Shoot for Cardiff-based Red Handed magazine for a winter fashion feature. Had amazing weather for this one with a low winter sun cutting in and no rain all day. We got rousted by security from our original (not very) secret location which meant the shoot went on longer than planned, but it did mean we got to shoot in “the golden hour” around dusk and we bumped into a film crew shooting Richard Ayoade’s first feature film in Barry!
I love working for the University of Wales, Newport. Their photography courses in particular have a fantastic reputation across the UK so it’s a privilege to take photos fro them. Over the past 3 years I’ve done the bulk of the photography for their various prospectuses and numerous other events and publications. I’ve been to almost every department and I must have seen more of the university than almost anyone who actually works there. Which suits me fine because I’m very nosey curious. Many of the photos in the education section of this site are from there.
The university runs lots of activities and events which are open to non-students, and last week I was asked to photograph one such event, “Tibetan Dance and Sacred Sounds From the Tibetan Monks of Tashi Lhunpo”. The monks put on an amazing performance of singing, dance, staged argument and very brief air guitar (!)
The monks and their monastery are closely associated with eh beautiful and mysterious snow lion, who some people believe are mythical creatures, but we know better ;-)
Last month I shot some pictures for Fenchurch to use in their advertising as they move into Wales. They’ve just opened their first shop outside London, it’s in the St David’s Centre in Cardiff, and I was there for the launch.
Radio One’s Bethan Elfin DJed with the Vinyl Vendettas during the day and at the tickets only after-hours party guests including Pritchard from Dirty Sanchez saw Ian Watkins do a DJ set very different from the style of music his band Lostprophets make.
Here are a few of the photos.
On the 8th of December Newid had their official launch at the Senedd in Cardiff bay and at their offices nearby. I was asked to take some photos for subsequent distribution to the press. Here are a few of the photos along with some shots I did earlier in the year for their website.
In their own words:
“The Ecodesign Centre is an applied research organisation that aims to build capacity and capabilities to enable effective ecodesign. Ecodesign is a strategic design management process that is concerned with minimising the impact of the life cycle of products and services (e.g. energy, materials, distribution, packaging and end-of-life treatment).”
I’ve done a number of events for Ecodesign, and they’re always fun. They’re a nice bunch of people with goals I can totally get behind and I usually learn something new and interesting. This time I actually got to take part in a group discussion section of the seminar, though I’m not sure they took my suggestion of genetically modified pets in the year 2019 totally seriously!
The guest speaker at this event was Ed Gillespie of Futerra Sustainability Communications who also blogs for The Guardian.
Head over to the Ecodesign site to find out what they’re all about, and see their flickr for more photos of this and previous events. They seem keen to build a community of like-minded individuals and companies in Wales and really connect.
Back in September I did this shoot for Cardiff-based Red Handed magazine at Chepstow Racecourse for an autumn fashion feature. We got permission to use the place on a day when there was no racing, unfortunately that meant there were no horses either. It was tough to make it look like a horse track. Got one of the models to run past the finishing line though, and I think that’s close enough!
Clothing brand Fenchurch are opening a shop in Cardiff this month. It’s only their second shop, the first is in Covent Garden in London, so it’s exciting they chose Cardiff and I’m also excited that I got to do the photos for it!
The idea was to use some familiar Cardiff landmarks to show Fenchurch’s affinity and commitment to the city. Despite a very dreary day for the shoot the photos turned out pretty well. There are a few pictures below, and some of these and a bunch of others will be displayed in the new store, and in related advertising and news stories. Check out Wales Online’s story here for a start.
The new shop is officially launching on Saturday, details here, so come along grab a goody bag and check out some DJs. See you there.
“The Stranger” is a drama being produced by young film-maker Emmanuel Okolo, based on a script by Ilaria D’Elia. Shooting starts next week but as usual there’s already been a lot of rehearsing, organising and other preproduction. Last weekend I went along to the Atrium to shoot some reference images of the cast in costume, a photo that will be used as part of the set and some headshots of people involved.
It’s only fairly recently that I’ve started to do stills photos for films. Photography done on the set while the filming is going on is called ‘film stills’ or ‘unit stills’, Skillset have a description here.
This kind of work is something I’ve wanted to do for a while and now I’m actually doing it I find I really enjoy it. It requires a wide mix of skills and there are plenty of opportunities to get good photos because there are usually interesting places and people to shoot. Unlike most of my work where I’m to some extent in charge of what’s being produced, on a film set I can just fade into the background and capture what goes on with other people doing the hard work of setting up situations and finding props, outfits and models actors!
Film productions also need staged photos that will be used to promote the films, for posters and so on, and that’s also something I enjoy doing, I’ve got a lot of experience doing promo photos for bands and shooting models and fashion spreads and a lot of the techniques are similar.
The photo up top was just me messing around in the studio, inspired by a picture from the September 2007 issue of Vogue (see half way down this page for the original). Apart from having a young actress in it’s not related to the film, and it’s too early to show any of the character photos, so I’ll just post some headshots, which I think turned out quite well. Actor headshots are usually used in black and white for casting, but I love color so that’s what I’m putting here!
They managed to keep it a secret right up until the big day, but on 5th November National Theatre Wales finally let the cat right out of the bag and announced their first year’s programme to the press and, in something of a first, live across the internet.
There’s information about all thirteen of the productions on their site and if you’re at all interested in theatre in Wales you should definitely check it out, especially the online community they’re building where you have direct access to the people who are making things happen.
Here I’ve put a selection of photos from the event. I had to document what was going on, as always without being too obtrusive, plus get a few set-up shots of some of the organisers and artists involved.
Some Halloween nightclub photos I took last Friday and Saturday nights at events by Climax, Kiss FM and Tiger Tiger in-house.
See if you can spot: Hannibal, cats, sexy (?) satans, Santa (sexy???), a white(-er) Michael Jackson zombie, The Joker, nurses (”There are a lot of injured people so a nurse makes sense”), mimes, Popeye, Flavor Flav, the world’s biggest finger puppet, Slash with his ‘axe’! Flavor Flav!??!?!?!? And of course that lovely milk maid!
