I have had a busy couple months on the road. I started in September by shooting room sets for OKA in the UK and then went straight to the Middle East where I shot a very diverse and interesting series of commercial work in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Beirut, some of which I will write about shortly. In the midst of all of this I was offered an exhibition in Abu Dhabi with some of my work in the Arab world over the last 20 years. This created a bit of a conundrum as back in 2005 my darkroom in London suffered a catastrophic flood which resulted in five serious years of litigation with the water company involved as nearly 20,000 images were destroyed, many of which were from my North African and Middle East archive. I flew back from Beirut and the first thing I had to do was dive into the remnants of the old archive. A lot of the images were disposed of as they had been completely destroyed and most had suffered water and drying damage so I have not opened the files for over 12 years as it was too painful but I urgently needed some images for the exhibition. Luckily due to the court case I had to catalogue all the remaining images so I knew where most of them were located. On first inspection a lot of the negatives looked fine but when we began to scan the damage became apparent but I was working with a wonderful printer called Walter Tjantele who worked some wonders with Photoshop and we managed to rework some old images. The picture here was taken in Algeria whilst I was shooting the Momo's Cookbook with a wonderful man called Mourad Mazouz, the owner of Momo's and Sketch in London. The image is of his sisters and sister in law and was shot in Kabylie in Northern Algeria and this is the first time I have printed it.
As a result I have decided to spend some time going through the archive to see what can be salvaged and with a bit of luck I hope to create a new body of work which I should probably call After the Flood.
Read MoreI was very happy to receive a copy of Black and White Photography in the mail this morning with my friend Tim Clinch on the cover. We shot the picture last year when he came to stay . There are a couple of pages on my work in this months issue and it is an honour to be on the cover as they have had some extraordinary work in previous issues. I have had great feedback from it and will try and post the actual article as soon as I receive it as it is an amusing piece but then I would expect nothing else from Mr Clinch. If you do not know his work check him out at http://www.timclinchphotography.com/
And many thanks to the editor Elizabeth Roberts and also Anna Evans.
Read MoreAnother plate from my trip the week before last to Siena and Ramatuelle. This is Denise, my friend Marjolaine Leray's mother. I caught her just as she was heading to the beach and managed to get her to sit for a single plate and I love the fact that there is detail in both the highlights and shadows. I am going to add some more shots to the gallery now. If you love interior design check out Marjolaine's website at http://www.alm-ramatuelle.com/ . She is a brilliant interior designer and has 3 shops and galleries in the old olive presses underneath her house in Ramatuelle and they are well worth a visit.
Read MoreIt has been a while since I posted anything here but I have been busy with projects. Last week I manged to grab a few days and headed to Siena and Ramatuelle with a car full of Collodion equipment and I managed to spend a couple of days shooting and will add some more images to the Collodion gallery on my website over the next day or so. It has been very hot which always raises issues with Collodion but I managed to shoot a few plates that I am really happy with . This one is of Ruby Watts by friend Miv's granddaughter and it was her wonderful mother JeanAnn Williams who kindly asked me to stay and I will add a couple of pictures of her to the gallery shortly. I also hope to update more of my commercial work over the summer.
This was shot mid morning in bright shade and an exposure of about four seconds and I was using my Dallmeyer 4D lens which was made in 1870 and is now my preferred portrait lens.
Read MoreI have just had a quiet week at home between jobs and took some time to shoot some Wet Plate Colldion over a few days. Saturday was WWPD 2016 and a friend Gemma came over with her two charming daughters who both sat for me. It was great fun and they really appreciated the images and the process and why they are so different from other types of photography. Here is a plate of Elodie who is Gemma,s eldest . I have been having some chemical issues but it is still a lovely plate and I am hoping that when my latest purchase, a wonderful Dallmeyer 4d portrait lens from 1869 arrives that they will both sit for me again.
Read MoreSo I am just back from Beirut whee I was shooting for a private client. I have wanted to visit for years and after a week there I feel that is an amazing city and I am hoping to go back shortly and shoot some interesting stories I have found. It is loud, dirty ( due to to the fact that garbage has not been collected for a while), vibrant and the inhabitants just live for today. There is so much to see there that even after a week of walking all over the city I have not even scratched the surface. On one of my many walks I came across a small concrete church on a popular street. On passing it looked very unassuming but on closer inspection the door was extraordinary and made of brass or copper. The verdigris and patina which has come from thousands of hands opening the door has a beautiful quality to it and a segment is attached above.
Read MoreA couple of weekends ago I had a visitor in France, Josa Young, the great, great, great granddaughter of Julia Margaret Cameron. Josa and I share a mutual friend and she had heard about my Wet Plate Collodion work and expressed an interest in having her portrait taken using the process that her illustrious ancestor used. We had planned to do something last year but my commercial work made it impossible so I was pleased when we finally found some time. We shot a few images of Josa channeling Julia and there is one of them here and also a link to the post she wrote on the experience. Just for the record, my darkroom is not awash with cyanide, this is a sub taking license. When I work with cyanide it is in a totally safe environment and if safety is a concern then I work with a non lethal fixer.
Read MoreSo this is probably my last Wet Plate Collodion post for now, the UV is dropping and winter is on its way and it is time to head to warmer climes. This is a portrait of my friend and fellow photographer Tim Clinch who came to stay recently whilst shooting a large feature on wine in France. It is an Ambrotype, so shot on glass and it involved a 10 second exposure and Tim did really well to hold the look for so long. I am now leaving and heading off on the road to Thailand, Singapore, Dubai, Doha and possibly India so expect some colourful posts over the next six weeks.
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![A busy summer.]()
It has been a while since my last post but the summer was a particularly busy one with lots of commercial work and then I was shooting personal work whenever I managed to get home. I started up with 3 great boat projects in Malta, France and Spain which were great fun to shoot and I will post some pictures once I have permission from the owners. I then shot two series of portraits, one in Norfolk and a second in Scotland for two different clients and then off to Italy with one of the UK's leading interior designers to shoot an amazing story in Lucca. At the same time I was shooting quite a lot of wet plate collodion, the picture above is of my old friend Nick Zoll, one of the worlds leading fishing and hunting guides and also a conservationist photographed at home in Norfolk a couple of weeks ago. I then ended the summer with a large collodion commission for a private client that involved a 4700km drive from France to the Scottish Highlands. The weather gods were very cruel to us but we shot for three days in the pouring rain and managed to get a few lovely shots. Autumn now beckons and I am in the final stages of preparing for a trip to Thailand, Singapore and India which should keep me busy for October.
Read MoreMany years ago Mark Shand introduced his old friend Don McCullin at the RGS in London with the words " this mans eyes are our conscience " . I never forgot those words and on Sunday had the pleasure of shooting Don using the wet plate collodion process whilst he was down at Les Rencontres D'Arles. It was incredibly hot but Don was ever the gentlemen and sat patiently for two hours whilst I dealt with the various issues that shooting wet plate in 40 c throws up. A memorable day for me and an honour to photograph a man for whom I hold the greatest respect.
Read MoreIts been a busy time recently and I am now on the road for 3 weeks but I managed to get home for a few days and went straight in to a week of wet plate collodion photography. Above is a new picture that I am very pleased with, a portrait of Naomi Watts and her sister in law Jeananne Williams. It was shot towards the end of the day, not the ideal time for wet plate photography but it worked here. I love the stillness of this image. I have more pictures to come from some other sittings last week but they are going to have to wait to be finished when I get home.
Read MoreSo the end of a busy week. I have just shot a couple of boats, one in Toulon and the other in Valletta one of the worlds great harbour's. For reasons of privacy I can not really name the boats or owners or share any pictures but I am hoping that at some point they will both be published. Two very different projects, one smallish and very contemporary and the other large and full of character and both with interesting interior design produced by masters of the craft. Its always interesting shooting boats, for one they involve shooting in very tight spaces and secondly they tend to move quite a lot which is challenging when you are doing 30 second exposures. Off again at dawn tomorrow morning and then back again for some collodion work before heading off to shoot a hotel and another boat.
Read MoreI spent the weekend shooting at a small photo festival close to where I live in the South of France. It was in the middle of a heatwave which is not ideal conditions for Wet Plate and the temperature outside was about 35c and inside the portable darkroom it must have been 45c. This throws up interesting reactions with the chemicals but I was prepared for this and adjusted accordingly. The results are far from perfect but considering the heat and the fact that I was in a dusty field but I shot a few plates that I really like. Above an image of Marie Samantha Salvy a wonderful poet. There are also a couple of other new pictures in the people section of the website.
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![The Story Behind the Photograph.]()
This is a photograph taken in Mexico City for a book on Mexican architecture for Conran Octopus. It was taken at Las Capilla des Capucins which was designed by the great Mexican architect Luis Barragan. I love this shot, it is simple but there is so much going on within it in terms of composition, mood and light and it has an air of calm and meditation to it. The story behind the picture is somewhat different. I was in the middle of two books one in Mexico and a second in the USA. We had arranged permission and a fee with the sisters a couple of weeks before and a date was set. I flew in from LA and went straight to the Capilla with my friend Leo. The shoot was simple and went well and after taking four or five rolls of film we packed up and went to find the Mother Superior to hand over the agreed sum. She counted the money and then turned round and announced that in fact the fee would be ten times the agreed price which was a bit of a shock and demanded that we hand over the film and collect the cash and then she would give it back to us at a later date. It was clear that this was not open to discussion so we handed over a box of film and retreated quickly. We never went back and there is probably a box of five rolls of unprocessed Kodak film sitting in the fridge today.
Read MoreAnd here is a link to some more of my work on ImageBrief.
Read MoreAnd this is another shot in the same apartment showing a great mix of art and colour.
Read MoreA friend who I asked to review my website just wrote to say that my new blog looks a bit gloomy so I thought it might be time to add a bit of color. This is an old shot in a tiny London apartment belonging to a friend and very talented interior designer Hubert Zandberg. Hubert was born if Africa and when he moved to the UK he bought a bit colour with him. Over the years I have photographed many of his projects and they all combine a wonderful use of colour and fantastic art.
Read MoreI am working a lot with Collodion at the moment, the UV is strong, the sky is blue and it is not to hot. The more I learn about Collodion the harder it gets. When I first started out with the process I loved all of the swirls and whirls and in a way I still do but I want to master the process, not have the process master me. Here is a perfect example, a strong image but there is heavy fog on the right in the shadow area and now I have to go off and try and work out what is causing this and once I work that out I then have to learn how to correct it. Collodion is a fickle mistress but as is the way with mistresses there is never a dull moment.
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