December
It’s been a long time since I posted! Life is busy with two little ones, family portraits, press and corporate photography and picture editing.
Growing families certainly keep a photographer on his toes. This family in North London was delightful – I ended up chasing the elder child around the sitting room to keep her interested in the shoot! I think it’s so important to make sure that children enjoy the photography session, otherwise it’s much harder to take great pictures.
Families and babies came up in my press photography for The Times too. The Times ran an article about maternity provision, and I photographed a woman who hadn’t been able to join antenatal classes and went through labour with very little medical support. Fortunately she and her daughter recovered well and I photographed them at home in Hertfordshire.
On a much more frivolous note, I’ve also been photographing Christmas presents for The Times. If anyone wants gold-lame pants, or a pink cashmere jumper for £1000 then the details are in the November 28th edition, along with a doodle by Jedward which will no doubt sell on ebay for a silly amount of money.....
Christmas dinners are also in full swing, and I photographed the Institute of Directors bash for them. Their after-dinner speakers Ken Clarke and Ronnie Corbett were quite a combination! And yes, they did have a box for Ronnie Corbett to stand on. Happy Christmas to you all!
June
This month I’ve been offering some taster portrait sessions and they’ve produced lovely pictures. Here’s the gorgeous newborn Lyra whose mother I met through Islington NCT. Stunning blue eyes and bright red hair will be turning heads for years to come.
My press photography for the Times is a complete change of pace from my portraits. At the beginning of the month I had just about finished my day’s work when Jacqui Smith resigned so I was sent off to Whitehall to get “today’s picture”. I managed to get her being driven out in her official car – it reminded me of my old nickname: car shot. Early in my career I had a run of front pages with pictures taken through car windows – not as easy as it sounds!
The two tricks to a car shot are being in the right place at the right time and making sure your flash doesn’t bounce off the window and wipe out your view of the passenger. It’s a technique I’ve used at weddings: our friends Jo and Oliver have a great photograph I took of them speeding off into the night after their reception. I love being able to apply press photography techniques to “real life”.
This month I’ve also spent a few days in the office learning how to research pictures for a newspaper, rather than take the pictures that go in it. It’s been a really interesting experience seeing another side of the photography business. With Margaret Thatcher in hospital and not recovering as quickly as expected, I had the job of pulling together the pictures for a 16-page supplement on her life and career. I put forward a couple of pictures I’ve taken of her over the years - we’ll see if they make the picture editor’s final cut!
Last Friday I was off to Lincolnshire to photograph workers at Lindsey oil refinery protesting about their dismissal. The office phoned just after 8am so I jumped in the car and headed off. I was looking forward to the job; there was a big demonstration planned, and redundancies are on many peoples’ minds right now, so there was a good chance the photograph would be used on the front page of the paper.
Unfortunately, it ended up illustrating the downsides of press photography… After hold-ups on the A1 I got to Lindsey at 11 only to find that the demonstration had taken place at 9:30. So, I had to think how I could make a photograph out of not very much. There were just two demonstrators left, so I had to get in close and capture their expressions.
I couldn’t leave this post without a few more pictures of our daughter Gwen. Having her and Tom are a constant inspiration – always changing and charming us in different ways and thankfully they seem to be getting on well together!
May
The big news this month was the arrival of our daughter Gwen on 8th May. She’s a treasure and even her brother is smitten.
I also spent a fun afternoon covering Islington NCT’s Cheeky Monkeys tea party. These events were held around the country to raise money for the NCT, and I was pleased to be able to help them by photographing all the families enjoying themselves.
In May I was back at the Andrew Marr show to photograph Nick Clegg – completely different from the Hollywood experience I had with Russell Crowe on the same show a few months ago. This time I was at the BBC studios shooting from behind the television cameras. The lighting in that studio is the strangest I’ve come across. Unless I balance the colours really carefully, the background can look either purple or green in different shots – not what the team was looking for!