing Nick Pentelow, a jazz musician and Saxophonist who has played in the music pit of the Blood Brothers show in London's Phoenix Theatre for the last 20 years. The shot was for the FT Weekend magazine, above you can see what they ran and below are some alternatives.

ScienceGrrl

I was happy to be involved in shooting another campaign based charity calender again this year - this time with the aim of promoting the work and role of women in the science community. It involved some interesting shoots - including getting into the sea at 6am on a chilly morning off the coast of Dorset. The shot above was taken of me by my assistant Ben, surrounded by past members of the Tomorrow's World team. We did the shoot in an old TV studios in Alexandra Palace. The one below is for anyone interested in the lighting a group shot like this; fill, key and two back lights. You can find out more about the calendar here

Recent Tearsheet: Rose Issa, Art Curator

Recent Tearsheets: Some inspirational Londoners

London Fashion Week: Behind the Scenes

I had an assignment last month that had me shooting behind the scenes at London Fashion Week. It seems to be a fairly common thing for photographers to be asked to do, but this was my first time doing it and I have to say it was great fun! These kind of environments are a joy to shoot in; everyone is busy doing their thing so you're widely ignored, there are fantastic visual nuggets in every direction and you're pretty much free to shoot it how you like - the dream assignment!

Recent Portrait: Maxi Jazz, Faithless

Faithless front-man, Maxi Jazz, photographed last week in London.

Recent Tearsheets: Cliff Diving, Red Bulletin

Just over a month ago I was lucky enough to be commissioned by Red Bull's magazine RedBulletin to fly to Ireland and cover the 4th stop on the Red Bull Cliff diving tour. The competition was to take place on the Arran island of Inis Mór, jutting out from the Atlantic off of the west coast of Ireland. I was in the fortunate position of having got the commission on the strength of my feature 'Mountain of Hell' (see here on website), a story I shot in the French Alps last year. This meant that they wanted a similar style and approach, and were keen for me to shoot it in black and white, but equally were more or less happy for me to do my own thing. For photographers these are generally seen as dream assignments as it shows that the commissioning picture editor trusts you to explore the story in your own way, thus giving you much creative freedom. Finding this can be rare, especially when it's your first time working for a new client.

The assignment itself was a bit of a logistical challenge, with no accommodation left on the island, getting there everyday involved a bus, a boat, another bus and a bit of a hike at the end of it. This itself was only issue because it meant that my explorations were tied to timetables and other people's schedules, and often when you're shooting stories in such a way they are unpredictable and require a degree of flexibility. Nevertheless the client was accommodating. At one point I was able to persuade them to let me commandeer their helicopter for a few precious minutes of flying time, something which allowed me to get a strong establishing shot of the island whilst showing off it's 4000 year old hill fort, Dún Aengus.

In the end, due to editorial reasons they chose to run the feature in colour. I couldn't help be a bit disappointed, but equally I'm well aware that's it's simply the nature of the beast. There's no point taking these things personally, as I'm well aware from having spent my own time working behind the picture desk. Fortunately these days though with websites we can always publish our own version - so if you'd like to see the feature in all its monochrome glory please follow the link here!