1993 - What was intended to be a portrait of comedian André Vincent for portfolio, ended up on the front cover of Hot Shoe magazine and later used by advertising agency Dorlands Direct for point of sale posters in Woolworths for Sega Games.
I can't take credit for the retouching on this image as it was done through my art director colleague Vince Weir who submitted the original, untouched image to a contest run by an imaging company. It was then manipulated by them using very early, state-of-the art image manipulation software to create the cover for Hot Shoe.
1990 - This is one of my early lighting studies influenced by Dutch Master Vermeer. Shot at Struan Wallace's studio in Hatton Garden, I used flash and tungsten lighting with long exposures for the candle's flame. I've left the tungsten light uncorrected so as to give a little warmth. I've used a hand painted canvas in the background which looks really naff now! Struan used to do loads of room set photography and had lots of props lying around - handy Harry...
Another early lighting test featuring Jazz saxophonist Steve Williamson, just before he released his first album Waltz For Grace in 1990. No flash, just one tungsten with a purple gel and barn doors. Moody. Terrible painted canvas again...those were the days!
I used to spend hours in the darkroom fiddling around with different papers and toners. I ended up loving Oriental Seagull with Selenium toner (which is normally used to archive fibre based prints). You got gorgeous, rich shadows. Here is another test experimenting with shutter speeds. This time, no flash, just tungsten, about 1/15 second. If I remember rightly, was also using a Mamiya 6x7 at this time.
A longer shutter speed can make a relatively boring event such as marking papers, seem more interesting. This image was shot for the Central Office Of Information. It's a double exposure again, with flash going off during the exposure.
1992 - Another job for the COI. This time, it's a straight forward portrait. For me, it's always about blowing out the windows first, then balance up the main subject's light so that it doesn't look too unnatural. At this time, we were still scanning from hand made prints, so it was important to give the print plenty of contrast while maintaining detail in the shadows because you never knew whether or not your work would end up on bog roll!
Around 1992, I started taking my portfolio around to magazines. It's a good way to get noticed if you offer to do tests for them for free in return for credits and tear sheets. I remember really struggling with this one. I went through boxes of black and white Polaroid, trying to use shutter speed to get a dramatic shot but it wasn't working. Shot for Health and Fitness Magazine, I'm not proud of this at all but it was all part of the learning process.
Another test shoot for Health and Fitness Magazine a month later, in July 1992. Although it's 'just a cut out' it's important to remember that it was before the advent of digital: critical to light the background absolutely flatly and balance up the lights so that the subject had a good sharp perimeter. The trouble with these 'free' shoots is that there was never an art director present or any idea of what the story was about, plus models who appeared for free were sometimes nervous or inexperienced and harder to direct.
Around this time, I was still assisting various photographers throughout London. On many occasions, I was employed to light the subject and I got a good reputation for knowing how. On this shoot, I teamed up with another photographer, on the Gavin Brown leather and suede clothing catalogue. When you're shooting Leather and Suede, it's important to use cross lighting when necessary to pick up the shine of the leather. Suede tends to absorb lots of light, so by using a harder quality of light, you've got more chance of picking up the stitching detail.
