So. Iris Experience called and asked 'Fancy shooting human paintball with the world's best footballers kicking paint covered footballs at kids in white boilersuits for Adidas?' 'Um yeah ok' I replied in a nanosecond. It was messy. Van Persie, Kaka, Nani (and Tom Oldham) loved every second of it.
Tribes, 4 blokes from Camden who look about as at home on the beach in Brighton as I do in Camden. Here's theirspace, so do give 'em a click. Light held kindly by Ben at The Fly, FYI.
Great to see the legendary fruity backdrop splashed across the London Evening Standard this week, with the very excellent Yuck nestling amongst it. A good couple of days for tearsheets.
Nice full page shot used in Shortlist from a lovely shoot I did with NaTW a wee while ago. Stoked to see it used so big as I loved these shots at the time and still do.
Lovely to be asked to shoot a portrait of the legend that is Jag Hunjan. I hope one day when older and greyer I'll be able to just stay at home and wonderful looking people will grace my lights and lens and it'll be a tad more relaxing than today. But equally as much fun.
So VM won this most prestigious of awards for the Speed of Light event, celebrating ten years of broadband in the UK. Lasers by UVA and photography by Tom Oldham. Creative Review obviously loved it and scoring a DPS with my shot was a proud moment for me, I have to tell you. Well I don't have to, but the unrelenting nature of self-promotion demands that I at least shout about it on here.
New Fly magazine is out, with lovely portraits with Smith Westerns, Mona, Wild Beasts and of course the very excellent Friendly Fires. Welcome back chaps.
We actually hired a bona fide ice cream van who kept em comin' while we shot. It was ace of course. I'd like to have them on other non-ice cream themed shoots from now on.
Their perfect songs, beautifully performed to a very warm audience. 500ISO, F1.4 at 125th. Thanks for wearing a light, y'get me?
Three minutes with Tim in between jobs. Virgin Limo Bikes, love them.
He owns the same camera and lens set up as I was using for this, (Canon 5D MK2 w/85mm f1.2) which is always quite intimidating. However, the sun shone, the feel was right, we chatted kit, I hosed the most minimal of depths of field and got this result and many more winners too. Justin is a fascinating chap, and the new Bon Iver LP drops in June.
Battles mean it.
Kenyan Stephen did it in less than 3 hours, including his 3 (count 'em 3) toilet breaks. More about Virgin Unite here, the charity arm of the Virgin Group. A great fun team and high spirits all day.
Do you know about Ministry of Stories in Hoxton St? It's a creative writing project with a great vibe and the young journalist participants there are producing a newspaper called Hoxton A.M. which is due to hit the streets (well, Hoxton St) at the end of next week. The MoS is this wonderful idea inspired by Dave Eggers who's work I truly admire, Nick Hornby has set up the UK version and I'm very, very proud and excited to be volunteering there and shooting some features for their paper. You can help too. It's ace.
Rest and Be Thankful, near Witchampton. A welcome sight, even if not on foot.
2nd album due. Albatross hear here. Love it.
Loads of punchy light, 11 set ups in one afternoon, perfect varied location. Felt like I was back home.
A beautiful sunny day in Dorset, in the village of my junior school to shoot portraits for Pretty Green with Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury at his lovely homestead. Nick is a genuinely supercool guy with a healthy interest in electronic music, I"m delighted to report.Thanks to Nic Rand for his lighting skills and running about in blazing heat. Results above...
They are very young and very cool and sound bloody lovely. Respect I say. More here.
And as a member and their photo guy, I went down and shot some portraits of the ambassadors. It was fun. I won't explain now why Luc Le Corre of Chorus and Echo is holding a Homer crunk juice container but there is a reason and it makes good sense, I assure you. More about the CVTF500 here.