Neil Hall Photography

Lost in Space - Pinhole Photography

2012-02-29T20:07:00.006-08:00

I have been updating my website recently, including a lot of Pinhole Photography images. You can have a look by clicking on the link HERE! So to celebrate i've completed another image to add to my series using models. Lost in Space was completed using a medium format pinhole camera on Kodak Portra VC 400. The spacemen were brought from the NASA gift shop in Houston, Texas for added authenticity...

You can leave your hat on

2012-02-22T11:25:00.001-08:00

London Fashion Week has drawn to a close now, so here are a few pics from Robyn Coles hat show. With so many shows across London it's not easy to stand out, but Robyn's idea of using fully naked models certainly got some coverage in the papers and was one of the more memorable shows.

Red Top Baron

2012-02-19T12:00:00.003-08:00

Here's a picture I did of Rupert Murdoch leaving his Mayfair home last week. He was in town to speak to The Sun staff after the paper has had a recent battering with Leveson enquiry criticism and arrests. The funny thing about this pic is that he is holding a copy of the Sun newspaper which that day had a lead front page picture that I had taken.

He announced that News International was going to create a Sun on Sunday newspaper. I think it's very good news for the industry that a new paper is being created. In the past 6 months print journalism has really come under fire. Journalism is really under scrutiny and it is making a lot of people in the industry nervous. It is good to see investment in the printed press. It is easy to criticise tabloid journalism but you can not argue against their importance. Papers such as The Sun and the Daily Mail break news, create stories and investigate in a way that other media don't. It is often papers which set the news agenda in a way that other media doesn't.

Hot Chocolate - everyone's a winner!

2012-02-14T05:12:00.006-08:00

It's Valentine's Day and most of you will have popped to the shops to buy flowers and chocolates for your loved ones. I always wondered what it took to make those chocolates that people scoff in the name of love. I popped over to the Thorntons Factory and had a look at the production line. It's a bit like Willy Wonka but with more hair nets.

The run up to Valentines Day is one of the busiest times of the year for the chocolate manufacturer. For seven days a week and 24 hours a day over an extra 1 billion individual chocolates will be produced. 110,000 kg of chocolate is made to cater for the increase demand from people to buy romantic chocolate gifts for loved ones. Every year the Derbyshire based chocolate manufacturer makes 33 million kg of chocolate and toffee. Since Kraft took over Cadbury's it is the largest UK owned chocolate producer.

Snow, Clown Churches and Rollergirls

2012-02-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here's some images from this weekend - a lot of snow in North London, a Roller Derby and a special service at Holy Trinity church in Dalston, East London which remembers Joseph Grimaldi, 'the first white-face clown', who died in 1837 .

Pinhole Photography - some final Kodak moments

2012-01-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

BRITISH MUSEUM

It was sad to hear that Kodak have gone into administration. For the past 131 years the company has frequently been at the forefront of the photographic world. Yet, with the growth in digital markets, it seems that the company has failed to adapt and faces an uncertain future.

ROYAL GUARDS, WHITEHALL

WINTER WONDERLAND, HYDE PARK

It may not yet be the end of the once great company, but the future isn't looking too rosy. It's a shame because on nearly the same day as the company announced the news, I got a bundle of films back from the lab in the post. They were a batch of recent pinhole photographs I have been taking. All were done using Kodak Ektar or Portra film. It's pretty difficult getting film as it is and with Kodak seemingly out of the picture it's not going to get easier.

PAPHOS, CYPRUS

WINTER WONDERLAND, HYDE PARK

I'm not luddite - I use digital everyday, however there is plenty of room left in the image making world for analogue photography. There's something about the different properties of different film that digital can't replicate. Similarly, there's something fascinating about not knowing how an image will turn out. This is especially true when using pinhole cameras - you have no viewfinder and the correct exposure is often a best guess (often up to 15 minutes). You can't perfectly predict how light and movement will appear until the film is developed - it's a magical way of taking a picture.

NIGHTSWIMMING, CYPRUS

BIG GUNS, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON

I hope that Kodak can survive and keeps its range of analogue products going - I know I'll be stocking up. Here's a few of what may be my last Kodak moments. Some are from a roll I forgot to develop, but most are from London over the winter time as I wanted to look at well known monuments from a different perspective.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, REGENT'S STREET

2012 begins!

2012-01-02T04:53:00.001-08:00

2012 has already run from its starting blocks - it's going to be a big year for London with the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Things kicked off with a New Year's Day Parade through the streets of the capital. There was lots of marching bands and floats all topped off with the cheerleading from the All American Cheerleaders and Dancers which got some nice usage in The Guardian and Daily Mirror.

my 2011 in a news nutshell

2011-12-30T05:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a bunch of news and editorial pictures I did over 2011 that highlight the variety that the job can bring. 2011 was an interesting year for me - I gave up my staff job and went freelance as well as participating in a number of exhibitions and winning a few awards.

A big part of 2011 was the unexpected riots in London in August - The shots above were taken in Peckham. It was quite unpleasant at the time as bricks and bottles were being thrown, crowds were rushing the police and shops were looted. For a short moment, London did feel lawless.

There seemed to be a lot of protests and marches this year. Often they get highjacked by trouble makers. The image above is from a pensions protests in June that had a few scuffles which the police dealt with quickly and forcefully.

July marked the 7/7 bombing anniversary in London - although they knew they were being photographed, I felt genuine emotion from Ken Livingston and Tessa Jowell as they paid their respects.

You get to meet and photograph some interesting people in my line of work. David Bellamy always seemed to be on my TV as a nipper, so he was one of those celebrities that you really enjoy meeting. I also photographed Mohamed Al Fayed and it's always interesting how some powerful influential people can seem so small and frail in real life. The final shot is a portrait of a woman who wanted to prove she was hotter than her daughter. You never know who you are going to meet or what goes on behind closed doors. Her pet dog's face sums it up.

Working in London you often photograph the Mayor, Boris Johnson, who is always value for money. Even he needs help to enliven a press call though and girl falling off her bike certainly helped me here.

It was a very warm end to the year - the above shot was taken in October in the Parliament Hill Lido. It sums up the mood of the weather for me,as if the country had an extended holiday.

I covered some of the Leveson enquiry including Kate and Gerry McCann's evidence. Whilst being a fascinating story in its own right, it has massive repercussions for news photography. Issues of privacy, public photography, press intrusion and moral standards have all been discussed, making being a press photographer not something to shout about. Ironically, at the same time a gaggle of celebrities and public figures who often use and rely on the media, were given a huge platform with which to criticise it.

I hope that 2012 brings some interesting news and pictures my way.

New York, New York (in glorious pinhole!)

2011-10-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

LIBERTY ISLAND

I popped over to New York City a few weeks ago and as I was there I thought I'd dust off the pinhole camera and take a few pics. I've never been to the city before so it was all new and exciting, but it's so well known it means that it's quite difficult to get a new or different take on it from a photographic point of view.

FESTIVAL OF SAN GENNARO, MULBURY STREET, LITTLE ITALY

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

It's hard not to get sucked into photographing some of the more iconic sights and buildings in the city, but I had a wander around some other places too - a wet, windswept and empty Coney Island and was lucky enough to find myself in Little Italy during the Festival of San Gennaro.

CONEY ISLAND

On getting my film back I noticed how odd New York looks from a pinhole point of view. It's one of the most bustling, busy cities in the world, but the long exposures needed to take a picture means that virtually no people show up on the film - even in Grand Central Station...

MANHATTAN BRIDGE, BROOKLYN

GRAND CENTRAL STATION

MANHATTAN BRIDGE, BROOKLYN

Going Downton...

2011-10-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

I was asked to photograph the Countess of Carnarvon at Highclere Castle near Newbury in Berkshire. Highclere Castle is better known to the wider public as the setting where ITV film the period drama Downton Abbey.

What is great about Highclere is that it is still a full working home that is lived in. Many historic properties can become cold and a little like stuffy museums with areas roped off and "do not touch" signs everywhere. Highclere feels like walking in someone's living room, albeit a a very large and grand one.

Lady Carnarvon was very easy going and was great to photograph - when speaking to her it's clear that she has a real passion for keeping the house going and for her responsibilities in looking after the Estate. She also has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Carnarvon family history.

If I'm being honest I have never seen Downton Abbey, however, I noticed that some of the rooms in the Castle were used in Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut for the orgy scenes (see below). They look pretty similar to how they appear in the film but with significantly less writhing naked flesh!

Here comes the Sun

2011-10-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

It's October which normally means nights drawing in, frosty mornings and pumpkins. However, this week the weather has caused some of the hottest October days on record. A mini Autumn heatwave/Indian Summer means weather pictures are the order of the day. I was asked to go to Hampstead and have a look at people in Lido's, bathing ponds and soaking up the rays on the Heath. It is a great way to earn a living and here are some of my favourites:

Winner of the Joan Wakelin Bursary Award

2011-09-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

I attended the Royal Photographic Society Awards this week where I was awarded the Joan Wakelin Bursary. It is run in co-ordination with the Guardian newspaper. I have been given funding for a socially concerned overseas project, which will be based in the Atacama desert in Chile. I am pretty pleased about the award and looking forward to taking the pictures early next year.

There were also some big names who won awards, including Terry O'Neil, Paul Delmar, Simon King, Mario Testino and Sean O'Hagen. Apart from actually winning my bursary, it was a pleasure to be in the same room as such distinguished company. For a full list of award winners click on the RPS link: http://www.rps.org/annual-awards

www.neilhallphotography.com

David Hockney

2011-09-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've always had a fondness for David Hockney - not only because of his brilliant artwork which covers a whole range of different mediums but also because he's one of Bradfords more famous sons and it's where I went to university. His photography was particularly inspiring when I was starting out. I went to a press call at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly, London for Hockney's new show. They're often a bit of a messy bun fight and this was no exception. I was doing it for a magazine that needed a good, clean portrait. Not easy when you have 3 mins and ten photographers surrounding you, but I was patient and he looked down the barrel of my camera for a split second. He was obviously very nervous because he got a cigarette out and played with it constantly - I don't blame him because it can't be easy standing in front of a dozen snappers with nowhere to hide...

This is Brent - photography workshop

2011-08-31T05:47:00.001-07:00

Over the past few days I have been helping at the Museum of Brent in North London with photography workshops. A group of young people are putting together a project about their local area. They will produce a booklet with images and text over the next couple of weeks looking at the local architecture and people in the north London borough.

Rather than get too bogged down with the technical side we spoke about different ways of seeing and looked at the work of a variety of photographers including Robert Frank, William Eggleston, Martin Parr, Dianne Arbus, Stephen Shore Philip -Lorca DiCorcia and many more. I wanted them to understand that a good picture is not always about getting a perfect exposure but about what you are photographing and why.

Photography can be a personal way of expressing yourself and exploring places and people. I wanted them to look at Brent in different ways by looking at what is important to them and photographing the familiar in a new way. They had a few days to practice and came up with these images of their local area. I think they look great. They'll be looking at people and the area in more detail over the next few weeks and i'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Coffee for Dummies

2011-08-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Anarchy in the UK

2011-08-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

It's a bit crazy on the streets of London at the moment. Since Mark Duggan's shooting last week there's been a bad atmosphere which kicked off into some bad rioting across the city. It's not a barrel of laughs to photograph it but you have to cover what you're told to. I was at the scene of the murder just after it happened on Ferry Road and the estate was pretty angry then. A couple of people tried to attack me for being press which wasn't very nice.

I covered the aftermath of the riots on Sunday morning and the damage done to Tottenham was pretty terrible - a whole high street smashed up. Then I got the call to go to Enfield where groups were fighting with police but nothing too serious. I thought it had all calmed down...

Then Monday evening I was on double shift and called into Peckham where open looting was taking place and people were throwing bricks and bottles at the police as well as the press.

I don't mind admitting it wasn't the nicest place to be and no-one enjoys having missiles thrown at them. The other problem apart from having pictures of the looters, which really annoyed them, was the fact that my cameras were a target. A lot of people were eyeing them up when I got them out. Where possible I stuck with other snappers or TV. I got separated at one point which was a little hairy as groups were giving me some trouble for being press.

I'm always impressed when you see journalists putting their money where their mouth is, but you have to put your own personal safety first. A picture is no good if you've had your camera nicked or been so badly beaten up that you can't sent it out to the desk...

On yer Bike, Boris

2011-07-29T01:02:00.000-07:00

A press call for the anniversary of the Barclay Bike Hire scheme in London was made significantly more interesting when one of his cycle pals fell off. He didn't help her up, the cad!

PPY on Yahoo

2011-07-28T03:24:00.000-07:00

The Press Photographers Years competition was featured on the Yahoo website. My picture had a few amusing comments I thought I'd share:

This is what every politician needs: bringing down to earth with a bump. :)

Thats the last time I fly Ryanair..

guy could be dieing,
some prick finds time to take a picture

Did you see the children's film about the Super Heroes coming out of retirement? The Incredibles. Cloaks are now out of fashion because they tend to cause accidents. The villain ends up getting sucked into an aeroplane propeller by his cloak. This incident reminds me of that every time. Not funny really though.

come fly with EasyJet... we can guarantee cheap seat... cos we haven't got any

LINK TO YAHOO WEBSITE

Pinhole photography blog blog

2011-07-27T02:52:00.000-07:00

This excellent photography blog has featured some of my pinhole photography work from the past 12 or so months. Worth a peep if you're into lens-less cameras, camera obscura or traditional photography methods. Here's the link:

http://nodarkroomrequired.wordpress.com/archive/

Amy Winehouse 1983 -2011

2011-07-24T00:14:00.000-07:00

First Prize for Live News at Press Photographers Year

2011-07-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

One of my pictures was announced as winning first prize in the Live News category of the Press Photographer's Year 2011 and a further image from the set was has been included in the final selection which runs in the Lyttelton foyer of the National Theatre on London’s South Bank from 18th July to 4th September.

The results can be seen here:

http://www.theppy.com/content/results2011

The Press Photographer's Year 2011 showcases the very best press photography from 2010. Over 300 photographers based in over twenty countries throughout Europe, as well as Japan, South Africa, India, Australia and the USA, submitted just short of 8,000 photographs from which an edit of 136 pictures was made. Fifteen prizes were awarded including excellent work by Oli Scarff, Matt Dunham, Matt Cardy, Charles McQuillan Harry Borden, Peter Macdiarmid and Adam Dean.

I was very pleased with the result particularly with the high standard of entries and quality of photographers. Congratulations to everyone who entered.

The Press Photographers Years is open Monday to Saturday from 9.30am till 11pm and on selected Sundays, admission is free. http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

Neil Hall Photography - blogged

2011-07-15T01:56:00.000-07:00

The Printspace in Shoreditch have featured some of my work in their regular photo blog. The Printspace is a professional printing service in Shoreditch, London that I have used for my pictures in exhibitions. Take a look at the blog - http://www.theprintspace.co.uk/blog/neil-hall/

http://www.theprintspace.co.uk/blog/neil-hall/

Faberge bits and bobs

2011-07-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

This collection of intricate works of art by Russian jeweller and goldsmith Peter Carl Fabergé has been collected by the Royal family for over more than a century. They are now on Display at Buckingham Palace. I popped to the palace and took some pics. The display includes a miniature gold tea set that originally belonged to Queen Alexandra and a Mosaic Imperial Easter Egg made from tiny cut emeralds, rubies and diamonds. The Egg was a gift from the Tsar to his wife in 1914 and was confiscated during the Russian Revolution before being purchased by King George V in 1933 for Queen Mary’s birthday. It's a lot nicer than the Smarties Easter egg I got this year...

Honourable mention at Foto 8 Summershow

2011-07-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Foto8 Summershow opening took place on Friday. One of my pictures of the UKIP Leader Nigel Farage walking away from a plane crash was selected for the exhibition. According to Foto8 1000 entrants from around the globe contributed to a final count of 2,853 images which were whittled down to 150 for the show by the judges Richard Billingham, Charlotte Cotton, Emma Morris and James Reid. I was one of three photographers to be Highly Commended by the panel - my little blue rosette can be seen in the picture above. The best in show went to Luca Sage for a picture of Ivory Coast United. The overall quality of pictures was really good this year and I was pleased just to get in this prestigious event. The Sunday Times ran a Spectrum photo special and included my image.

Once again thanks again to John Jones framers who helped by sponsoring the framing of the work and brought the best out of my picture.

7/7 Memorial

2011-07-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

With the News of the World being shut down and the outrage at phone hacking, being a journalist or news photographer is not the most popular profession at the moment. Even so news and events need reporting and recording even when they are difficult and emotive. The 7/7 bombings were one of the most tragic and iconic British events of the past 10 years so marking the event is always going to be important.

Pointing your camera at mourners at the Hyde Park memorial can seem callous but if you are respectful, keep your distance and don't get in their faces most people are ok with you. Former Secretary for Culture Media and Sport Tessa Jowell and Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone came to pay their respects and seemed both moved by the experience.

Pensions Protest March

2011-07-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

After the riots of the student fees protests of the last winter, there's so much expectation of bad behaviour at marches you can often forget what people are protesting about. In London different groups of public sector workers were marching about pension cuts. Usually you get all sorts of people turning up and half the people are protesting against something entirely different like wars, capitalism, religion and so on that no one really gets their point across.

I was asked to go down with a brief to keep an eye out for trouble. There always seems to be a couple of anarchist groups that want to kick off at something or other. The police presence was pretty big and kept most of the trouble in check apart from a couple of minor scuffles. You're never massively popular if you have a camera. Trouble makers seem happy to try and attack cops and smash stuff but get a bit annoyed if you actually identify them doing it, police think you're in the way and don't like pics of them wrestling kids to the ground, whilst other people called me a vulture for snapping the bad stuff.

Everyone has a point, but to me it seems like some people like to have an excuse to get a bit silly for the afternoon. Most people were fine but some protesters deliberately wound up the police and asked for trouble. On the other side some police seem happy to get wound up and get overzealous - I got punched in the stomach and I noticed another snapper got punched in the face for little other reason than being there. I'm pretty sure an army of media doesn't help, but then not everyone has to show off for the cameras.

A week (or so) in pics

2011-06-27T10:40:00.001-07:00

It's been a little over a week since leaving my staff job on an agency to go freelance full time. Best thing is to keep busy and keep putting pictures out and take on as many jobs as possible. Here's a selection of cuttings from the Financial Times, Independent, and Private Eye that used my photos.

I also have been doing spec jobs, and have been commissioned by newspapers and magazines. Here's a small selection of jobs starting with a shop in London that was giving away free clothes if you turned up in your underwear:

An auction is always a good spot for a pic and Jeffery Archer's charity auction was selling former British PM Margaret Thatcher's handbag as well as the 1948 London Olympic torch:

Mayor of London Boris Johnson is always good for a press call and he met some WWII veterans to mark Armed Forces Day:

You've been framed

2011-06-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

I've been at John Jones framing in Finsbury Park in London getting my work sorted out and mounted and framed in time for the Foto8 Summershow.

The lovely people at John Jones have been very kind to sponsor my entry into the exhibition which is unbelievably generous as they have a very impressive client list and do some excellent work at major galleries across the globe.

I had a consultation with Tim Blake, the Senior Framing Consultant, who went through the best way of displaying the photo. After careful consideration, he came up with a lovely framing package and I can now officially announce the details below! You'll see from the pic it's going to look fantastic.

· Image 17 ½” x 11 5/8”

· 3” borders (3/8” base weight)

· 1 ¼” x 5/8” sq box section, Lime wood, stained very dark oak, light wax finish

· 3mm UV Perspex glazing

· Archival backing with strainer and D-rings and wire

· Framed dims 24 3/16” x 18 11/16”

Peter Andre and Boris Johnson - together at last!

2011-06-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

Boris Johnson the Mayor of London and pop chap Peter Andre launched a literacy project aimed at helping young children (aged 3-5 years) struggling with their learning development at the Botwell Library in Hayes, England.

They sat down together and read from the Gruffalo to a group of local school children. Boris didn't seem too impressed with the book but Andre had a good time and it's always good to have a couple of pro's around who are willing to have their photo taken.

Foto 8 Summer Show Details

2011-06-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

Here's the pic which will be exhibited. This year the Summershow opens on July 8th and will run until the 12th August at HOST Gallery in Honduras Street, London, EC1 0TH

Foto8 Summershow

2011-06-08T04:50:00.000-07:00

One of my pictures of Nigel Farage's plane crash has been selected by the Foto8 jury for their prestigious photographic Summershow. The exhibition runs from 8 July to 12 Aug in the Host Gallery in London and showcases a range of contemporary photographic work. It's usually a really good show and highly regarded in the picture taking world. But don't just take my work for it, take theirs!

This highly-esteemed annual open photography competition promises to be the biggest and most successful yet. Last year attracting over 2000 entries from 40 countries, this award has grown to become an established event recognised for showcasing and supporting dynamic new work from emerging and established contemporary photographers.

With no set theme photographers are invited to submit recent work, of any subject, style or genre, which engages or challenges the viewer, either to convey stories, raise questions or provoke feeling. Above all, we encourage free expression and are keen to see new and creative approaches that explore the realm of story-telling.

It's pretty exciting news and i'm looking forward to the opening of the show and seeing my picture on the wall.

Kodak Carousel

2011-06-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

I bought myself an old second hand medium format camera the other week so I could put my toe back into the water of larger format cameras. Since studying photography 5 or so years ago I have rarely used film. In fact, apart from pinhole camera experiments I don't think I used a film camera since 2006 and virtually never done anything commercially with it. This is mainly due to the fact I work mainly in the press, news and editorial world.

I spoke to photographer Oliver Woods recently about his excellent project Red Star, Black Gold and he said that he used Kodak Portra film on medium format because he wanted his work to look different from the usual digital stuff. His stuff looks nice but I've never been much of a subscriber to the idea that digital is a poor cousin to film and that medium format is better than 35mm. Until now that is...

I had a couple of weeks in Cyprus and decided it was a good chance to play with a new (old) camera. Although they don't make them anymore, I used a Bronica ETRS645 with a 75mm lens, using a metered prism and pistol grip. I was also playing around with some film I'd never used before Kodak Ektar. I'm a big Portra VC fan because of its bold colours - but this is being discontinued so the most vibrant stock now of offer is the slow (100 iso) Ektar.

I am used to using so many automatic settings on my digital camera it was a change of pace. Also only having 15 exposures really makes you think about the picture a lot more. Getting the composition right the first (ish!) time was important and you think about what you want to photograph a lot more. It slows the whole process down. Rather than feel frustrated it was actually a good feeling to think a lot more about a picture. With not being able to look at the image until after processing it meant I though about the exposure in different areas of the frame a lot more. Over-exposure and under-exposure was estimated on intuition and experience rather than what was on the back of my camera.

I really like the extra depth and detail that you get in the negatives - by comparison 35mm looks soft, muzzy and flat even on full frame digital cameras. The Ektar film is a spot on and if you have the light for it's slow-ish iso rating then I would recommend it to anyone. The colours are vibrant and bold without being over-saturated and unreal. None of the pictures on this blog have been altered except for a little bit of contrast here and there. But the colours are as they were on the film.

I want to explore larger format film work more in the future. The downsides of bulky cameras, slow process, limited shots and a need to have a good technical understanding actually make it a more rewarding experience. The quality of the detail and colours you can get directly to a negative with little or no post-processing really gives any work a unique look that digital can't match. It's definitely worth a play.

Now i'm hoping that maybe if i'm a good boy, Santa will put a large format camera under the tree for me...

Under Siege

2011-06-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

I was called to Watford as there were reports of a man with a bomb going bonkers in a Bank. He was threatening to blow himself up so the police sent in marksmen and shut the town centre down. When I got there most of the roads were shut down but me and my reporter Dickie Williams who, luckily for me, knew the area so we managed to get behind the police cordon.

The police had stopped anyone from walking down the street so I hid in a pub and waited, keeping one eye out for any activity. As it all kicked off and armed officers brought out the man I walked out in the street and snapped away until the very annoyed police officers caught up with me...

Although I was near the action I was still a way off so used a 2x doubler with my longest lens it meant some of the images were softer than I wanted and had to pull up and crop the frames a lot. However, you can't always expect pin-sharp accuracy when doing a proper live job.

The pictures made well in the papers today in The Sun, Express The Star and The Mirror. As I was watching the BBC coverage I noticed that I (accidently) completely ruined their shot with the back of my head, which is sweet revenge for all the times TV have got in my way and ruined my pictures!

Reach for the sky

2011-05-07T04:52:00.001-07:00

After doing some aerial shots of a big fire the other day, I kept my camera stuck to my eye and took some more shots from the sky. It's an obvious thing to say, but the world looks very different from above.

It's really interesting to notice how divided up and planned the landscape is and how small everything seems when in seen in context with the rest of the countryside. You get a really surreal view of Britain. Houses look like little Monopoly houses and people and animals seem like tiny models.

Blazin' Squad

2011-05-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

It's been such a dry April that Britain's woodlands have turned into tinderboxes with areas of England Scotland and Northern Ireland catching fire. I had a look at Swinley Forest in Berkshire which caught fire a few days ago.

I flew over in a helicopter and was able to get a few snaps. It was spread over a large area and whilst the flames didn't look fierce, it was pumping out a lot of smoke.

On the ground, the fire service took me around and I got some pics of the fire crews working, mainly keeping the ground and woodland damp to prevent any further outbreaks. Amazingly, no one was hurt even though a couple of kids were seen at night trying to re-light the flames.

May Day in Oxford

2011-05-02T11:36:00.001-07:00

There's lots of traditions in Oxford, one of them is that on May Day a choir sings from the tower of Magdalen College. Then a lot of half-cut students tend to throw themselves off Magdalen Bridge into the River Chirwell. For the first time in 20 years no one actually threw themselves off the bridge, so in one sense the morning was a bit of an epic failure.

However, a group of students braved the cold water and went for an impromtu dip in the river. It made for a few nice snaps and made a couple of papers which made the 3.30 am start worthwhile afterall.

Atomic Highway

2011-04-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

Don't forget April 24th is World Pinhole Day this year - so i thought i'd post a pinhole photograph I did recently which would start pinhole season with a bang:

The Atomic Highway was done using a medium format pinhole camera and Kodak Portra VC. Kodak are changing their Portra range to only neutral colours which is a real shame as there's nothing like a good saturated film stock. Although I hear the slower (100 ISO) Kodak Ektar film is just as bold...

Springtime

2011-04-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Spring is definitely here thanks to the recent weather. I took the opportunity of a sunny morning to visit a little forest near St Alban's which always has a spectacular spread of Bluebells. They're early this year due to unseasonal warmth. When I was there a little dog ran through a field of them which made for a nice sunny shot.

Sian O'Callaghan: Some Coverage

2011-03-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

I had some good coverage the other day. For the past week police in Wiltshire had been searching for the missing 22 year old Sian O'Callaghan, who was last seen leaving a club in Swindon. A suspect, 47 year old taxi driver Chris Halliwell was arrested Thurs and whilst police hoped to find her alive, he had pointed the police in the direction of where the body could be found.

Police activity and road blocks were seen near the famous White Horse Hill in Uffington. there was no way to access the scene from the ground so I was dispatched in a helicopter to try and get some aerial views of the investigation. I was able to get some shots of the white forensic tent that hid the body as well as the police activity as they searched the area. The tragic scene was not how people has hoped the case would end and it was further revealed a second victim had been murdered and buried by Halliwell. It has been one of the biggest stories of recent weeks and The Sun, Mirror, Telegraph, Star, Independent, Express and the Mail gave some good space in their pages for some of my grim aerial shots.

I'd photographed London from a hot air balloon and the Nazca Lines in Peru in a light aircraft, but this was the first set of live news aerial shots I had done. The pictures were straightforward because there so much police activity it was easy to spot and the sunny day meant I could use fast shutter speeds (essential when photographing from a moving aircraft). The main issue was speed. The pictures needed to get out fast as the news was breaking. Fortunately, I was in the air and on the ground again in less than half an hour, editing the pictures on my laptop whilst flying back to the airport so I could wire them the moment the helicopter touched the ground. I wasn't able to get the White Horse in shot with the murder scene as it was too far away, but the pictures worked enough to illustrate the story.

Boys from Brazil: more Kubrick web-fun

2011-03-16T03:18:00.000-07:00

More overseas interest in my Stanley Kubrick filming location project. The work has been featured on the news and culture website iG in Brazil. The work can be viewed by clicking here. Here's a screen shot:

The project, as ever, can be viewed on my website

www.neilhallphotography.com

Hold the front page

2011-03-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

Artists and Illustrators magazine have once more shown their excellent editorial sense and used one of my images on the front cover on their latest issue which is available from all good newsagents!!

The commission was to photograph Billy Showell in her studio. She a botanical artist and the magazine is running a feature on a whole bunch of them.

www.neilhallphotography.com

flavor of the week: Stanley Kubrick

2011-03-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

I noticed that some of my pictures were featured on the international culture website flavorwire.com this week. here's a handy screen grab:

The site features Looking For Stanley - a photographic project I did about the late great film maker Stanley Kubrick's filming locations. Most of his films were made in Great Britain, no matter where they were set. I've put a link to flavorwire below:

flavorwire

www.neilhallphotography.com

A son of the circus

2011-03-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

Pinhole photography again - I am getting more interested in night photography. I wanted to get the rich blacks that an underexposed night scene has and let the lights of the circus seem suspended in nothing. As the pinhole camera is lens-less it needs a long exposure to make this work. I made sure I only exposed the negative enough to get the bright circus lights and lost any detail in the shadow. Each exposure was about 4 mins which I used a tripod for and was f138, which is very small. The style works well with the subject of the circus, which are often unusual places.

Off the Wall

2011-02-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

One of my photographs was selected to be exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) . It was chosen to be hung in the Open Photography 2 show which is on at the RWA in Bristol from the 20th February to the 5th of April. The show features work from a range of different photographers and my pinhole photograph of the Natural History Museum was selected by the judges (see below)

I went to the private view and was able to have a sneak peek at the show. There's a lot of good work on display and it's a mixture of different photographic styles and disciplines. It's well worth a visit and you can link to the RWA website here. All the work is for sale so if you pop down, why not put your hand in your pocket and own a piece of pinhole magic for your wall...

My work on display at the Royal West of England Academy

www.neilhallphotography.com

On the road...

2011-02-11T02:52:00.000-08:00

I do a lot of miles on the road as photographer and wanted to capture it on film, particularly those long night drives back home after a busy day. Night photography can always be a bit of a challenge, particularly when you're not using flash or a tripod. My solution was to tape my pinhole camera to the dashboard of my car, open the shutter and just drive on. Pinhole cameras have no lens (see previous blogs) and need long exposures so the motorway traffic and street light becomes a blur. Captured on Kodak Portra VC film, the images came out less night landscape and more like a state of mind after driving hundreds of miles every week staring at the road... Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn as Kraftwerk would say...

North Circular, London - Hanger Lane to Staples Corner

M40, Oxford to London

M4, Reading to London

www.neilhallphotography.com

Tales of Hoffman

2011-02-08T13:32:00.001-08:00

In the 1980s his only friend was a camp talking car with a barcode scanner stuck on the bonnet. These days, however, everyone loves The Hoff. David Hasselhoff went to the University of Oxford Students Union to give a speech. Before you could hum the Baywatch theme the crowd went wild. He's a thoroughly nice bloke too and more than willing to pose for pics.

Stanley Kubrick - as heard on the BBC..!

2011-02-07T07:31:00.001-08:00

I was interviewed on BBC radio today and was asked about some of my work. They were interested in a project I did a short while ago about the filming locations of Stanley Kubrick's films. He only made 13 films but, needless to say each was a masterpiece of its genre. When your work includes Lolita, Dr Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket, you know you've had a good innings. Yet since 1962 all of them were made in Britain whether set in America, Europe, Vietnam or the future. I took pictures of the locations as they are today and wanted them to look like empty stages waiting to come back to life. It is interesting to see how Kubrick and his production designers (including Ken Adam, John Barry, Anton Furst, Leslie Tomkins and Roy Walker) turned seemingly banal areas of Britain into the most visually arresting scenes in cinema history.

The full project can be seen at: www.neilhallphotography.com/Stanley_Kubrick and the radio interview can be heard here at 1:06.40 into the programme on the BBC's listen again for a week or so. I haven't dusted off the project for a while so I though I'd post some pictures of the locations:

Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. Charlotte Haze’s (Shelley Winters) house, Ramsdale, New Hampshire, USA. Lolita (1962)

Wandsworth, London. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his Droogs attack a tramp in the not too distant future. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Tythe Barn, Glastonbury, Somerset. Barry (Ryan O’Neal) and Lord Bullingdon’s (Leon Vitali) final duel. Barry Lyndon (1975)

Madam JoJo's Soho, London. Dr Bill (Tom Cruise) meets Nick Nightingale (Todd Field) in the Club Sonata and learns about the orgy. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Thamesmead, London. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) attacks his Droogs in a futuristic marina. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Rochester, Kent. Joker (Mathew Modine) on the road to Hue, Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Radlett, Hertforshire. The writers house where Alex (Malcolm McDowell) rapes the writers (Patrick Magee) wife played by Adrienne Corri. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Well Worth A Look

2011-02-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Just been having a re-jig of my work and portfolios on my website. It's all been re-designed and updated so it's shiny and new. The front page looks just like the picture above!

It can be viewed at:

www.neilhallphotography.com

Any comments welcome!

Richard Keys Coverage

2011-01-27T03:25:00.001-08:00

I got some good coverage from a doorstep yesterday - Richard Keys and Andy Gray have been embroiled in a row over sexism after off-air comments about women (in particular ref Sian Massey and West Ham vice-Chairman Karen Brady) came to light. Whether it is an over-reation or not, it caused a bit of a news storm and Gray was sacked. Keys spent most of yesterday apologising but decided enough was enough and quit. I was at Keys house in Chobham and got some images of him before he went to Talksport for an interview. He looked pretty crestfallen and the pics went on the front page of The Daily Telegraph and The Sun (as well as some good usage inside).

Good coverage: Page 1 of The Daily Telegraph, Page 1 and 5 of The Sun as well as usage in The Daily Mail

Pinhole Photography - Black and White London

2011-01-24T03:00:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of colour pinhole over the last 12 months so I thought it might be worth having a go at some black and white and do my bit to keep Ilford in business. I did these on HP5 which gives me a bit more speed on these dull and flat winter days.

I think pinhole portraits always look nice in b/w - they seem to have more texture than colour. I did this one of my friend Steve who is an old-school film stock fan himself. I also had a go at that old London landmark classic Trafalgar Square - I did it at night to get rich blacks from massive underexposure but made sure there was plenty of light to get detail in the tree and National Gallery.

Black and white seems to suit interiors too. I got a shot of Fiona Banner's fighter jet that was suspended in the Tate Britain. A ready made shot if I ever saw one. I popped into to St Albans north of London and pinholed the cathedral. It was built on the spot of Alban's execution (he was the first Christian martyr) and is handy because it looks nice and, more importantly, has no photography restrictions!

Wild Wild Life

2011-01-16T07:45:00.000-08:00

Every now and then you get to mingle with legends - I was lucky enough to have five minutes to take some portraits of Dr. David Bellamy OBE. The name may not ring any bells with the youngsters out there, but his face was a regular on my childhood TV back in the 1980s, I can tell you. For many years he was the cover-boy of conservation and environmentalism and got a whole generation interested in the natural world. He's more low key these days but with his distinctive bearded look, he still knows how to give good face.

The end of '10

2011-01-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

It's always feels a bit back to school at the start of the new year but I thought I'd have a final 2010 theme posting. Here's a clipping from a recent Sunday Times Magazine - it did a round up of the best news images of the year and included one of mine from the election - a picture of MEP Nigel Farage getting pulled out of a crashed plane. It's always nice to get a good usage, particularly in a good news magazine. Fingers crossed 2011 has some other good photo ops...

2010 News and Editorial Pt two

2011-01-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more snaps from 2010:

This pic is from a memorial garden near Wootton Bassett which had opened up a special field of remembrance for poppy day this year.

Yet another dreaded weather picture from a quiet news day - this one worked out ok. A summery field of bluebells in St Alban's, Herts, with a little girl and her Granny.

This is a nice tabloid portrait for the Sun - the girl, Amanda Nicolson, was about to marry her boyfriend, having just discovered she was HIV positive.

Here's a snap of the Queen inspecting some soldiers at the Royal Windsor Horse Show - she's well into her 80s but still has more energy than I do...

This is from a commission for Artists and Illustrators Magazine - I needed a shot of the artist Mary Ramsden in her studio. It was closed on the day of her shoot but I made her flat look studio-like to make sure I met the brief. (I don't think anyone noticed)

These last two pics remind me that you never know who you're going to meet. Both are commissions for The Sun - I had to photograph Teriana Hird, a transgender mechanic who lost business after customers didn't like his/her new identity. I also met Steve Sale, who made a step-by-step guide to being a superhero and patrols the streets of Epsom as his alter ego: SOS Man.

2010 News and Editorial - some pics Part 1

2010-12-31T04:23:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd post some pictures of 2010 as it's going to end pretty soon. I remember reading a book by the famous photographer Harry Benson - he said that he never writes a diary because his pictures are his diary. It's funny looking at a year's worth of pics - sometime I go for ages without thinking that I do anything interesting, but when I look at the pics later on it turns out that I do. This is a selection of some pics I did in 2010. Not necessarily the best but a selection to show the variety.

For me, 2010 started with a date with Dave and Sam giving a speech at the Tory office in Witney. A few months later, they'd have popped out another kid and have moved into Downing Street.

Election Day in May was better for me than MEP Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader. When his election stunt went wrong and his plane crashed, I got an exclusive set of top action news pictures which went in papers around the world. Not only was he hospitalised, he failed to get a constituency seat in Buckingham.

A soldier salutes during a repatriation in Wootton Bassett. There seemed to be one nearly every week.

This is a job The Sun asked me to do. Ben Ihegboro, 44 and his wife Ijeoma Ihegboro, 34, of Woolwich, London are the proud parents of baby girl Nmachi. However, despite the fact that both parents are black, the baby is fair skinned with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Former Blur Bass-player Alex James reviews the most expensive loaf of bread in the UK. At £21.00 it's out of the reach of my pocket money but Alex was nice enough to butter me a slice.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg had a roller coaster year - you couldn't give tickets away to his early press conferences then he did the telly debate and you couldn't move for press. He's not so popular now mind, there's a gaggle of students who would probably regret voting for him now.

Here's a nice portrait I did for the Times of a pair of choirboys who were going to help the Pope during his visit to Britain.

It's Snow Joke

2010-12-19T07:55:00.001-08:00

The weather outside is frightful... which means weather pics and trudging through the cold. It being so close to Xmas I had a look at some shoppers. The snow was falling so heavy on some shots the lens kept focusing on the snow and accidentally created soft impressionistic pics like the one below. It was so cold my Canon 5D stopped working and went into a hypothermic coma until it had a few hours by the radiator...

A taste of paradise

2010-12-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

A monster of an exhibition...

2010-11-30T14:40:00.000-08:00

One of the perks of press pictures is you can get close up to some very cool stuff - I was at the Bodleian Library in Oxford the other day to photograph objects from a new Shelley exhibition. And not just one Shelley but two! There are pages from the original Frankenstein manuscript, hand written by Mary Shelley. This picture here features the bit where the monster comes to life. In the margins of the pages her poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley made corrections and added suggestions. Some people think he co-wrote it or even dictated it to his wife. I'm no book-ologist, though a handwritten note by him explaining to his wife that Frankenstein is the name of the scientist not the monster raised my suspicions...There was also Percy Shelley's spyglass that was with him when he drowned on his schooner the Don Juan. Chilling to think I was so close to an object that was in the possession of one of the world's greatest poets as he died. Though perhaps if he had looked through the thing a bit more the boat would never have sank in the first place.

Pinhole Camera: The Movie

2010-11-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here's my first foray into the world of pinhole photography movies. I used my pinhole camera to make lots and lots of individual frames (pinhole cameras are just boxes with no lens, just a little hole that lets in light - it's one of the most basic form of photography and can be seen in some of my previous blogs). I then stitched them together in Photoshop to create short film - it creates a cool jumpy animated effect a bit like old fashioned early films. As first series of attempts I think they've turned out quite well (although the plot lets them down a bit..) and I think there's room more a more ambitious pinhole photography movie project as soon as I can think of one...

Poppy Power

2010-11-10T06:18:00.001-08:00

I visited a remembrance field for soldiers who died serving in Afghanistan near Wooton Bassett in Wiltshire. Some of the crosses had messages by loved ones others had photographs of the fallen.

Don't let the Sun go down on me

2010-11-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you have ages to arrange and sort out a lovely picture, to set up your lights and plan your shots. More often than not however, time is not your best friend. Weddings are often a time sensitive event. With hundreds of setups to do, with little time to do them in a good snapper has to crack on. Though seemingly different, press work is an ideal training ground for weddings. You have awkward lighting conditions, difficult subjects, limited time and a million and one other things that can go wrong. Each job is a different challenge.

I did a beach wedding at sunset the other day. In theory it should be a crackerjack situation: golden sands and lovely light, although with only about an hour of daylight, timings were always going to be a bit of a squeeze. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the bride was really late, which somewhat threw my timings out.

I decided to use one speedlight off-camera with a shoot-through umbrella. I metered for the sunset, plopped people in front of it and balanced the flash. It meant the setting looked lovely and I was able to get some bold, nicely lit portraits. In the end all worked out well and the fact that the light was going so fast meant that a lot of the groups shots were relaxed and informal. Also, I was able to get some nice shots in the “Magic Hour” which creates a lovely diffused light and warm colours, as well as using the setting sun to my advantage and getting silhouettes. And all done in 15 minutes...

Continued Dispatches from the Frontline of Pinhole Photography...

2010-10-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

It's another edition of Pinhole fun - the last couple of batches have mainly been taken in America - this lot on the swamps and Keys of Florida. I need to take less transatlantic holidays and get my trusty pinhole camera out on British shores more, perhaps.This lot are a good example of the fun you can have with the camera - long exposures highlighting movement and allowing some good night photography, deep focus and wide angles. It is another reminder of the joy of using film - on this occasion it was Kodak Portra VC 400, which gives a lovely deep and vibrant set of colours and really gives some good shadows. I can't recommend this awesome film enough - everyone should ask Santa for a roll this year. The fun of waiting for your pics to come back from the lab was enhanced when I found that some of the frames had leaked light - a non-deliberate effect that looks very cool.

These pics are a mini exploration of Americana (or whatever that means to me, at any rate) it was approaching Halloween so I got a few pumpkin snaps. The cat is one of the six-toed descendants of Ernest Hemingway's cats from his house in Key West, whilst I got a classic night lights and 1950s car in Naples. And I always like a nice swishy flag or two...

See you later...

2010-10-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not a bird, but standing on the back of a fat alligator has never struck me as a good idea. It's probably one of those symbiotic relationships where vastly differing animals can co-exist naturally or maybe the bird is just excellent at impersonating Roger Moore as Bond in Live and Let Die.

Either way alligators are strange prehistoric buggers and pretty mean looking. When they open their mouths I can't help but think "look at them snappers" which also reminded me of another classic film, Romancing The Stone, but I wasn't going to shake one of the alligators to see if an emerald was going to fall out of its arse.

Murder in the 'burbs

2010-10-10T17:24:00.001-07:00

Crime scenes are not always the easiest to snap – understandably the Police would rather the Press didn’t stomp around a forensic area. The problem is, if there’s something interesting happening you need a picture of it rather than some tape outside a house.

The cops were investigating a murder near Godalming in Surrey and were digging up the garden looking for the body. Luckily for me I had a trusty stepladder and was able to peer over the fence and get some pictures of the forensic officers at work.

And it's goodnight from him...

2010-09-30T11:42:00.001-07:00

My creaky bones are old enough to remember The Two Ronnies from the first time round, so it was a little nostalgic treat to be able to photograph the unveiling of a statue to the late great Ronnie Barker. The comedy legend was famous for Porridge, Open All Hours as well as the Two Ronnies and his two long term friends and colleagues David Jason and Ronnie Corbett were on hand to help Barker's widow Joy unveil the statue.

The statue is outside a new theatre in Aylesbury, Bucks. Sculpted by Martin Jennings, the statue shows Barker as the role of Norman Stanley Fletcher in prison comedy Porridge. There were dozens of photographers and film crews at the event, which is possibly a testament to the affection the actor still has. Either that or it was a slow news day...

To light or not to light..?

2010-09-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

This portrait for The Times is of Oratory boys who are meeting the Pope. I wanted to keep a natural ambient light for the church background, but used a little light from a flash and a shoot through umbrella to add punch and bring them to life.

An underexposed background with a bit of sidelight to give a potentially dull subject a lift

The title of this blog is, of course, a little on the silly side. Without light there wouldn’t be any pictures as photography is all about understanding and controlling light. All photographs are "lit" but how you use the light is the difference. I always have a chin-wag with other photographers and see how they like to approach a picture. It always surprises me how differently people approach a portrait, for example. Some snappers I know won’t think about taking someone’s picture without having a bundle of off camera flashes and umbrellas, yet other people's mantra is to only use natural light whenever possible.

A picture of the Gruffalo artist Axel Sheffler, using all natural light from a window in front of him. I felt a too complicated lighting set up wouldn't suit his personality.

To me, there is no right or wrong way. I like both approaches - I was surprised how well all the naturally lit pictures in my Ukraine series still stand up (See previous blog). However, sometimes, out of necessity, you need flash light - whether to fill in a backlit photograph, because it's dark or simply because you are photographing for a tabloid that uses toilet paper, and the print quality can't stand up to subtle variations in light and shade.

Artist Mary Ramsden in her studio - it was dark so I needed to light the studio with one flash and then another with an umbrella to light her - but it didn't look too un-natural as it wouldn't be right for the client

I tend to sit in the middle - there's nothing quite like the bold shadows a flash can give a picture, as well as the all important highlight in the eyes. But on the other side, over-lit photographs can be too contrived and a simple portrait can look like a poor fashion shot. Conversely, a naturally lit (i.e. no flash) shot can give lovely subtle light, real tone between dark and light, and appear more "real".

These are a couple of portraits - some use lights some don't. It depends on the client as well as the subject whether to have a million lights or none. It's always important to remember that a portrait is about the person not any fancy lighting techniques.

A wedding shot using natural light - the light was soft and directional, but also with well over a hundred set-ups on a busy wedding day, it's not always practical to use two flashes and a soft box for every shot

The Odessa File

2010-08-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Going through your old photographs is a bit of a mixed blessing - it can remind you that you've actually done some interesting things and taken some good pictures. On the other hand it can remind you of some mistakes and missed opportunities. I was having a look at some work I did in 2007 - I was working on a local newspaper called The Walsall Advertiser in the Midlands. I was lucky to have a very nice editor, Natalie Missenden, (she actually appreciated photographs and was happy for me to try something different - a trait not always shared by subs and journos). Somehow I convinced her to get the paper to fly me to the Ukraine and photograph a charity at work. I'm can't remember how I managed to relate it to Walsall but I know it was tenuous at best.

These are a couple of the pics I took. I went to a shelter which housed elderly ladies near Kiev. After the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s all the Communist state jobs had gone and families could no longer afford to look after their old relatives. The women I met had been abandoned by their families and now lived in a shelter. They talked about missing the old days and how they never saw their old friends. One woman wore her old jacket from when she worked as a telephone operator in the Russian Army. She showed me her medals and spoke about how she missed the old regime.

I also visited orphanages in Kiev and Odessa. The children had all been abandoned by their parents. With no jobs in the rural area many people have turned to drink and drugs and don't look after their kids. Many children turn to stealing and prostitution to survive. Some children I met lived near Chernobyl and had defects from the radiation.

Looking back at them know I can't help but kick myself a bit. I was pretty green at the time and had only been a photographer for about 6 months. I would possibly photograph the whole thing very differently now. I had a strange obsession with wide angle lenses back then and would love to have the opportunity to photograph people on a longer lens to flatten the image and not make the background so apparent. I also had a pretty basic knowledge of lighting and didn't use flash that often. Now I would have my off-camera lights and umbrellas and so on and be able to give myself a greater range of light. Most of these shots use natural light but through a lack of technical know how rather than any great design. I was only in the country for 4 or 5 days I think and I'd want much more time with the subjects now. It didn't help that I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian, no one had told my guide to meet me a the airport and all my luggage (except my cameras) had been left in Paris by a useless airline. Still, I think a couple of shots stand up today and it shows that even without noticing it, you are always learning new techniques. I also managed to pay homage to the Battleship Potemkin and ran all the way up the Odessa Steps. Something not recommended...

Passing Out and Coming Home

2010-08-13T08:59:00.001-07:00

This week defence chief Liam Fox spoke of trying to create a leaner MOD and cut spending by 20%. By chance this week also threw up some timely Military jobs for me. There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between the two however – one a passing out parade for new officers and another the funeral of a serviceman who had been a soldier for 15 years.

The big boss Prime Minister David Cameron was the Sovereign's representative at The Sovereigns Parade at Sandhurst Military Academy. This is a big parade party for the new officers after they finish their years training. As a reward, this year they got DC plodding past, giving them a quick inspection and watching them march by in full uniform. It’s a pretty impressive spectacle watching so many men march in time and have so much pride in the services as they begin their career. All that and a big white horse called Winston!

The flipside to the ribbons, polish and square-bashing, however, was the Funeral of Corporal Arjun Purja Pun in Aldershot earlier in the week. He was a Gurkha in the 1st Batallion Rifles and has served for 15 years before being killed whilst he slept in Afghanistan.

People ask how you can photograph funerals. Like much of the unpleasant aspects of a press photographers job, you just have to pull your socks up and get on with it. One thing you can tell yourself is that any published pictures remind people of the sacrifices that the armed forces make. Whether you can justify it or not, the key thing is that this type of job needs qualities not often required in the press photography world – tact and restraint. It’s best to keep your distance and go about your job as quietly as possible. It’s one of the few times where biffing other snappers out of the way for a pic is bad form. You have to go with the flow of the day and if it doesn’t work out and you miss a shot, it’s really nothing compared to the loss of the friends and family attending.

Movie Madness With Madonna...

2010-08-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

Her previous forays into movies have, to use technical cinema jargon, been utter bollocks. Yet a critical panning has never been something to hold Madonna back and she’s now directing her first feature W.E. about the abdication and Wallace-Simpson. The Sun newspaper asked me to pop down and to have a look at the film set. Sure enough, she’d converted a couple of streets into the 1920’s. Film sets can be a nightmare or a joy to take pics on, as security can be very tight, trying their best to stop you getting a decent frame.

This one wasn’t too bad and the crew made sure the snappers could get what they wanted – it helped that Madge had gotten dressed in the dark and had rolled one sock up her leg. It meant that there was a little more of a story to the pics. Also, her kids turned up on set which made for some nice family shots. This caused a little friction with the security as Madonna was asking for privacy and family time. My advice would be not to bring your entire family on to the middle of an open film set in central London – but then it’s probably not easy to see your nippers when directing a multi-million pound project for 14 hours a day. At least she was close to her house though, and when it was all over she could cycle home to her Marylebone pad to put her feet up.

Black Parents, White Baby!

2010-08-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

Pretty much what it says on the tin for this one. The Sun asked me to pop down to Woolwich and take pictures of Ben & Angela Ihegboro with their baby Nmachi. The couple had just had a new addition to the family, but the unusual thing was that the baby was white and the parents were black. The baby was not an albino but had blonde hair, white skin and blue eyes. Turns out it's one of those strange things that nature throws out every once in a while. The baby is definitely Ben and Angela's, but if I was the dad, I confess i'd be keeping one eye looking out for a Nordic milkman with a glint in his eye and a spring in his step...

An Audience with Nick Clegg!

2010-07-27T06:29:00.001-07:00

It only seems like minutes ago that no-one really knew who Nick Clegg was, but he's a big boy now. As Deputy Prime Minister he has his own travelling roadshow where he gets to meet the Great unwashed. Nick Clegg Meets... may sound a bit like an Audience with Jimmy Tarbuck or something but he's a star - His name is on the poster because he is a genuine crowd draw, rather than the old days, when it just used to explain to the audience who was actually speaking.

(above) Nick Clegg's hitchhiker impersonation - it slays 'em every time

The excitement in Abingdon Town hall was palpable on the Deputy PM's face

The hall at Abingdon was jam packed with punters too - all trying to get their couple of minutes of Clegg face-time, and he knows how to work the crowd, once again showing his leader debate-conquering skill of remembering peoples names. It's not always visually interesting at these events but Clegg always seems game for a photo op. It's important to cover the whole thing from top to bottom - straightforward tabloid shots to wider broadsheet style as well as getting useful stock shots of the Deputy PM. It's vital to have a beady eye open for amusing or unusual facial expressions too. It was more a photographic tick sheet than buckets of inspiration on this job, but no less fun for it.

The Queen Upped my Swan

2010-07-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

Don’t judge these chaps by their fruity costumes - Swan Upping is no easy ride. Those feathered chaps are just as likely to break your arm as soon as hiss at you, apparently. Even in this day and age the reigning monarch is entitled to claim ownership of unmarked swans in open water, so for a week once a year a mini-flotilla of boats take to the Thames in search of Cygnets (baby swans). It's called Swan Upping.

The idea is to get the baby swans - measure them and check their health and some swans are marked with rings. In the olden days they were fattened and eaten, though swan burgers are off the menu these days and it’s a bit of a jolly to help with river conservation.

The boss of the operation is the Queens Marker- a sea dog by the name of David Barber whose uniform includes a lovely hat with a feather sticking out of the top. As swan disguises go, it's appalling but i'd still give a 10/10 for style.

Ice Station Zebra

2010-07-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

Apart from some pinhole pics and the odd wedding shot here and there, there's not a huge amount of opportunity to do black and white pics, as not many magazines and newspapers tend to use them. I was asked to pop together some snaps of a band for their publicity. They're called Ice Station Zebra (see, there's some publicity for starters...) They are influenced by late 60's, early 70's music such as Dylan and The Band and they wanted the pics to show it. I had a flick through some old pics of The Band by Elliot Landy and used them as a starting point.

To get an old-style look, I tried to create a graphic look by having bold shadows and contrast - old film emulsions and particularly album reproductions of images, don't seem to have a vast range of tones and I wanted to recreate the effect. They wanted the pics to be done in the old classic band photo location - a wood. You get some funny looks, although five young men romping in Hampstead Heath with a camera is no uncommon sight... You do get some nice ambient light in woods, and trees and whatnot add some texture to backgrounds. I used a couple of lights mainly in a classic set up - one lighting the subject with an umbrella from the side to get some shadows across the face and behind the person, set a couple of stops brighter to create highlights in the hair or, in some cases, to flood the light towards the camera.

They're not going to change the world of photography but being able to produce some old style and classically lit black and white snaps is always good fun and a handy trick to have up your sleeve.

Further Adventures in Pinhole Photography

2010-07-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's Pinhole O'Clock on my humble blog again. If you're taking snaps for papers or different clients and the like for a living, pretty often you're limited in what style you can play with. At the end of the day they're paying for the pics, so they have the final say. So it's nice every now and then to let your hair down and have a pop at taking pics for only yourself and without any brief. I'm still pretty excited about pinhole photography as it offers up a wide range of creative possibilities. Being a camera with no lens, it's an imprecise technique but that adds to the fun. I've popped on some of the vaguely oddish angles and double exposures (the poor man's photography technique I read somewhere once...!) that you often associate with the type of snaps produced.

Although I like the uncertainty of it all, a camera is a camera and anyone with a slash of technical knowledge can plan and get some good results. A quirk of a pinhole photograph is the incredible depth of field (i.e. everything in the shot is in focus) and wide angle. It makes for good landscapes or interiors like the Natural History Museum (above). It also means that little things like models can appear bigger than they are and you can make mini-scenes like my fish and my radioactive ant.

I have been playing with a 35mm film pinhole camera (the square ones are 120 or medium format roll film) They don't have as much detail and seem grainier but have a unique look of their own. I think it's always good to bang the drum for old style or non-digital photography so I hope you enjoy these meagre offerings...

Royal Ascot

2010-06-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

It's a big horse race meeting, but you'd be forgiven for not paying attention to some nags running in a field. Royal Ascot is a big social event featuring major royalty and a gaggle of celebrities - some of them even famous. The ladies are dressed up and the suits are sharp. Summer means shorts and flip-flops for me normally, but even the press need a jacket and tie just to get in.

There's lots of competition for pics - and you need to bash other photographers out of the way to get shots of the celebs. The biggest scrum was the arrival of Bruce Forsyth oddly enough - but he could play the snappers like a pro, making sure that he looked at everyone's cameras so we all got a lovely picture. The order of the day is usually pics of fruity girls in big hats but it's good to try and get a different angle on a familiar subject.

You need to be quick and eagle-eyed on a job like this - you need to get your Royal arrivals, odd hats and be thinking of a quirky shot or two. On top of this you need to keep a close watch for celebs. Simon Cowell is an Ascot favourite, and I was able to spot him in his private box, looking none too pleased that he'd obviously backed a donkey in the Gold Cup.

Pinhole Photography Magic

2010-06-11T04:16:00.000-07:00

I was a little nipper, knee-high to a grasshopper when I last had to wait for a roll of holiday film to come back from the chemists, but I was playing with pinhole cameras whilst in Texas, in the old US of A. A pinhole camera is one of the most basic forms of photography. Basically, it is a box with a tiny hole in it. There are no lenses or fancy bits. All the light comes through the tiny hole and makes the exposure on the film (ask your grand-dad what film is if you're confused, etc.. etc...).

The tiny hole it means that the pictures have a huge depth of field, so everything is in focus. The light falls unevenly so sometimes you get a dark fall off on the edge of the frame. Also the little hole means that you have to open the shutter to expose the film for a long time so you get movement in the picture. This means you need to keep the camera really still and, if you're photographing a portrait, you need to keep to person really still sometimes for minutes.

There is no viewfinder, either, which means that sometimes the final composition is a best guess. Being non digital too it means you won't see the image until much later. This is pretty exciting as it returns to a time when photography was magical and mysterious. Now, with digital stuff, I can take a picture and have it sent to a paper and be online in minutes. I can constantly be checking if the picture came out right on the back if the camera or laptop. But with pinhole photography it returns to being a bit of a dark art and returns it to the realms of the unknown.

These pics were taken in Galvaston and Huston area in the USA. They include a roadside tribute to soldiers Missing in Action as well as space rockets at Nasa Mission Control and some snaps of the Gulf of Mexico (oil spill not included)

Alex James Portraits

2010-06-09T03:47:00.000-07:00

You can spend ages getting your lighting right and fretting about your choice of location, clothes, lenses and the usual technical malarkey, but it can all go to waste if you don't have someone who wants to be in front of the camera. The hardest part of any portrait job is actually getting a person to "perform" well and understand what you want. It means having to put people at ease, and communicate well, often with people who are not normally used to having a camera poked at their faces for extended periods of time. One of my old editors called it "Playing the Punch and Judy Man" for some reason, but then he never was a photographer. All this with deadlines and the usual picture pressure.

With all that going on at a normal shoot, it's always a welcome pleasure to photograph someone who understands the needs of the photographer. Alex James, the former bass player with Blur and general currently foodie man, has been on countless photo shoots in his varied career, probably with a lot of better and more experienced photographers than me. A seemingly laid back chap anyway, he knows how to make the camera work for him and is helpful with ideas and expression. We were working on a commission for The Sun on a story about Britain's most expensive bread - £21.00 a loaf!

The shoot was running late, it was evening and on-edition for the next days paper and I wanted some pics at three locations with various lighting set ups. Fortunately, because my model was a pro we got it all done in about 20mins which included a drive down to his wheat field on the other side of his farm. In between taking The Sun's requirements, I was also able to snap a couple of portraits too. Sometimes it's good to coax a great picture out of someone who isn't used to it, yet on the other hand, it's handy when you've someone that can help you knock off of few snaps in double quick time.

Jeremy Clarkson - he hates photographers...!

2010-06-08T03:05:00.000-07:00

I was having a look at The Sunday Times the other day, when I came across an article by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson. The piece was called Please, Carry on filming - I'm only burning to Death

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article7144673.ece)

It was a look at the current phenomenon of filming and photographing everything. The reason i've popped it on my blog is that it happens to mention me, and not in the most flattering terms!! (see below)

I feel fairly sure that if I were to catch fire, no one would try to beat out the flames or find an extinguisher. They’d simply record the event on their phones.

You think I’m being silly? Well, you may recall that in the run-up to the election, the former UKIP leader Nigel Farage decided to tow a banner behind a plane, urging people to, I don’t know, stamp on a bratwurst. Unfortunately, the banner got entangled in the plane’s tailfin and it crashed.

I’m certain you recall the photographs of him in the wreckage, with blood pouring down his face, and of the pilot, seriously injured in the seat next to him.

Now here’s the strange thing. Someone took those photographs. Someone raced to the scene, saw two injured men hanging upside down and thought: “I know. I’ll get my camera out and take a picture of this.”

Of course, it’s possible that the person responsible was a professional photographer, in which case the boundaries are blurred. It is a professional photographer’s job to record events, not shape them. But I think this mainly applies during periods of civil unrest and war.

However, it is also possible the person responsible was a bank manager or an accountant. And I don’t know about you but I think if I were presented with a badly injured man in the wreckage of a plane — no matter how much I disagreed with his opinions — I’d think about neck braces and mouth-to-mouth and fuel leaks rather than exposures and angles and what some pictures might be worth.

I don't want to sound like a whinger, but I am a professional photographer, I was asked to be there by UKIP and was covering the event for a news agency. It just so happened the plane fell out of the sky. When we got there I did actually make sure that everyone was alive and an ambulance was on its way, and as you can see in the pictures, help was at the scene. I agree, there is a bit of a blurred line about photographers and helping and what is intrusive. I'm not sure what is intrusive (not from a legal stand but from wishy washy moral viewpoint). When news is unfolding in front of you in seconds, however, having an internal moral debate over the ethical fallout of a picture is not always an appropriate course of action. Both the pilot of the plane and UKIP have since been in touch and requested copies of the pictures for their own use. The pilot wants copies for his family christmas card... As for the value of the pictures, I do know how much they sold for, but as a staff photographer and therefore not the copyright holder I can assure people that I did not actually profit very much more than if the plane had actually stayed in the sky.

All newspapers ran with the pictures so that does prove so some extent public interest in the story. I find it odd when on news websites comments are posted such as: This is Sick.. or disgusting or the photographer should be prosecuted Equally, on celebrity stories posts include this is boring, or ...yawn, why do I care? I have to ask, why are people looking at these stories to begin with if they are are so offended or hate a type of story?

I have to say though, that I agree with Jeremy Clarkson on the whole:

I find myself wondering if last week’s Israeli raid on a Turkish ship in a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza would have had the coverage it did if the battle hadn’t been captured on film. And likewise the racing driver who broke a leg after crashing in the Indy 500. It only became a big deal because we could watch the accident from several angles in slow motion.

In recent months this phenomenon has even spread to the natural world. I mean it. When an animal does something normal, it’s not news. But when it is “caught on camera” doing something normal, then it’s in the Daily Mail. These days, if you snap an owl catching a mouse, you are Robert Capa.

In the end, this can only be good for all of us. Figures out recently show that more people in India have access to a mobile phone than a lavatory. Soon, it will be the same story in China and Africa. And then, when all the world’s being filmed, all of the time, we can go back to a time when news was something interesting rather than something we can simply see.

That way, I wouldn’t have to spend half my morning looking at pictures of Twiggy going shopping. And an eagle eating a fish.

Without wishing to sound like a contradiction, I'm not sure why people take so many photographs or film everything they see. I'd rather enjoy life rather than take endless footage of it. Of course, i like holiday snaps as much as everyone else, but sometimes I wonder if some tourists have real time footage of their lives at home in some vault. And as for photographing celebrities... why do people feel the need? Having my fair share of celebrity photography as a press person, i'm baffled why anyone wants a picture, of say Rachel Stevens, walking to the shops. I've seen people filming celebrities as they go past doing their everyday business. I can't understand why the average person feels the need to record this event - i'm rarely interested in the unfolding "celebrity news event", but at least I'm paid to be there.

The Queen

2010-05-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

She is the most photographed person in the world, but it's hard not to be a few feet away from the Queen without taking a few snaps. The Royal Horse Show in Windsor takes place in her back yard at Windsor Castle, Berks, so it must be odd having thousands of people at your own place. She obviously likes horses and seem to take everything in her stride, not an easy thing to do when there's a bunfight of photographers watching your every move (see below).

Pesky Snappers

She is helped out by a man in a fetching bowler hat and suit combination, a luxury I feel that would enhance my own existence. However, I still think I'd be doing well to be as sprightly as she is at 84.

Her Majesty The Queen - no slouch when it comes to horse staring competitions

Nigel Farage Plane Crash - Some Coverage

2010-05-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Pics were in The Guardian, inside the Metro and Independent

No matter how many times you get your pics in the paper, there's always something exciting about when they are used. There was some good coverage of Ukip's Nigel Farage's plane crash in the papers and it's always interesting to see how the different papers pick different images and use different layouts.

Pics made front page of the Metro and Evening Standard as well as good shows in the Daily Star and Daily Express

The story appeared on the day after the General Election so there was lots of competition for news and pictures. I'm pleased it made as big as it did. The Times (below) gave it a double-page spread and used some sound editorial judgement to give me a large byline and include a lovely picture of me.

Nigel Farage Plane Crash

2010-05-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's not often that a good story simply falls into your lap very often, so when it does you have to make sure you get some good snaps as quick as you can. I was sent to cover former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's election day stunt in Northamptonshire. He was planning on flying a UKIP banner over Buckingham where he was contesting the seat against Speaker of the House John Bercow. All of a sudden the plane dropped out of the sky - rushing to the scene all you can do is compose yourself and remember why you are a press photographer and get the job done. It looked like a worst case scenario at first but once I knew an ambulance had been called and both pilot and Farage were alive, I took some pics.

Some have criticized me for having no compassion, but being able to look objectively at something, stay calm and get on with the job is an ability that is in all photographers DNA. Any photographer would have done the same, i'm sure.

I was lucky that I had an exclusive set to myself and was close to the scene - sometimes even the most routine jobs can turn out to be something different and I guess you have to be ready. Some jobs need patience, skill and hours setting your lighting to make the picture work - sometimes though, if you're lucky, all you need to do is point the camera in the right direction and the pictures take themselves.

It was a lucky scoop for me, but he luckiest people were Farage and the pilot. I thought they might have been killed on impact but fortunately their injuries were not more severe.

Electioneering

2010-05-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's only a few days to go before the General Election after a busy campaign (for the politicians anyway). Pictures wise, the mood changes constantly. On day one you could almost hear the tumbleweed at a Lib Dem rally, then thanks to the TV debate, suddenly the number of media triple at a Nick Clegg appearance.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Cleggs reflects on his new found popularity

Nick Clegg seemed to relish being in the limelight as the Liberal Democrats were given more exposure than ever before.

Nick Clegg, from Zero to Hero - at one point described as more popular than Winston Churchill....

With so much competition and so little time it's not always easy to get an image that is interesting from what are, in fact, often visually dull events.

Conservative Leader David Cameron works his magic on the party faithful....

....whilst Labour Leader Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah attempt to charm children in Swindon

Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have been fighting for their political lives