Recent work - August 2026
Here are some shoots from the past few months:
Well, from last autumn. I often like to have subjects lean / perch / sit or otherwise interact with the location. As well as allowing for different poses, it ties the subject with the setting, rather than it just acting as a backdrop.
Not every portrait needs to reinvent portraiture. Sometimes it just needs to explain who someone is and what they do. Here, the challenge was arranging three (substantial) models in a small space with the subject. Holding one gives him something to do with his hands (and again, it links him to the environment), and pointing the others inwards kept a clean composition and a sort of symmetry. In hindsight, he should have held the red one, which has visual dominance and draws the eye.
This is exactly the same setup - except we had permission for just this one room, a table which filled it, and no props, other than a depressing laptop. Luckily I noticed the ceiling light had an unusual honeycomb design so I used it as a gobo - firing a flash through it - to cast interesting shadows on the wall.
This was taken in between video takes for a National Lottery campaign featuring Joanna Page of Gavin & Stacey fame. Green is used for filming mainly because it stands out from skin, making background replacement easy. It’s why weather presenters can’t wear green (sometimes blue) ties. It’s less useful for photography cutouts: green ‘bleeds through’ hair and tints e.g. clothes’ edges with green. I usually prefer a light grey for cutouts. If you’re asking.
This portrait was taken at the top of The Shard. Being excited about working in The Shard, my brain went all cognitive dissonance which left me frustrated: a portrait taken in The Shard means you can’t actually photograph The Shard, only the view from The Shard. And the inside of the space really isn’t anything to look at, other than the reflections in every direction on the floor to ceiling glass which could (should) have been cleaner. So it was simply about starting with the view, putting the subject where's he’s not in the way, and lighting so there’s not too many reflections. And that’s all I have to say about The Shard.
A staff headshot is rarely the most exciting kind of image, but I liked this one. It’s about capturing a facet, rather than just a record of what someone looks like. Headshot sessions usually involve shooting back to back, in a limited amount of time, coming up against different personalities and different dynamics, and aiming for consistent yet individual results.
A portrait of Professor Daisy Fancourt, the Royal Albert Hall’s first ever Associate Scientist, who will lead on a programme of events that link the arts with science, building on her work demonstrating how the power of music positively impacts health.
Three portraits from a wider set in a private residence in Central London.
A portrait of a graduate for University of London.
It’s essential to work out what could be better in every photo. Here, I wonder about whether she should have been standing behind (or on the far side of) the mat. This would make her less prominent in the frame, but it would get text in naturally (everything’s a trade-off). But given the mat’s text would still have been upside-down (rotating the mat would make no sense for anyone entering), I now think I should have removed it completely for a cleaner shot.
I’d like to say at least I know for next time, but I have something of Leonard Shelby about me with this kind of detail.
From the same shoot, this was taken very shortly after, and nearby. The challenge was to keep finding new angles and options within a small space, and not flapping. Never flapping.
From the same shoot, twenty metres down the corridor, this is Claire Gorrara, Dean of the School of Advanced Study. There are some things which are beautiful to experience but uncooperative for photography: midday sun; black cats; dense woodland; huge, ornate mirrors; and rooms lit by candlelight are just a few. And marble walls.
(There is a reverse category: things that are fairly ordinary in person but lend themselves to photography: car parks at night; wet pavements; and peeling paint, for instance.)
Portraits for a law firm. Again, nothing exciting, but their simplicity works.
Another business portrait, this time on a roof terrace. It can be difficult to work with shallow depth of field outdoors, as there’s often too much light once a flash is brought into the mix. I have an ND filter I use for these occasions, meaning the greenery can be kept out of focus. If it were sharp, it would be busy and distracting.
The following images were shot at the O2 for Cineworld on the theme, “Valentine’s Isn’t Dead” around the launch of Wuthering Heights and The Bride. Nobody was harmed in the production. Very much.
We often only notice things when they’re wrong. So if this image is plausible then it’s the successful result of many (many) strange conversations in planning beforehand to do with shadows, curly hair, light falloff and the weight of a human head and how you might hold one. (We used a mannequin head as a placeholder, and his collar was created later in post (the small shadow on the inside right of his collar was a key detail).)
Sometimes it’s good to try other things. Despite deadpan / undead / scary expressions being the brief, once the shot list is covered off it’s worth trying other things. In this case, it was just a slight change of expression in the portrait on the left - I had the horror film Smile in mind - and it worked.
