Winter swimming

I photographed the lovely writer and swimmer Ella Foote in the river Thames, near Marlow. Ella swims outdoors regularly, and had recently completed "Dip a Day December" for charity, despite the cold and grey. 

At 7.30am I was already cold, despite my four layers.

Before the shoot, I had in my mind a bleak, peaceful solitude as the tone. Bare trees, mist and dark water. Although presence and solitude were very much the mood, Ella is a much smilier and relaxed person than these images convey.

It would have taken me ten painful minutes to do this. Ella is so used to it; she might as well have been getting out of bed.

I'd been hoping for - counting on - mist, but this requires a greater difference between the air temperature and water. I thought I'd play around in photoshop how it might have looked with mist, and was surprised how realistic it looked, given I was working from nothing. I used a technique from the wonderful Phlearn.

I wanted to shoot remotely, with my camera on a monopod over the water - there was no way I'd be going in. It didn't work from the off - I needed to see through the viewfinder. I could have shot tethered, but this might have slowed things down more, and it was so cold (for both of us!) there wasn't a lot of time for the shoot.

The sunrise was beautiful, but shooting any later would have been too backlit and the trees would have burned out.

From the archives - three

2017 in pictures

Here are some of my favourite shots taken in 2017. As many have already appeared - one of the drawbacks of blogging regularly - I'm including some background this time around.

I'll start with a shot which wasn't even taken last year, but was under embargo until then. Nor is it a shot which will change the direction of photography, but I've included it as it was one of those simple portraits where you go with what you have. One of a series shot for Pfizer to accompany a video, we had a small space, zero props, limited furniture - but then with a little expression, the photo works out. It sits better as part of the series.

One of a number of portraits for the Toyota Mobility Foundation, our original plan here was to shoot near here in Shad Thames, in that lovely narrow cobbled lane, with its walkways and sense of history. On arrival, however, we found the street swamped in bright, ugly barriers and garish signage for some ongoing and ghastly repairs. So we used the riverside, and although Tower Bridge was a bit obvious - I'd emphatically NOT wanted to use it - for our purposes it (grudgingly) photographed ok.

I'd recently bought a ~30cm circular mini-diffuser (a disc, basically, which fits over the flash) which I used here for the first time. I wanted something quick and portable, yet not susceptible to pulling down stands - as umbrellas are wont to do - in the slightest of breezes. The disc gives a fairly soft light for the tradeoff, although it is a bit of a faff to attach securely. Anyway, it helps a very flat lighting situation. I had it close, just out of shot, which softened it further and meant I could keep an eye (and a foot, for security) on the stand.

Technically this is a few years old but appeared in my blog this year. I love shooting top-end performance, where costumes and lighting complement the extreme skill and dedication of the dancers to make great images. The slightest imperfections really show with this kind of photography, and so when everything is exactly as it should be and everyone is perfectly in time, it makes all the difference in the world. 

This was a simple campaign portrait, which I've included only because I was pleased at how well the colours of clothing & hair worked together, despite there being no guidance.

Jewellery, Cutlery and Glass make up the unholy trinity of really difficult things to photograph, and I have always avoided them when they've come up in the product photography requests which I get from time to time. These bottle shots, however, were a small part of a wider lifestyle series, much more up my street.  

This kind of work is first and foremost science, requiring precision, patience, some logic, common sense and attention to detail. None of which are my strong points. Glass is mainly about lighting - specifically, not lighting the glass - and while the physics of light is quite simple in theory, it's quite the infuriating opposite in practice. With this kind of work, you really have to know what you're doing and understand the approach and its principles. But with a lot of reading up, watching YouTube tutorials and practising beforehand and, later, work in PS, I managed to do a reasonable job on these.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that while these are decent product photographs, they are probably dreadful Product Photographs (and I'm ok with that). 

You know you're struggling for locations when you find yourself on the roof..! I'd made the fatal mistake of browsing what others had done around the National Theatre with it's lovely concrete and soft shadows (hard and graphic on bright days), and had utterly failed to use the environment satisfactorily for my own efforts, so we kept moving. Finally we ended up here, in front of the Fly Tower at the top of the NT. As in, if this doesn't work then there's nowhere else to go. 

Actually, it's one I think could work and I'd like to shoot again, but on a longer lens and further back, so the subject is framed more tightly by the grey facade behind. Or maybe try harder to make the most out of the indoor options. Or not as hard. I don't know.

A product image for Fruitflow, included here only because it was shot on my kitchen table. I don't know why this fact makes me happy. 

Photographed for the charity Sense, who help people with complex communication needs, this was a workshop collaboration with Wayne MacGregor Dance. 

Often, a corporate portrait means a headshot on a white background. Lighting tends to be conservative, so the focus is on getting the right expression and mood. 

Environmental/location portraits are, of course, more interesting, and I liked this shot. Being further back normally helps the subject to relax, and although the arms could be read as defensive - rather than confident, which would negate this - it's a simple way to break up the picture. With her arms at her side you'd have a large part of the photo taken up by the dead space of her light, plain shirt, as well as having her hands right at the edge of frame. 

I'd discussed the lighting and space issues with this at length in my blog, but have included it here on its merit regardless as a pretty successful group photo. It was hard to envisage how or even if ~40 people would fit into this shot without it becoming a mess. I can usually imagine up to ten fitting into a location, then it's all shrugs and crossed fingers. 

My recurring photographer's dream - well, nightmare, really - is of a group photo that never quite gets taken, as various people wander off, cameras stop working, and endless interruptions and delays prevent what should otherwise be something straightforward happening, but gets worse and worse. A rising crescendo of stress and chaos, before waking. 

It's pleasant, then, when in reality, a potentially tricky large group somehow comes together!   

Your mind begins to wander when you're covering an event. Shortly after you've got all the 'safe shots', there's a moment when realise you haven't taken a photo in a few minutes. Some might call it creativity. To others, it's just messing around.

It usually results in (completely irrelevant) zoom bursts, shooting through bottles of water on the tables, looking for weird compositions and ultra-tight crops, even looking for reflections in attendees' glasses. Most of these shots get deleted straight away, but occasionally you get something that works, and that might be useful for the client.

Or perhaps the flash just failed to go off on this shot and the resulting silhouette was a happy accident - I can't remember. 

I love her hair. Nothing more to say.

Retouching... I couldn't work out what needed to be done with this, let alone envisage where I'd further like to take it. So I just played around in PS but without any real goal in mind. So it feels unfinished, not quite there, and slightly fraudulent as it's outside my normal style anyway. I'm certain I'll come back to it at some point. 

Hindsight is 20/20, and in this case my immediate thought is that I'd have added another gelled rim light to the left for symmetry if I were to do it again, but that's not actually my main issue. For any shot which relies on perspective, I'm never sure if I've got the best one. Should I be closer to the subject for impact? Or have both of us move further back (behind me), using more of the tunnel? Should we be lower to the ground (crouching or similar) adding a vertical aspect to the shot? Or perhaps just have me shooting lower to emphasise dominance? Should he be further away - do I always have the subject too dominant in the frame?

Yes, it would have been possible to try these variations - and perhaps we did try a few - but at the cost of precious seconds or minutes spent on each. So you often go with your instinct and return to the one you think works best. Which could be the shot you feel is safest. This, then, becomes your style, as you reassure yourself each time it was the right one. But the problem with having a certain style is that it can be limiting. Is 'best' the same as 'safest'? How can you continue to work on a shot which makes you feel uncomfortable, knowing that a different approach - often the straightforward one - works?

I didn't have much of a plan going into this parkour shot, other than I wanted to heavily light it, and darken the (busy) backgrounds both out of necessity and aiming for drama. But to get an action shot (at least, the ones I'd have liked to capture) would require more precise lighting than there was time for. 

So it became something very static, rather defeating what the sport is about! When she posed, looking at camera, it just didn't work at all. We came up with the idea that she's readying herself - well, planning, at least, by her expression - to jump, and it turns out that potential energy isn't too bad a tradeoff for kinetic.

This was a straight portrait of another parkour practitioner taken shortly after - I just like the colours and basic setup after the (over?)complexity, stress and scrabbling around involved in the previous shot.

War Horse was on tour, and this is your typical PR photo to announce his visit to Brighton. Bright and sunny, I stopped it right down to darken the sky, and if you can partly obscure the sun, you get the starburst effect. I then used two 600EX flashes from the right on full (or nearly full) power to light Joey (horse) and the person's face, with a third flash lighting Joey's body. There may have been a fourth filling in from the left, but it doesn't look like it's doing much.

A silhouette might have been another option, but it didn't work as it the shape was too busy. We also tried Joey rearing but this didn't work either as we lost his face, the eyeline connection with the person holding him, and it also looked rather messy with bodies etc.

Despite Joey being a model, you still look at his eye first, and that led the approach to the picture. 

Lighting is key in dance, not only to emphasise motion and shape, but because there needs to be enough of it to freeze the action. Breakdance is fast and unpredictable, and getting decent shots of people spinning around on their heads are as much luck as judgement, in low light. Freezes and other gestures, as above, are much easier. In other words, I was being lazy.

As with the parkour image, a pause at the height, or moment of change in an action, can be enough. On his own, a shot of just the guy in centre really would be a bit lazy and missing real action, but the gesture of guy in the background just saves it.

I hope that was of interest. See you next near!

Toyota Mobility Foundation

The Toyota Mobility Foundation has launched a $4 million dollar global challenge to change the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis, culminating in the unveiling of the winners in Tokyo in 2020.

The competition is is looking for teams around the world - including startups - to create game-changing technology that will help radically improve the mobility and independence of people with paralysis. The mobility solutions of the future could include anything from exoskeletons to artificial intelligence and machine learning, from cloud computing to batteries.

Artist Yinka Shonibare MBE, photographed at his studio in Dalston. He is perhaps best known for his 1:30 scale model, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle, which occupied Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth for two years in 2010.

To raise awareness of the competition, volunteers from around the world (including athletes, presenters, scientists and artists) with lower-limb paralysis acted as spokespeople. 

I was commissioned to source, commission and liaise with photographers from various countries and create a brief in order to produce a stylistically consistent set of portraits. I was also to photograph the two London representatives, Yinka Shonibare and Sophie Morgan.

Head of Design and Research at Pinterest, August de los Reyes. Photographed at Pinterest head office in San Fransisco by Brooke Porter (www.brookeporterphotography.com)

Finding the photographers began with asking for recommendations and referrals, googling, searching agencies and skimming databases, and browsing scores of websites to find people with a roughly similar approach and portfolio. Narrowing them down based on their availability at short notice and, of course, budget, I presented these to the client for the final decision.

Dealing with my own, separate commissions alongside dealing with correspondence from various time zones meant late nights and early mornings, as well as lengthy, rather chaotic spreadsheets - something I've never had to deal with. And lots of coffee.

Preethi Srinivasan (founder of Soulfree) photographed near Bangalore, India by Boban James (www.bobanjames.com).

In a nutshell, the brief was to provide two portraits of each person: one full-length, wide shot to show their environment, locating them within their country or region, otherwise at a place which might suggest their profession or background; the other was to be a closer crop, with the emphasis on them and their expression (positive, challenging etc.) at, ideally, a different location. Lighting was to be simple, minimal to none where possible.

To maintain consistency, I did the basic retouch work on the selected RAW files myself which was extremely generous of the photographers to allow.

Dr Rory Cooper Ph.D, photographed by Angelo Merendino (www.angelomerendino.com). Dr Cooper is FISA & Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Chair and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology, and professor of Bioengineering, Physical Med & Rehab, and Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

In the end, and despite best intentions and plans - as is often the case - some of it came down to what the photographers could do on the ground, what they could use to tell the story in the (usually short) time available from whatever relevant/photogenic locations they had in the vicinity. Mostly the time and location were dictated by the busy schedules of the volunteers and photographers, rather than by the best light or ideal spot. But you wouldn't know! - I think they did a superb job, and the launch was a great success.

Paralympian rower Sandra Khumalo at Victoria Lake Rowing Club in Germiston, Johannesburg. Photographed by Ilan Godfrey (www.ilangodfrey.com).

So, happy with the results (and slightly baffled as to how I got it done), I have now have on file fifty or so photographers around the world I could contact should this come up again - a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet. If only I could remember where I filed it...

Presenter, reporter, artist and model Sophie Morgan, photographed near Tower Bridge, London.

Corporate work

Here's a selection of business portraits and similar. Yes, they're nearly all corporate headshots against a light or white background. I'd normally not post these kinds of pictures but the first one I shot yesterday and felt it had a bit of personality to it which I quite liked. One headshot not being enough to justify a post, I found myself browsing others from the past year or so which stood out, and here they are. 

Recent work - October 2017

Here's another selection of images taken over the past few months. There's something about taking commissioned work out of context and with less explanation than with a typical blog post, and putting them into these 'mixed bag' posts. Especially those shots may have come from larger series, but which would have been picked here as being the most interesting, the most representative of the set etc. Without some blog-type explanation, they could be anything, so you can see them on their own merits rather than as the usual (and rather boring-sounding), "examples of commissioned work". 

Pfizer - Protecting our Heroes

I shot portraits to accompany the video made for pharmaceutical company Pfizer at Centrestage Studios, Angel, about the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, "Protecting Our Heroes."

It made for some touching stills on set:

And some individual portraits, too:

Campaign portraits

Occasionally I'll send photos directly to a designer or retoucher straight from camera. Here are a couple of recent portraits to be used in an upcoming campaign.

They will likely be cropped to simple headshots and left on a white background, so while normally I wouldn't do any editing myself on these (especially as it wasn't required), I rather liked them and so had a play around with the background to make them presentable.

Wyborowa vodka

I shot a range of lifestyle & location images of Polish Wódka Wyborowa for use in their social media:

Vauxhall animation

Vauxhall put together a stop-frame animation about the typical frustrations drivers experience for their new Mokka. (Above) I photographed our model running through the gamut of expressions. Then (below) from every angle:

(Below) We then covered dozens of gestures and reactions as sequences, both left-handed and right-handed, with different expressions. 

(Below) BTS:

Tanguera

One of the posters currently around London advertising the show at Sadler's Wells. 

My original image, and (below) another from the set.

Take your parents to work

I had the great privilege of running my own photography/Instagram stall at Facebook's first "Take your parents to work" day. I gave visitors pointers on photography, helped them understand the IG app, and edited a few pictures.

Questions ranged from, "What is Instagram?" to "Why don't I look nice in photos?" - as well as the ubiquitous, "How can I get more followers?" (which was my question). It was a lot of fun!  

Recent work - June 2017

Here's a collection of (mostly) recent shots:

For this portrait, I used the Magmod gobo to create a window light. Really lovely bit of kit!

A quick portrait for the charity Sense, who were working with Wayne McGregor dance at their new studios at the Olympic park.

Product photography for Fruitflow, a natural supplement which improves blood flow.

Noma Dumezweni, who plays Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, wins best actress at the Mousetrap Awards.

Shot for The Times, there weren't many options for this portrait of an entrepreneur. They wanted him photographed outside next to some goalposts. Sadly, the goals were half-size and we only had a few minutes before the kids' teams took over the pitch. We did what we could, but it quickly turned into the photographer's (dreaded) "Man in a Field" situation, which I obliged but - well, let's just say there won't be a blog post about this shoot. As the saying goes, "I don't want excuses -I want pictures."

Roy G. Biv and all that. Apparently, Isaac Newton added the indigo (previously they used to think there were three colours, then five, then six in a rainbow). And nobody knew what a rainbow was until the 17th century. The Greeks thought rainbows were a path created by the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, linking us to the immortals. Anyway, there aren't three, five, six or seven colours, but millions, all blending into one another.

Mannequins (female)

Mannequins, again. And for no particular reason. It's not a personal project, it's not a statement and I offer no commentary or explanation. I just find them interesting. Here are the ladies (the men are here). 

Scott Reid

Line of Duty actor Scott Reid

Huawei - The New Aesthetic

At the end of 2016, MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture, Jewellery and MA Industrial Design students at Central Saint Martin's College were tasked with a brief to create new accessories for the brand, based around the concept of "The New Aesthetic". The winner and runner-up designs were developed into models and showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to coincide with the launch of Huawei's P10 phone.

David Kim, Huawei Brand Director, introduces the brief and gives a background to the company. Not so well-known here, yet Huawei is the world's 3rd largest smartphone vendor, after Samsung and Apple.

Two design masterclasses followed later from Mark Delaney, Head of Huawei London Design Centre, and Abi Brody - formerly of Apple, PayPal and eBay - who is Chief Designer + VP at Huawei Consumer.

In February, students presented their ideas in front of the panel of judges from Huawei and CSM.

The winning design - Spectra - is a necklace which scans colours and textures, transforming them into sounds.

The user can "collect" sounds to create a kind of music as a way to document their experiences of a place.

The entries are debated until late in the afternoon, and the winning team announced.

The winners - Spectra.

S.H.O.K.K.

Portraits of DJ Claudio Pettannice of S.H.O.K.K. 

Battle

I came across one of these online the other day so dug out some more - they're from a dance competition a while back with a variety of styles for each battle, including Krump, Breakdance, Tutting, Boogaloo and House:  

Ashburton

Staff portraits for Ashburton Investments:

Victoria Jeffrey

Actress & writer Victoria Jeffrey, photographed at her home in Crouch End, London: