Factory

I am pleased that my project 'Factory' has been selected to be shown at the Exposure Exhibition as part of the Format Photography Festival and Biennial to be held in Derby next month (March 2013).

Below are the images, showing portraits of Ex (rescued) Caged Hens AND Free Range Hens.  (The montage is mainly 'free range' hens.)  I was shocked to discover some of these in a worst stage than the caged hens.

The last image, the healthy looking hen, is NOT a factory farmed hen and surprisingly is a city hen living on a rooftop in Dalston at Farm Shop.

First Person Shoot for FT Weekend Magazine

I was recently commissioned by The Financial Times Weekend Magazine to shoot  portrait for the First Person Page.

Off I went down to Heathrow Airport to meet Gurkiran Singh Mann whose street has been overtaken by avid plane spotters.  

Here is how the image looked in the magazine.  It was published on Saturday.

Music men in Mexico......

In Mexico City I began a little portraiture project based upon the 'music men' of Mexico, below are 2 of my favourites.
Mariachi portraits to follow......

Yak

I have been shooting lots of personal work of late and this is an edit from one of my recent portrait sessions.

My old friend Yak has been undergoing treatment for throat cancer. I shot him a few weeks after his operation to remove the cancer.
He has since been through chemo and radiation therapy which ended with the all clear in April.

Yak has been in front of my camera lens many times (I always used to be with camera - Nan Goldin stylee - when I was younger) but I hadn't seen him for years before this session.
Our lives went in separate directions but we were very close during my late teenage years and early 20's and I'll always hold his friendship close to my heart.

Paul O Grady

A few weeks ago I shot Paul O'Grady at the Hilton Hotel by Tower Bridge in London. This shoot was lots of fun, it was so great to meet Paul and hear his stories (of which there are many!)

We slated the Pope's visit, talked Gay rights, and voiced our disgust at the cuts set to happen under the new Government! Don't get me started!......

.....Oh, we also had lots of laughs.....

Gok Wan out-takes

Here are the out-takes from my shoot with Gok Wan a while back.......

Happy Gays! - The shots

Here are some of the portraits from the Attitude 'Happiness' feature.....

A day with the animals

Yesterday I spent some time with the following fellows.......This was just a test run for some ideas I have to build on my Animal Portfolio. I have also been shooting tons of horses recently too which I will post up soon.

The pigs were scary by the way, they have sharp teeth and as the farmer told me, they have a nasty bite. The farmer wasn't actually there but he said I was free to jump in the pen with them. Everytime they grunted at me, i was expecting an attack but it seems they were only interested in chewing stones and thankfully, i don't resemble a stone.

And watch this space for well styled portraits, the first one to be featuring Ollie the Owl....



look at those gnarly teeth! you wouldn't want that going for you!








The goats were highly entertaining - they didn't seem to mind me jumping in their enclosure at all and in fact took advantage of having me around to rub against. It seems they get itchy and i make a fine scratching post. Who knew?!!

Happy Gays!

I shot a series of Portraits for the August Issue of Attitude Magazine. The theme is Happy Gays and the guys range from age 17 -60 and all have adorable stories about why and what makes them happy.
It makes such a change for a magazine article to feature regular people talking about why they are happy, I found it quite refreshing.
I'm also at a stage in my life where I'm finding a lot of happiness in the small, yet ever so important things around me, so it was nice to reflect on that and think about the things that are making me feel content at the moment.

Robert Farrar

I recently shot Robert Farrar, a playwright who has written novels, stories and songs for radio, TV, cinema and stage.
It was great to shoot Robert.
We wanted to portray the anxiety of reading the Review pages and hoping for good critiques....
Robert really got into the role, although I hope he doesn't spend every Saturday morning in such a state!

Behind The Scenes on my shoot with Lotan The Stripper

And here are some of the behind the scenes from my shoot with Lotan.
Lots of Police milling about in the background and a very interested passer by stopping to watch.

Luckily the Police didn't catch us out. I have a feeling, since the Queen was in residence and we shot during the changing of the guard, they might not have been too impressed. I asked a Policeman before we started shooting if they would object to a bit of nakedness but he said it could be seen as disrespectful to the Queen.
Personally, I would like to think that perhaps the Queen might have liked it, I mean something has to float her boat and it makes a change from boring tourists with cameras.

Oh and we had some interest in the park as well!

Donal Coonan

Donal Coonan is an actor, writer and presenter, who is most notable for presenting Channel 4's web show 'This is a Knife'
Below are some out-takes from my recent shoot with Donal. He is currently working on a comedy sketch where he dresses up as a jockey so we thought it would be quite amusing to have some 'horses' chasing after him......