I met some great characters as part of an advertising campaign for the wealth management arm of Oury Clark. They were all actors who were totally up for acting out the humorous stories that the art directors at 3Flow Creative had written for them.
Although I have continued to work throughout the whole coronavirus pandemic (whilst complying with government guidelines), a lot of my clients have been working from home so shooting on location with them has been tricky. Luckily I have been able to use my home and garden to help out as I previously mentioned.
For that shoot I had to photograph a shoe, comp the shoe on to a stock shot of a leg and then repeat for the dorsi flexed or plantar flexed stages of taking a step during walking – can you tell I don’t know what I’m talking about? Luckily I had some experts from my client on hand to advise!
The image was for the front cover of the latest Halo Medical catalogue, which looks like this thanks to the good folk at Remember Creative:
How did you spend the Lockdown? I spent it looking up – not in a life affirming, positive way, but quite literally looking up – at the skies above me. Living under the Heathrow flightpath this would normally result in seeing loads of planes, but with air travel severely curtailed there was so much more to see; birds, clouds, helicopters, moons, super moons, and more clouds.
Imagine being born in 1918, shot in the stomach during WWII, held as a Prisoner Of War, accused of being a spy, suffering malnutrition and nearly losing the use of your legs, being in Dresden when the Allies bombed it, escaping across the border, returning to the town you’ve lived your whole life, ringing church bells since you were 11 years old, receiving the Order Of St Mellitus from the Bishop Of London, receiving the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, being mentioned in the House Of Commons by the Prime Minister, and finally packing up driving…at the age of 100!
Meet Dennis…
Now I’m used to photographing in very small places, as my project on bellringers will attest, but when I agreed to photograph artist Mr Mr Pearce in his studio on Johnson’s Island, I didn’t realise that it wasn’t much bigger than a desk, and had all the usual artist paraphernalia inside including a lot of his artworks (obviously).
I’ll be honest I’ve never really understood why someone would want to dress up and pretend to be someone else so when a (last minute) opportunity to photograph the inaugural Icons Of Rock festival in Surrey presented itself I jumped at the chance to find out. The festival was a line up of Tribute Acts to famous musicians; Limehouse Lizzy (Thin Lizzy), Michael (Jackson) starring Ben, Absolute Bowie, The Illegal Eagles, Live/Wire (AC/DC) and Killer Queen.
How brave are you? Would you recommend that someone attend an anger management course? What if that someone was holding an axe? That’s what a former boss suggested to my latest subject Clay – before he left and set up his own business – as a tree surgeon, hence the axe. His leaving was more to do with paperwork and the safety ‘elf than anger management though.
Despite how that sounds Clay is a remarkably mild mannered man and a bell ringer at the local church in his spare time. He also lives in this beautiful old listed cottage in the heart of Surrey.
Why would grown ups get up at 4am, strap some bells to their shins, and head to a hill in Surrey to wave hankies and bash sticks? Probably because they were members of the Ewell St Mary’s Morris Men and were participating in their annual dance event to “Greet The Sun” on May Day morning. It was a mixture of intrigue, and a rash promise to a magazine editor, that made me get up even earlier and head to Box Hill to capture some portraits of the Morris Men as the sun came up at 5:34!
It was pitch black when I arrived to set up my gear, but I had packed a head torch and had done a reccé of the hillside a couple of days before to work out the best spot for the portraits. Initially I was alone but then I heard what I thought were goats, only to realise that it was the bell clad Morris Men making their way down from the car park!
It was very misty on the day and we were on the shadow side of the hill so the sunlight wasn’t around for long but there were some interesting skies and I was able to get these portraits.
It’s amazing what you find on little islands. I met Max A Hatter on Johnson’s Island in West London; he makes hats in a very small studio, at the top of a spiral staircase (I seem to be sending a lot of time in small rooms at the top of spiral staircases!) Max was introduced to me by Tim at Clement Knives, who I photographed on a nearby island making chef’s knives.
Max’s hats are really quite unique; based on a bowler style but with influences from Sapeurs and Yardies, and with a Turbanesque – a detachable padding or turban, which is used for position and comfort.
Campanologists that’s who! The sound of church bells ringing out is a part and parcel of town and village life in England, but how many people have seen inside a bell ringing chamber? My latest project involved creating portraits of bell ringers in their ringing chambers, which seemed like a good idea until I saw the steps I’d need to climb to gain access (and yes that’s my foot on the top step – and no I don’t have big feet!):
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