With due deference to the UK TV programme of the same name I thought it fitted this shot from an editorial feature I did a couple of weeks ago.

Chris and Simon are property developers. But not like the guys on TV. Oh no. These guys are top-end, renovating very very large homes and offices in very very prestigious locations for some very rich clients! And so it came to pass that I found myself booked to shoot a series of portraits to accompany an interview feature for a leading property magazine. Read more from this entry »

Here’s a quick frame from a recent stock shoot where the subject was lifestyle. Yes, this is northern England, and yes, the sun is shining. I hadn’t planned this at all but this sort of weather is rarer than a Tottenham premiership win and I just had to take the opportunity. Daughter and boyfriend were here for the weekend so off we went out into the fields to shoot some stock. Read more from this entry »

I’ve just had a pretty whirlwind couple of weeks. Having not been to a wedding for about 10 years, last week saw me at not one, but two. Six days apart and both in the south. So I’ve been eating up the miles recently. My carbon footprint is more like a large wellie. I was also forced by Mrs JB to don a tie, which is most unlike me.

However, I proved a theory this week so I thought I’d tell you about it. Read more from this entry »

Here’s an image from a shoot this week that wasn’t planned at all. As with life in general, sometimes things don’t go to plan. When this happens there are two things you can do: a) give up; or b) make the best out of the situation. I had been commissioned by FourFourTwo football magazine to shoot three football players for a feature. On the morning of the shoot one of the players had to pull-out which left me with two to shoot. The magazine wanted a white background so I arrived at the club and set up the background and lighting. Shot the first player in his kit, as per the brief, and all was well… Read more from this entry »

I spend a lot of my time shooting editorial portraits to accompany interview features. My job is to arrive in the daily hectic lives of very busy people, make some great images, then get out again. A sort of photographic SAS raid. Its a fact of life that busy people don’t have all day to spend on a photoshoot and often I have a time frame of 30 mins to do my thing. An hour is a luxury.

The timeframe of a shoot dictates what can be achieved. Lighting and composing a good editorial portrait often takes longer than shooting it. But I always err on the side of quality over quantity so pre-planning is key. Read more from this entry »

Just got back from a week in Devon. Half rest & recuperation and half stock shooting. Mid August, England in the height of summertime. You’d expect blue skies, birds tweeting, ice creams, beaches packed, the smell of fish and chips, extortionate car-park charges…… and you’d be wrong (apart from the car park charges). Read more from this entry »

Nope, not an encounter with Jack Nicholson and his pet axe in a remote hotel – a shoot with England rugby superstar Jonny Wilkinson. The World Cup is nearly upon us again so what better way to commemorate that drop-kick that earned us victory over the Aussies than a shot of the man himself.

Commissioned by Getty Images for the NSPCC this shoot was part of the full-stop campaign. Jonny is supporter of the NSPCC and so we had him wear an NSPCC shirt and the agency had provided a green NSPCC coloured ball. Read more from this entry »

Gratuitous plug time.

A very good friend of mine, photographer John Carolan who lives in Shetland (that group of islands you can just see on the weather map that lie between Scotland and Norway) has spent the last two years on a personal project shooting portraits documenting 100 of the islands women.

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When I’m not shooting commissioned work I shoot for a few stock libraries. One of my drivers, as you’ll see if you look at the portfolio, is the concept of symmetry and it’s extremely rare to just stumble across this in nature.

The following image was made during a trip to Germany & Holland in spring this year to shoot stock. I found myself driving through the beautiful countryside of the Eifel region in Germany (south west of Bonn) with its rolling hills and amazing wind turbine farms. The main purpose of the day was to visit some of the little medieval villages that populate this region and to shoot them for my stock libraries.

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This image was made during a day shooting portraits and interiors at a hotel for a national UK chain. Its a good example of what can be achieved in difficult lighting conditions with only a few minutes with the subject.

I had planned to spend 30 minutes with Arve, the head chef, but busy schedules and the need to get lunch underway meant that I had 10 minutes maximum to light and get the shot. As usual, with environmental portraiture work, I don’t know what conditions I’m going to find until I get there. The client wanted me to shoot Arve in the recently refurbished lounge.

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