He's just the loveliest bloke and you can't help but feel great when someone so gifted and just NICE gets recognised at the Grammys. I thought it was all a bit mainstream for what he does and I'm happy to say I was wrong. Justin is a photographer too and knew all about the Canon 85mm f1.2 I was hosing on our shoot, which was honestly a tad unsettling. Many congratulations sir (if you're reading this which I doubt very much).
Field Music in a caff in The Fly in February issue
Tea was 60p. I got to shoot Field Music at bloody last after loving them for what feels like, at least like, months. Possibly longer. Nice chaps and very much at home in a North London caff. Cheers!
Chairlift in Feb Fly
That is something special, you ain't wrong Fly Mag. Caroline is incredible to shoot and the kind of subject one wishes for constantly in life.
Speech feature shot
Speech feature in The Fly. Nice tone, thanks to Ross Shields. He da man.
NOW THAT'S A FEATURE SPREAD THAT IS.
Love that. Loads. Pulled Apart By Horses - smashing a crowd to fuck in a sweatpit, barn, field, enormodome near you very soon.
Feb contents page. Cold and clean with Speech Debelle
She's so awesome. Went on about it previously so won't repeat myself but a great shoot with a killer artist down at Ninja Tunes.
Pulled Apart By Horses February 2012
Latest Fly mag with the devastatingly huge PABH. Just the perfect shoot. Great drive up, fun shootings in their own environment, nailed it exactly as planned, so you know, a success. 112000 copies winging their way nationally today. Boomtown.
Lovely shoot at Central St Martins
Loads more but this one broadly tells the story I thought. Anyway, a nice couple of hours spent wandering the fashion course in the new beautifully lit building of Central St Martins in Kings Cross, the school that heralds many a successful protege of course, look 'em up. They're working on a first rate brief for the British Horseracing Authority, hence my wonderfully unbridled free rein. Ahem.
Horrors for Agenda magazine
Possibly my favourite shoot from last year - The Horrors photographed on their studio rooftop for the incredible Skying LP. Agenda in Belgium saw the shots and asked me to splash it on their mag cover (in support of their tour). I of course happily said yes and am really pleased with their stylish usage. What a smug GIT.
Noah poster gets Oldham love
And it was on that big screen on the Graham Norton show, uh huh. Yup.
RB and UB in JA
Bit of a contrast to last time I was in JA shooting the old school of reggae greats, those remaining dons that pretty much invented the sound. Nice to be back though, especially when shooting the fastest man to ever have walked the planet.
Usain Bolt (plus beard) for Virgin Media
An incredible opportunity to head to Jamaica and shoot stills of Usain Bolt filming an ad for Virgin Media, with Sir Richard Branson in a supporting role. Haven't seen the final cut yet but the shoot was really funny and a really enjoyable experience (not always the case when shooting stills on video shoots) and almost needless to say, Usain is the coolest man on a very cool island. And he rides around on a quad bike.
Rumer in Mojo
Grabbed from the side of the stage, I shot this through what felt like a letterbox in amongst the rigging and all sorts. No pit access required an increase in creative shooting which turned out to be no bad thing - once extra access had been gained of course. Lovely usage in Mojo, a handsome spread indeed.
Speech Debelle LP no.2 cometh forthwith
4 set ups in 30 mins. Blazing into 2012 with a scorching shoot rate, yeah. Some of them looked pretty nice too, pheweeeee. All the everything on Speech here, welcome back.
Spector look cool, huh.
Forgot to mention where to view the new mag if you can't get your mitts on one of the multi-covered hardcopy gems - right here. Listen to this while you're at it maybe, by contrast.
So the bloody brilliant Fly magazine has properly pushed the boat out with 6 different covers this month. I shot them (I'm delighted to say) and they introduce some great new acts to the year. Good luck all of 'em, because we had a great time shooting and once again - how we did this from concept to delivery date I don't know. The design looks great but I thought I'd show you either cover or feature favourites. Went for a desat, crunched look on different colours so they looked individual but of a sequence too. Beauty dish and Octa fill. Thanks to Tom Bunning for doggedly seeing it through, cheers mate. Also shot 5 features this issue too, so a poor neglected household was mine in December. Me me me. Zulu Winter herebtw, cool guys and smart too.
Zulu Winter nestle among the 6 covers for January Fly 2012
Shot in the courtyard and not at Shoreditch Studios unfortunately, so we froze together and loved together in the barren wastelands of East London. Future snappers of Outfit - they will do anything you want. I wanted something fairly straight and direct to introduce these chaps but acrobatics and man love are all achievable. I'll show you sometime. Anyway, here'sOutfit's vid.
Outfit for the cup! Fly 2012
Tribes are there too
Bless their ruff n'tumble ways. They had just won an award AND it was Friday afternoon so chances were good that they'd pretty up for a shoot. And they were, a bit too much at times. There were many other shots but the actual, usable, appropriate frames where everyone was doing something co-ordinated, focussed and suitable were few. But that's fine. Tribes, if you didn't already know.
Django Django for Fly (x6)
Probably bad to have a favourite but they were mine. Great fun at Shoreditch Studios with this bunch, happy to get behind a simple idea and make it work in their way. Tommy (bottom left) is one of those guys that makes me laugh whether he means to or not. Sorry Tommy.More here.
John McCririck, post-makeover...
Well played John.