Here’s the result of a two day intensive shoot on an ad campaign shot to a strict brand guideline brief for a national hotel chain. Read the rest of this entry »

Sitting here in nervous anticipation of the biggest game of the year later today for my beloved Tottenham Hotspur FC.  Yes, its the home tie against the auld enemy and arch nemesis, Arsenal.  Read the rest of this entry »

Just to prove the weathermen wrong I had glorious weather for a recent shoot with England cricket saviour, Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff.   The location was Old Trafford,  Lancashire Cricket Club, and I was on a commission from Spin magazine to shoot some portraits of Freddie while he was working his way back to fitness from a recent injury. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s one guy who has really taken regeneration of urban areas (especially Manchester) by the scruff of the neck and shaken it until it squeaks it’s Tom Bloxham.  Tom’s property development company Urban Splash invests in regenerating inner city areas by taking old warehouses and office blocks and creating cool living spaces out of them.  Read the rest of this entry »

OK, OK, I know I haven’t posted since January but circumstances overtook me, sorry! I had this blog in my sights but never quite got to it. Anyway, I’ve got a fair bit to blog about having been silent for 5 months so lets start…

It’s late April and I get a commission to go and shoot new young fast bowler of English cricket, Stuart Broad. Brief was to get some portrait shots of Stuart while he was on a promo day for VW and that I’d have an hour to share with the journalist doing an interview at the same time. There’s a possibility this could be a cover shoot and there’s nothing like that to sharpen the mind. So I set off to the location – Trent Bridge the home of Nottingham CC. Read the rest of this entry »

First off, apologies for the lack of updates. Its been a manic couple of weeks. So I thought I’d reward you with a long post about a shoot I did last month with Michelin starred chef & restaurateur Terry Laybourne. I was commissioned by Restaurant magazine to shoot a cover and feature on Terry, perhaps the North’s most famous chef. Having just watched the last series of “Hell’s Kitchen” I had visions of my 70-200 becoming a 35-100 as the result of a swift swing of a meat cleaver. But I shouldn’t have worried. He is a very nice man indeed. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had the pleasure of working with Joel Dickinson, a young entrepreneur who has set up a great store www.geniegadgets.com selling the most amazing gadgets and boys toys (and girls too!) you can imagine.

Joel’s team got in touch to get me to help with a promotional campaign, for which they wanted an image that was vibrant, punchy and overall, fun!

This is the story of how that image came together… Read the rest of this entry »

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 the rest of 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 the rest of 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 the rest of this entry »