The past few weeks have been quite busy so hopefully I shall have quite a few things to post up.
One of the most enjoyable shoots was for my dear friend Blue Firth. Blue is an artist who recently had a show at Copenhagen Place in Limehouse.
I rushed to meet Blue to photograph her artworks in between doing another job and found the biggest slab of chocolate cake waiting for me (always a bonus!), so it was great to chill out a bit before we got the camera out.
Although only asked to photograph the artworks for her archive, I couldn’t resist doing a few portraits of her as she was wearing the most amazing outfit which went so perfectly well with her work. All in all a lovely afternoon spent ‘working’ with a lovely lady.
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Back in February I had the honour of meeting and photographing the Baroness Lola Young at the House of Lords for a WI Life profile feature.
I must confess I didn’t know too much about her beforehand, other than the little acquired from a quick google search the day before. Luckily I found that it didn’t matter because we were greeted with a charming, open, interesting lady who was fascinating to listen to. Unfortunately she was so fascinating that the interview overran quite considerably so I only had ten minutes to photograph her but she was great to work with and her charisma came through on film too.
I particularly like the shot with the painting of the old man in the background because I feel it’s a comment on how far society has come; allowing females into the realm of the House of Lords.
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A couple of weeks ago I had a very exciting shoot photographing the wonderful Neil Hannon at the Royal Opera House for this weeks Time Out.
Neil is part of this years Opera Shots which begins in a couple of weeks.
I must admit to approaching the shoot with a major bout of hero-worship as my brother and I used to listen to The Divine Comedy loads as we were growing up in the 90′s.
I also had a mixtape made for me by a former boyfriend at school which included ‘The Summerhouse‘, an anecdote which I rather embarrassingly decided to mention during the shoot. The implication of course being that the song outlived the relationship!
So I was a little nervous when I saw him strolling towards me but there was no need as I found him to be an utterly lovely man.
Not only was he was humorous and charismatic when I decided to finish the shoot downstairs in the Piazza, he didn’t hesitate to pick up my case and help me downstairs with it. I must also note that the classical editor from Time Out Jonathan and Laura from the Opera House were equally helpful at this point.
So the shoot ended with my hero-worship even more in tact!
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So I’m posting this up but I don’t really want you to hear it because I am aware my voice is wavering and they aren’t even difficult questions.
I perform better behind the camera.
However, I think it’s good for the soul in some way and if nothing else, it’s a lesson to all about being more succint.
Fortunately I’m pretty much the last person to speak on it so hopefully by that point one will have lost interest or become distracted and will only half listen.
Either way, it is a little explanation (literally in my own babbled words) on the idea behind my Focus on imaging Best in Show project 2012

Photography Monthly Podcast April 2012

One of the most enjoyable things about working for the Transmitter magazine is meeting interesting people who live and work in my local community.
I love the prospect of passing strangers gradually becoming people with whom you can share a wave and a hello, and one particular person I look forward to seeing around the triangle again is Phil Earle.
We met after he had trekked back from a long day working in Birmingham and I’m pretty sure having his picture taken was the last thing he wanted to do, however he greeted me with a beaming smile and we instantly hit it off.
I found Phil to be a really lovely guy and although I am probably a bit old to be his target audience (only marginally of course…!), by all accounts he is also a tremendously talented teen fiction writer.
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Lloyd Shepherd is a local author I have recently photographed for the latest issue of the Transmitter.
Because I live in a top floor flat, I am unable to keep pets so I absolutely love it when I turn up at a house and there is a bundle of fur wrapped energy to greet me. I couldn’t resist getting a bit of animal action in the shoot and Lloyd very patiently humoured me trying to get his dog to comply with what I wanted for the shot.
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I have had a very exciting past couple of weeks with lots of new shoots to add here once I’ve finished/begun the feat of trawling through them.
However one thing I have polished up, hot off the press is this years London Classic cycle ride in aid of The Evelina Childrens Hospital
This is my third year photographing the event and it just gets bigger and better every time, particularly as this time I had my own personal scooter chauffeur called Stan to take me around the route. After a reserved start of holding on tightly, I ended up with my camera out, one handed, shooting the cyclists as we passed them. I felt like Tom Cruise doing all my own stunts…except I had a camera and not a gun.
Anyway, the small yet prolific team behind this years event truly outdid themselves, and all comments from riders were positive. I’m really proud to play a small part in it and it’s for a great cause which you can still donate too for the next couple of months.
Shots from the ride can be seen here and the full collection of riders portraits are here

Last week I had a great shoot photographing Jim Bob an author and former member of 90′s band Carter USM.
As I entered his home I was greeted with a softly spoken, stylish man. Dressed in a slimline khaki green suit with tie and DM boots, he was every bit the rock star and I really wished I had worn something a little smarter.
His house suited him completely; understated yet full of great artefacts. There was so much to look at and lovely, bold colours on the walls. Essentially a photographers dream.
Jim was great too. Although softly spoken, he wasn’t self conscious about posing and I found him an altogether calming presence.
Jim is promoting his latest novel ‘Driving Jarvis Ham’ with a tour which starts on May 10th.
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Last week I was commissioned by the organisers of Focus on Imaging to complete a four day personal project called Best in Show. It’s a project I started last year where I invite photographers visiting the show to be photographed with their best bargains from the exhibition.
I am still trawling through the images and processing but here is a sneak peek of one of my favourites.

A couple of weeks ago I was commissioned to create an album cover for the new Motorcycle Display Team album. They had very firm ideas about the style and content of the image, and had settled on featuring a Spillway. Spillways are usually found in reservoirs and are giant holes within the body of water which prevent overflowing.
As I was drafted in to the project quite late on, I didn’t have time to visit an actual Spillway so instead I settled on getting the correct background scenery, which was the beautiful Suffolk lakelands.
We decided to get up early to get the best light for our landscape shots, so off we trundled at 5.30am waiting for that beautiful sunrise…except that glorious sunlight never came. It was the greyest day ever. We literally could have woken up at 12pm and got the same light, however when I took them back and looked through, it couldn’t have been more perfect for what we wanted.
The Spillway itself was created by the wonderful Ross Casswell plunging a bucket into icy water.
Then of course it was a day long photoshop job comping it all together, but at least it was a fun road trip.