Photographer

mrsjason: “That’ll be good”
 
jason: “Not sure, havn’t seen the trailer”
 
mrsjason: “I suppose you’ll want to see that western”
 
jason: “Yeah Jeff Bridges is meant to be great, besides ballet…?”
 
2 hours go by….
 
No, as it turned out Black Swan is not a chick flick, in fact it’s rather beautifully shot and had us both wincing in our seats as Natalie Portman removed the skin from around her finger nails… shudders!! Little did I know that the films subsequent success would see me shooting ballet related portraits over the next couple of weeks.
 
First up, I got a call from M&C Saatchi, to shoot something to publicise Oranges sponsorship of the BAFTA ‘s. After an initial meeting and a list of possible celebrity champions, I found myself in a London Hotel with the lovely Rachel Stevens. The mission… to turn her into The Black Swan.
 
Once the team of hair, makeup and styling people had done their business, it was my turn. Unusually for me, I’d gone for a very elaborate studio setup (4 light’s and a 10ft colourama, which barley fitted in the car), which, retrospect probably added to Rachel’s trepidation. She had given birth a few weeks before, and I’m sure she would have preferred her first shoot; post pregnancy not to be dressed as a ballerina. “I haven’t worn one of these since I was 8!” she said as she walked in.
 

 
She needn’t have worried, she looked great and once I’d shown her a few pictures and built up some trust we had fun shooting a few different poses.
 
A week later and I was asked to rush to the Royal Opera House by The Independent on Sunday, this time for an interview with Lauren Cuthbertson, I had just enough time to familiarise myself with her work (which is stunning) before being dumped into a bland rehearsal room, as the Press Officer said “Lauren hasn’t got long”.. Uh Oh!!
 

 
It couldn’t have been more different from my job the week before, I barley had time to set up before Lauren walked in, not in her tights but in an elegant black dress (not what I was hoping for). I worked as quickly as I could, and tried to pose her in a way that showed her natural poise without it being a stereotypical ballet portrait. Read the article by Susie Mesure here.
 
Looking back, both portraits served their purpose but it did remind me that the execution of a photograph goes far beyond obvious cues… How would I pose a ballerina to look like a former member of a pop group?

You’re nobody in London if you’ve not got a Russian backer these days. Mine comes in the form of super trendy, Yota, a 4G wireless internet provider who took me out to St Petersburg last week to shoot some of their people and kit… Yep, Russians in the snow with their dongles!!
 
After two days shooting lifestyle and meeting their main man (who apparently has no intention of investing in Charlton Athletic). The final part of my brief was to cover ”Space” a digital arts festival, in a disused hypermarket.
 
It was pretty much a gathering of the top U.K digital artists Chris Levine, Jason Bruges and Shane Walter. Look here for a better explanation.
 
“immersive” is very much a buzz word in contemporary art and everything here was to some degree interactive. I particularly enjoyed the exhition by onedotzero.
 

 
The uber-trendy Russian art set spruced around the warehouse with their funny haircuts and inquiring looks, presumably as happy to get involved with the art as they were to stay out of the cold, it was -16
 

 
The opening day was rounded off by a performance from HotChip. After 15 minutes of arguing with security in the same slow, load English that my Dad uses when abroad, I managed to get into the pit and do my stuff.
 

 
Who says photographing technology isn’t culturally rewarding!!
 

I’ve been all over the world now for SAB Miller; In fact I think I’m probably the only Englishman that’s ever been to Peru twice without ever seeing Macchu Piccu. Before I went to Honduras all I knew about the place was that they were about as bad as England in the World Cup and they had a rather dubious government. Even it’s point on the map was a surprise. Central America always just seems to get a bit messy in my head. Here’s a map.
 
We started in San Pedro Sula, a disparate place with gated communities of rich people protecting their wealth from the poor over the wall, not completely unjustified though, apparently kidnapping is a popular pastime. First stop was the brewery, again I’ve been in lots of them now and my emphasis here was on the people who were genuinely pleased to try and unfathom the demands we placed upon them with mime.
 

 
A couple of days later we made it to the more their cosmopolitan capital with the coolest name in the world… Tegucigalpa! We visited bars, the typical kind that you’d imagine in any Central American country but it wasn’t until we left the city that we stumbled across a wooden beer shack which was more my type of joint. They loved us and we stayed for a few beers, I’d go back but it’s a bit far to be my local.
 

 
The final day saw us visit a school that was being sponsored for children that had been taken out of child labour. They were being taught how to grow crops sustainably along with more traditional studies. It was truly inspirational, I was given my own straw hat and they took us to the fields to see their crop. They had very little, but with the eagerness they worked the land you could tell it was done with pride.
 

 
That last day really made Honduras and it’s people stand out for me; and somehow I don’t see their football team as being quite so bad now.
 

This was cool, seriously cool… job’s like this one don’t come along everyday, so, I popped on my aviators and made my way to…. Battersea Heliport.
 

 
The job was commissioned by The Financial Times Wealth magazine, who asked me to photograph a review of an Augusta helicopter being flown between London and Paris. I’d never flown in a chopper before, but being an 80’s child visions of Airwolf induced hysteria on my part as it would any lad in his late 20’s.
 
We met our pilot, Charles, your typical ex-RAF, public school type, at the heliport and took two Augusta’s direct to Paris to allow me and a video crew to do air to air shots. It’s amazing that they gave us the opportunity to it but normally (apparently) air-to-air photography is done without the window on. That wasn’t the case in this bad boy though; the glass was about an inch thick which made hard work but secretly I was quite pleased it was there.
 

 
As we flew over Dover my stomach took a turn for the worse; and when Charles noticed he directed me to the brown bag in front of me. Don’t worry dear reader… I soldiered on and even managed to recover my appetite for lunch on the Champs-Élysées.
 
Back in the helicopter and my steak and chips didn’t seem like such a great idea and was compounded by the fact that everybody else was fine. Personally, I think it had something to do with being bounced up and down with a 300mm lens glued to my face, but to rest of them this was an excuse.
 
Darting back into London, the sky was clear and a beautiful sunset gave me easily my best pictures, safe in the knowledge I’d got it taped I focused on keeping my only souvenir… the lunch.
 

 
Guess I’m not ready for Airwolf just yet.

“You have been successful and your picture will be in the exhibition”
 
Surely not, I’m missing a stamp for Afghanistan in my passport! But as it happens, yes, I really did have a picture in The Press Photographers Year….(arts section)
 
I felt like one of those hapless fools on X factor. The truth is, I hadn’t been sure which category to put the picture in when I entered the competition, so it could have potentially won the sport action section… although, on reflection, probably not.
 

 
To be honest, I never really saw the point in photography competitions, how can you judge something so subjective… That said, I’d never done well in one and on opening night at the exhibition I felt a bit more comfortable with my glass of wine and photo on the wall.
 
The PPY is a competition organised in conjunction with the British Press Photographers Association. Having one of my pictures in the final edit meant that it was included on the PPY’s annual and got in the exhibition held at the National Theatre. See the full slideshow of results here.
 
The overall winner, a picture of Colonel Gadaffi, was taken by David Bebber of The Times, a great photographer who I had the pleasure of doing work experience with when I left college. A top guy and a fantastic exhibition. Thanks PPY.

After several VISA applications I finally got out to Delhi last week, albeit for less time than originally planned. Why the Indian high commission need so much information and make such a fuss over a business VISA that they charge £400 for I’ll never know.
 
So the 8 hour flight was followed by a 3 hour drive straight out to Radjasthan where SAB Miller (the beer company) have an outreach program. I felt awful. No sleep on the flight and the heat had given me a thumping headache and instead of staring out of the window to watch my romantic idea of India go by I just curled up to make the pain go away.
 
Water is a major problem in India, population exceeds 1 billion and there just isn’t enough to go around. 92% of water is used for agriculture and that was our focus as we went to some surrounding villages and looked at how they used it.
 

 
It was in the last village that I noticed a young woman and her son in a doorway; so while my guides were exchanging pleasantries I slipped off and shot this quick portrait, communicating with my rather accomplished style of Photographic charades.
 

 
We also visited the SAB brewery in Radjasthan, where the highlight was a skit to educate truck drivers on the spread of AIDS. Again, actions speak loader than words and the entertainment came in the form of the fellow below who managed to demonstrate the issues in Drag!!!
 

 
I wouldn’t have thought that Drag was culturally acceptable in India; but this guy, (who had the biggest hands in the world) seemed to carry it all off rather well. Especially as he played up to the camera, much to the enjoyment of the on looking truckers.
 
India is a fantastic country, held back by it’s climate, perpetuating an economic divide that is more obvious than anywhere I’ve ever been. Despite this the people are beautiful and warm. I can’t wait to go back.

“I haven’t been away for ages!” Then all of a sudden the phone rings and I’m off to Peru.
 
I’m not sure I’ll ever get over just how good my job can be, I refuse to be nonchalant about it too. It’s exciting and I don’t feel the need to pretend to be cool and take it all in my stride.
 
The job was a commercial shoot for SAB Miller who have to produce a sustainability report. So recycling centres and water purification was what I expected… but certainly not what I got.
 
After an internal flight from Lima to Trujillo in the North and a further 3 hours drive I stood on a decollate road as a dude on a motorbike shot past shouting “Hey Gringo!” I indeed was the only Gringo for miles, let alone the only ginger lad!
 
With my pale skin burning like bacon in a pan… (with the same smell too) I got on with my job, shooting Jorge’ a Maze farmer who has been helped by SAB to market his wares further afield and not to just exist on his crop which is no longer a viable option.
 

 
It was a short trip, and I certainly wasn’t a tourist by any stroke of the imagination, but I’d rather spend my time meeting the likes of Jorge than walking around Machu Picchu hoping for some divine enlightenment.
 
I’m off to India next week, so stay tuned for the latest adventure.

No posts for a while, it’s been really busy, and looks like it will be for a while yet. I’ve been covering the election on and off for the last few weeks, which is as much as I expected with my time leaning further towards commercial work.
 
My first encounter was with the big man; Gordon Brown where I covered a speech which was part of his campaign. He came to the Bloomberg offices in London and accompanied by Mandy and Darling got stuck into his economic manifesto.
 

 
That done he was taken into a studio where he was interviewed by a TV crew and where I was the only photographer. I sat a couple of meters away from him and once I had been told by his aides to stop rolling around on the floor, I took the opportunity to listen to our illustrious leader. I listened to the interview, he was ironclad, and I can’t really offer you anymore insight. But under the scrutiny of the financial media you could tell he really saw it as his arena; at one point Mandleson had to wrap it up because Gordon just wouldn’t stop taking questions.
 

 
Next stop, chocolate box Witney in Oxfordshire where I went to watch David Cameron vote. I had already drawn the best lot in that my colleagues were sent to Scotland and Sheffield for Gordon and Clegg respectively.
 
The couple of protestors were eventually removed from the roof of the polling station and as soon as they were Dave rolled up to vote and he wasn’t there for long. I thought I had stolen the show by turning up early and talking to a toff who lived in the thatched cottage opposite. I set up a remote camera from his bedroom window to do a lovely wide picture of Cameron going in and all the surrounding media, unfortunately it decided not to fire as soon as our would be PM rocked up.
 

 
Interesting fact; the Tory press officer bought out some tea for the photographers… It was Earl Gray.
Expecting that to be the end of my election coverage, I went to bed on Thursday looking forward to finding out who the new PM was. However our electorial system being what it is there was no clear winner and I found myself on Saturday in the middle of a scrum photographing Nick Clegg amidst a throng of protesters demanding proportional representation. He addressed them from the top of some steps with hero like status.
 

 
Tomorrow is going to be a hell of a day I’m sure, it’ll be interesting to see if Clegg can maintain his popularity if he does a tory deal. I’m pretty certain that his would be 26% of the proportional vote might be a little bit upset if it transpired that they had voted Conservative.

Happy Easter,
 
It’s been a funny old week, and consequently it’s quite hard to pick my favourite picture from the past seven days. In terms of the most fun, I really enjoyed shooting these guys from circus act Trash City, part of the London circus festival, who have developed a big following from the festivals, hanging around the trees in Glastonbury dressed as Vampires.
 

 
Sadly, that pic never got used, which I’m certain will prompt a phone call from a very disappointed PR on Tuesday morning. Then there was the Saturday morning chase around London to find a decent looking “spring” picture. That involved getting up at 5am and when the rest of you were curled up in bed I was wandering around Richmond park in the rain photographing Cherry Blossom. Not the best picture in the world, but the desk were happy with it, and in terms of page real estate they don’t come much bigger than a double page spread.
 

 
Not a bad week on the whole, I’m quite lucky. I read this piece on ethics in photojournalism in the week and it made me think about the state of the industry and how ethical I am. I’ll hold that thought and write about it here again next week.

Last week I got a great picture used on the front of the FT that I shot last year amidst all the hoo-hah about the T5 expansion. But file pictures don’t last forever and when my picture editor at The Independent said “you might have to sharpen your elbows for Heathrow on Saturday”, I knew that meant a long trudge around Hatton Cross (Mecca for news photographers and plane spotters alike).
 

 
I started off with a trip to the terminal for a sneaky pic of the departures lounge, technically trespassing, but that makes it all the more exciting… If it lasts more than 3 frames that is, at which point I was stopped by security. I played the “sorry, I didn’t know” card and left feeling like a naughty schoolboy.

Next stop the picket, where I was welcomed by an army of cheery middle class cabin crew who directed me in stereotypical style to Demo HQ (a bar). A 1970’s miners strike it was not, with soot exchanged for duty free Chanel the picket seemed to develop a party atmosphere as the day dragged on. According to BA, 60% of staff turned up for work, obviously worried about losing their travel benefit. On the whole, I reckon the remainder had a nice day out opting to bring their kids for a ride on the Unite open top minibus, bless. Read the story on The Independent on Sunday website, here.

 
Two hours on and here’s the result, Rover was already standing on the Willie Walsh cut out… honest, guv.