Shoots

Double-pie, Double-mash & Licker

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Posted by admin on January 24, 2012 – 3:42 pm
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Having spent over five years now in London and nearly a decade with a British partner, I am fairly confident with my comprehension of British culture. Sure there are all the stereotypes that Americans tend to associate with the Brits–tea, crumpets, the Queen, color with a “u”, black cabs, double-decker buses and bulldogs –those are easy. Then there are the references and institutions that fly well under the radar of the average cultural voyeur. From popular culture to local traditions to occasional encounters on the street, there are some things that  are so uniquely British that if I didn’t live with a Brit, they would go completely over my head.

Christmas Cracker

The simplest place to start would have to be the Christmas Crackers. No British Christmas dinner is complete without these snappy little packages. Placed at each guest’s dinner setting, a cracker is sort of a cross between a fortune cookie and a piñata and contains a minimum of four key ingredients: 1) a bad joke; 2) a useless prize; 3) a paper crown; and 4) an element within the cracker that produces a cracking sound that cracks when the package is torn apart. Tradition as to when the crackers are cracked apparently varies from the north of Britain to the south of Britain–some people crack them at the beginning of the meal, while others crack them just before pudding (dessert). The tradition of the cracker is quite communal. Everyone crosses their arms across their chest while gasping firmly on one end of the cracker. The person seated next to them takes the other end, and this position continues around the table. With a one, two, three countdown, the crackers are all pulled resulting in a resounding “POP!” From there, you dive into your cracker. Paper crowns are donned, prizes are compared  and much like the fortune from Chinese fortune cookies, the jokes are all read aloud–each followed by an audible groan from the crowd.

Lee and his folks Wendy & Lynn wearing their cracker crowns

When I first moved to Britain, I lived in an expat bubble. My friends were mostly other Americans, and as I hosted guests at my place during  my first Christmas in Britain, we completely missed the cracker course. It was only when I started dating Lee and began having a real English Christmas, that I learned about Christmas Crackers. Although all crackers carry all the basic ingredients, it wasn’t until this past Christmas that I realised the degrees in cracker quality. Not all crackers are created equal. Pretty much every retailer wants to cash in on the cracker action. From Tesco to Harrods, you can find the cracker that is right for your budget. What does remain the same, regardless what strata of society you happen to fall in, everyone at the table invariably wears their paper crown for all or part of the meal. It’s all terribly British.

Bonfire Night

Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night is another tradition that seems to elude most non-Brits. Started in 1605, the evening commemorates the foiling of a plot by the Catholic Guy Fawkes and his band of rebels to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Fireworks are launched throughout the land, and bonfires with effigies of the Pope, Guy Fawkes or the unpopular politician of the day (Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, etc) are tossed onto the fire. No one seems to bat an eye at the holiday’s anti-Catholic sentiment. But again, for newcomers to Britain, if someone doesn’t explain Bonfire Night, it just seems like an ordinary night that happens to have fireworks. In fact, back in 2006, one London neighbourhood decided that they had so many immigrants for whom the celebration meant nothing, that they scrapped Guy Fawkes and replaced him with a Bengal tiger. While this created an uproar in the press, other councils dominated by politically correct mandarins seemed to think it was a good idea too. In 2011 the Southwark council proposed to rename the age-old tradition “The Colour Thief: A Winter Extravaganza Celebrating The Changing Of The Seasons”. While I understand the desire councillors have to creating cohesion within a community, can’t this also be done by educating people on why the holiday came into existence in the first place?

Apart from silly Christmas traditions or controversial Pope-burning ceremonies, the Brits also have a whole slew of pop culture that never made it to the States (or at least not to Minnesota). The Carry On films stand out as quintesentially local humor . Made from the late 1950′s through the late 1970′s, the films hold a unique place in the hearts of many a Brit–or dare I say, the English. Camp, bawdy, silly and profoundly slapstick, they were full of innuendo, double-entendre and titty jokes. Think Benny Hill, but on the big screen. The names of each film gave viewers a pretty good idea what they could expect to see: Carry On Sergeant, Carry on Doctor, Carry on Spying, Carry on Cowboy…you get the picture.

Typical Carry On poster

Produced on a shoestring, the films typically featured an ensemble cast with a number of well known regulars including Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Barbara Windsor. Last spring Lee and I were perusing in a shop in Brighton called England at Home where we came across a collection of plastic plates and cups, each emblazoned with scenes from Carry On Camping.  Knowing his sister Sue is both an avid camper and more importantly a self-respecting Carry On fan, we snatched the last complete set up. Birthday present, sorted. While the actual jokes and plots of each film have all but  faded into the nation’s collective memory, the series has had a lasting impact on modern Britain, particularly when it comes to headlines. When the Conservative party failed to secure a clear majority and was forced to forge a relationship with the Liberal Democrats, one newspaper’s headlines declared, “Carry On Coalition!” To the untrained reader, it might appear the newspaper was cheering the politicians on, but a seasoned Brit would see through the words and understand that the editors were not only mocking the politicians, but challenging them to get their act together. I suppose the closest thing I can think of as an American would be to call something a “three-hour tour...”

The Two Ronnies

While in today’s market where media conglomoerates may only do a show if it has huge international appeal, it seems quaint that there was a time when British television didn’t cross the pond. When Lee and I  make it back to the States, we invariably get caught in a conversation with some  American just who just adores Mrs. Bucket. Most everyone we meet knows AbFab, AliG, and the impregnable Downton Abbey. But what about the Two Ronnies? A sketch comedy show from the 1970s catapulted two already well known talented comedians,  Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, into true British legends. But while their sketches have become iconic here in the UK–how  many times have I heard or even now uttered the phrase “Four Candles” with a knowing smile–I’d wager a bet there are few of my tribe that would know who they are. About the closest reference for Americans would be Harvey Corman and Tim Conway.

As I write this, I am acutely aware that in our über-connected global community where we can access practically everything in just a few keystrokes, it is easy to become smug about what we know. History, commentary, films, pictures–you name it–are all at our fingertips. Everything we could possibly want to know about a culture is instantly accessible, but most likely only if you have heard about it in the first place. Tea, the Queen, black cabs are all done to death, but the other day I stumbled in a shop in my own neighbourhood that truly transported me into another era, the pie and mash shop.

Harrington's on Selkirk Road

A pie and mash shop sells exactly what it says on the tin (another British expression): meat pies and mashed potatoes. Some sell jellied eels or stewed eels, but pies, mash and licker are the mainstays. (While reading up a bit more since then, I’ve seen licker written as liquor; perhaps that is the correct spelling, but as it is a tasty treat that makes you want to lick your plate, I’ll use Harrington’s spelling.) When I first moved to London back in 2003, there was a shop on Tower Bridge Road that had a sign out front advertising eels. I didn’t dare enter in. Then about a year ago, I spotted Harrington’s pie house on my way to get my hair cut. Tucked in between a Halal butcher and an opticians is one of a handful remaining pie and mash shops. I asked the girl hanging outside what the place was and she told me they sold pies. Being on the go, I didn’t stop. Then the other day, Lee and I were out in Tooting doing some errands when we got a bit peckish. He suggested we try the pies. Stepping into the shop, I was amazed at its simplicity. A counter on one side. Tables with wooden benches on the other side. People walked in briskly, ordered their food and then sat down and ate it, or dashed off with the hot meal in hand.

Lee ordered first. “I’ll have a pie with mash, please.” You want “licker?” the woman asked. “Yes, please,” Lee replied. “You want just a bit of licker or as it  comes?” “I’ll take it as it comes.” She picked up the pie, plopped it onto the plate, then using an ice cream scoop, wiped two dollops of potato onto the rim of the plate. With the flick of a wrist, she proceeded to pour a healthy portion of green gravy (licker) on top of it all. “You?” she asked. “I’ll have the same, but easy on the licker.”

We found an empty table and sat down to enjoy our meal. I have to say, I felt really foreign. It wasn’t the food, that was tasty. It was the complete package. It was as if I had ventured into a world where only the English ventured. As we sat and ate, a steady stream of customers popped in. “One pie, two mash and licker.” “One pie, one masher and licker.” “Two pies, two mash and licker.” The woman at the counter greeted them all with a smile and within about a minute, the customer was off.

As we finished our meal and paid our bill, I asked if I could come back and take some pictures. “We’re closed on Mondays, but if you come back on Tuesday, Bev will be here. She owns the place. It’s been in her family for over a hundred years, and I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

I stopped in the next Tuesday and sure enough, Bev was there. She had heard I was coming. I’d left my camera at home, as I didn’t want to presume I could just start snapping. “Come back around three,” she said. “It’ll be a bit quieter then.” “I can take pictures, right?” I asked. “Sure.”

Fourth Generation Owner of Harrington's

I returned at three and Bev greeted me with a smile. The line was still long and though I felt a bit obtrusive, once the customer was served, Bev made me feel right at home. We sat down at one of the tables and she told me a bit about her shop. Her granddad had opened the place back in 1908. When he died, her grand nan took over. She passed it onto her son. When he died, his wife took the place over. Bev’s father took it over from her and after thirty-seven years in the business, he then passed it onto Bev when he retired at sixty-five, and she herself had started working in the shop when she was thirteen.

Pretty, well-spoken, no-nonsense and clearly a good businesswoman, Bev has all the ingredients for a strong business. Now…I’m a photographer and I happen to write. I don’t consider myself as an investigative journalist, but I did get to ask Bev a few questions about her shop and the place it holds within the community. Her customers are largely English. While Tooting is quite a multicultural neighbourhood, when someone indicates their customers are mainly English, it’s safe to assume their families have been in England for generations, and that there are not that many newbies like me popping in for lunch.

Pie, Mash, Licker...but no Eels

Harrington’s menu hasn’t changed since it opened, and even more importantly, the recipe has remained the same as well. Passed on from one generation to the next, the pie is made with minced beef and two types of pastry–one type for the base and one for the top. The mash is just mashed potatoes–no milk, no cream, no salt, just potatoes. “And the licker?” I asked. “Oh, it’s just a parsley sauce,” Bev answered slightly evasively. I could sense she didn’t want to share her secret licker recipe. My friend Will is a caterer, and he told me that he once had to make it. The licker is just stock with parsley and cornstarch. Bev let me know there is a wee bit of green colouring added to give its hue.

Another couple of guys walked in. Bev darted behind the counter. “Double-pie, double-mash & licker.” She served them up and returned to our conversation. “What’s the plan for the business, then,” I asked. “Will you pass it along to your children?” Bev took a slight pause and said that was the unknown question. She has two girls and two sons, three of whom had worked in the shop and the youngest was ten, but he too would join the ranks at some point. Another customer stepped in. “Is it ok if I take some pics?” I asked as she made her way to the counter. “Sure.”

One of Harrington's regulars

A few of the customers were camera shy when this strange American asking a lot of questions pulled out a camera. One woman, Miss Bush was quite happy to help out. “I’ve been coming here for years,” she told me. “My mum took me here when I was a girl, and I’ve been coming here since.” She then told Bev she remembered Bev’s father and that her own mum and Bev’s dad had been in hospital at the same time. “Was that when he was in for cancer?” Bev asked. Miss Bush nodded.

Bev sat down again, and we continued our conversation. “Have you been in Tooting all your life?” I asked. “I don’t live in Tooting,” she replied, “but I’ve been here all my life.” “Has the neighbourhood changed?” “Oh yes. Most definitely.”  Once a largely white working-class neighbourhood, Tooting became a destination for many Indian and South Asian immigrants when Idi Amin expelled them from Uganda in 1972.  Since then, the Asian population in Tooting has grown from a handful of families to now over 20% of the population. But walking down the high street in Tooting, you get a sense that it is much more than 20%. While there are a handful of national chains–Sainsbury’s, Boots, all the big banks, and even a Caffe Nero, a fair bulk of the shops are Asian-owned, underscoring the unique nature of Bev’s shop.

Regardless of colour or creed, the cool thing about Tooting has to be its working-class roots. When the riots hit London last  August, I was  impressed that our neighbourhood didn’t suffer the same fate as some of the neighbourhoods around us. While Tooting has a number of shops that were at the top of the looter’s list, we weren’t hit. In deconstructing the (lack of) impact of the riots on Tooting afterwards with our friend Charlie at our local pub, we concluded that it was the common shared value of working hard to make a better community crossed ethnic boundaries and helped keep Tooting out of looters way.

Bev and her daughter

As an island of Englishness in a neighbourhood of chain stores and ethnic shops, my thoughts returned to the future of the pie shop. Could a shop that only serves minced beef pies and jellied eels survive another hundred years? Clearly from the unending stream of customers, the market is there. Was she concerned that the shop would be squeezed out by a sanitized chain restaurant or transformed into a Curry house.  ”Not at all,” Bev said. Her biggest fear, however, was that when everything was said and done, would one of her kids have the drive and vision to take the helm. Her youngest daughter was sitting behind the counter. Bev nodded in her direction, “She’s off to uni next year,” Bev said. “My other daughter, maybe. The boys, not sure. It’s just not the same as when we were kids. Well, I can’t speak for you,” she said, “but I know it wasn’t the same for me.”

Steely Resolve

I took my last shots and shook Bev’s hand. As I stepped out the door onto the street, I felt less foreign than when I first stepped in and dare I say it, I felt a sense of pride, British pride. Bev’s steely resolve and pragmatic approach reminded me of how Britain has remained a global power for centuries. Though I personally cannot trace my ancestors back for generations here in the UK,  I took comfort in the thought that if her children have half the resolve of their mother, they should have have no trouble seeing the business into the next century too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kicking and Screaming

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Posted by admin on August 31, 2011 – 1:26 pm
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Fitness instructor from Bootcamp PilatesOne of the greatest things about being a photographer is chance to learn life lessons from the people I shoot. Though my interaction with each of my subjects may range from a quick portrait to a full-scale production, I generally have the luxury of my subjects’ undivided attention at least for a few frames. By watching them, examining them, preening them and of course talking with them, I am able to assess their character quickly with relative ease, and generally take away something of value (besides a photograph) from the shoot.

Take the successful architect. He showed up an hour and a half late and chain smoked through the entire shoot. Gruntingly boorish in his manner, I was certain to capture his greasy hair, big belly and booze-pocked nose. Returning to the office to process the images, there was no retouching required. I uploaded the files from my camera, had a quick look to pick out the best ones, exported the RAW files to TIFFS and sent them off to my editor.

Conversely, there was the portrait of managing director from Cyprus. Though incredibly successful at the helm of his company, he didn’t seem to fare too well when it came to his diet. “Can you make me look slimmer?” he asked in a polite and childlike manner. “No problem,” was all I said as I positioned his body in a way to diminish his size and eliminate one of his chins. Afterwards in Photoshop, I gave him a bit of a tummy tuck, whitened his teeth and brightened his eyes. He never looked better.

These two shoots exemplify just a couple of things I learn from my subjects on a daily basis. If you want to look like a surly and bloated bohemian, be a jerk to the photographer. If you want to look the best you possibly can, a cordial conversation goes a long way.

There are shoots, however, where the impact that my subject has on me goes deeper than simply affecting my mood that day. When I shot a series of images for a youth charity in Seattle, I asked one of the subjects to sit alone with her backpack on a quiet staircase and look as if the bag was the only thing she had in the world. She shared with me that when she first came to the charity, it was all she had. I had to breathe deeply so as not to cry. Having come from a stable family with loving parents, it’s easy for me to take for granted all of the many opportunities this has afforded me and forget that many people don’t share that experience.

A kind dragonWhen I had the opportunity to photograph Rachel Elnaugh, a successful entrepreneur and former Dragon from the BBC’s Dragon’s Den, I didn’t have an assistant that day and had a bit more kit than I could comfortably manage myself. Without batting an eye, she asked what she could carry, picked it up and off we went. A simple gesture, and one I gleaned typified her chief cook and bottle washer approach to life. Clearly she didn’t get where she is today by sitting back and expecting others to take care of everything. If a task was at hand, she’d roll up her sleeves to get the job done.

While simple interactions like this are great anecdotes for dinner party conversations, occasionally, however, what I take from a shoot hits a bit closer to home, leaving me reflecting on the issues well beyond the tube journey home. Earlier this summer I was commissioned to photograph a series of images that would be used for the launch of a fitness studio in London called Bootcamp Pilates. A high-end exercise facility targeting urban professionals and yummy mummies, Bootcamp has four studios across the city and a large pool of fitness instructors to keep their clients in shape.

The photo brief was to capture three distinct shots of each instructor for use on the company’s web site and in its promotional literature: a portrait on a white background, a shot of each trainer giving instruction, and a photo of each instructor demonstrating one of the Pilates positions used in class.

On the surface it was a very straightforward shoot that went completely to plan. The instructors were chipper and cheerful, and very easy to work with. We experimented with a number of different positions and lightings to ensure that each one was shot in a way that best represented Bootcamp’s brand. I’m not completely sure when it happened, but perhaps while photographing the third or fourth instructor, I began to feel a bit, how best to phrase this, old and fat. Granted, most of the instructors were somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-two (whipper-snappers), and as they were fitness instructors, their bodies were active all day long—so of course they were in great shape. But my brain had no room for logic. As I took a sip of my cappuccino, the lyrics to Paul Simon’s song Call Me Al, “Why am I soft in the middle…” raced through my brain.

I finished the shoot on schedule and made my way back home, all the while pondering when I had transformed into this older, flabbier version of me. At home, I put away my gear and hopped into the shower. While drying off I looked down at my belly, my middle-age trophy, and pondered, how? This was what Bette Midler would probably refer to as the moment my sautéed chickens had come home to roost.

OK, admittedly I wasn’t obese, but I had to ponder where the body of my youth had gone. I was an aerobics instructor for years in my twenties. I’ve run a couple of marathons, but when—or better yet—how, did I allow myself to reach this point. I stepped onto the scale and realized I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I tucked that away into my brain and went about my day. The truth is, I’ve always struggled with the demons of flab—more precisely, my lack of self-control and my whole-hearted willingness to overindulge myself have been two guiding forces in my life, constituting the two little devils sitting on my left shoulder. Opposing these demons is the angel of determination who steps in when necessary to counteract their evil ways. Somewhere along the line, however, that angel fell asleep on my right shoulder, and as a result, I was now carrying an extra twenty extra pounds.

As I write this, I’m acutely aware that this posting has the potential to sound self-righteous, fattist or just raise the hackles of people I know and love, but my intention is to be quite candid about a problem that affects the bulk of Americans and many others in the developed world including me, over-nutrition. According to WebMD, 63.1% of adults in the US are either overweight or obese. SIXTY-THREE POINT ONE PERCENT! That’s huge. And the UK is not far behind, with just this week the government predicting that by 2030 over 40% of the population will be overweight here. The US Department of Health estimates that 300,000 deaths per year are the result of obesity and the cost to the taxpayers to deal with issues related to obesity run to about $117 million per year.

Stepping off the scale, I found myself at very upper limits of the target weight guidelines for men of my height, and that was disturbing. I’ve been close to this before, but each time before I’ve simply donned my running shoes and lost the weight. But somehow, this time it felt different. The word diet dashed through my brain. Diet? What? Me? How? I heard the voice of the cook from movie The Women whisper, “That Adonis figure won’t last forever without a little help from the kitchen,” and knew what I needed to do.

I’ve never been on a diet before. In my teens I drank Diet Coke because it was the rage, but at some point concluded I hated the aftertaste of any artificial sweetener, and went back to the real thing. I’ve never counted calories nor denied myself when tempted by a cookie or piece of cake. The truth of the matter is that I like to eat too much, drink too much and when given the option between a going for run or going for a sausage roll and a pint with Lee, I’d probably choose the pub. Something had to change.

While back in Seattle in June, Lee and I met up with our friends Gay and Troy for dinner, and they looked amazing—fit, fresh and genuinely youthful. We’d seen them a couple of years before and at that point they had gotten into shape after years of toiling behind their computers. Over a wonderful dinner of steak and salad, we grilled them on what they’d done to get so trim and stay that way. They shared that they’d incorporated exercise into their daily routine and when asked about their diet, they candidly said they’d not gone on a diet, but rather changed their diet by dramatically reducing the amount of carbohydrates they consumed each day. Hmmm, exercise and watching what you eat, you mean it actually works? Say it isn’t so. Armed with that sage advice, Lee and I left Seattle to complete the rest of our eating/drinking festival across the US.

Returning to London after our travels, I felt like a bloated pig. My intentions to keep fit while in the US had been quashed by late night catch-ups with friends and eating out every meal. But I had no fear, Lee and I had mentally embraced the challenge to slim down and redefine our bodies. While that may sound extreme, it was a very active decision to take charge of our bodies, get in shape now, and create a foundation for keeping fit moving forward.

Whenever I think of friends who are in shape, my friend Rod is one of the first to pop into my mind. We were roommates in the early 1990′s and once I lamented to him about how slowly the fat was burning off, he simply asked, “How long did it take to get there?” Touché. What sets Rod apart from many people is how he has incorporated exercise and a balanced diet into his daily routine. Keeping healthy and fit is his norm rather than the exception to the rule. He enjoys eating and drinking as much as the rest of us, but has a managed approach to his consumption, sort of like paying off a credit card at the end of every month. If you don’t, you simply carry too big of a balance over and incur unwanted interest.

For the first couple of weeks of the changed diet, Lee and I grappled with our decision. No bread, no crackers, no nuts, no fruit. No sodas, no milk, no beer, no wine. As we bemoaned what we were missing, and our cravings just seemed to increase. It was hell when attending our niece Hollie’s fifth birthday party were we had to forgo not only the cake, but also the homemade chocolate chip cookies. I’m not one wired for denying myself. You know when you walk into a Starbucks and see a sign that reads, “Indulge Yourself” or “You Deserve It,” I’m certain those copywriters have me specifically in mind. The truth is, however, that though the words desire and deserve may start with the same three letters, they are not interchangeable. I may desire a double-choccie-mocha-fappie-latte, but I wouldn’t deserve one any more than an eighteen-year-old looter in Croydon deserved that color TV or pair of sneakers he stole during the London riots.

As the weeks passed, however, adhering to the new routine became pretty easy. We had eggs and bacon for breakfast, snacked on cheese cubes and avocados, and ended the day with suppers of meat and vegetables. At the same time, both Lee and I re-established our exercise routines, knowing we needed to strike a balance between good eating and consistent exercise. The weight began to go away, not at a stupid-fast pace, but a couple pounds a week, and by the end of week seven, I’d dropped fourteen pounds. Not bad. While my objective was to drop the full twenty pounds, I was pleased with the initial results, and following the general guidelines of the new diet, began to introduce things back into my diet.

This is where the all the good work has the potential to go to hell in a hand basket. One piece of toast in the morning easily becomes two slices with a little bit of jam thrown in for good measure. Go on, indulge yourself. One pint of beer leads to a second pint of beer leads to the third pint of beer. You deserve it! Don’t even get me started on the bag of cinnamon saltwater taffy our friend Will brought back from the US—it was gone in a matter of hours. These “special treats” that are meant to be my exceptions have the potential to become the norm.

Over the years, I’ve had a number of wake-up calls to address my gluttonous behaviors. When I was in fifth grade, I remember telling my teacher that I typically ate ice cream once a day. He kindly replied, “A kid your size shouldn’t be doing that.” When I returned from living in Taipei, my friend’s dad poked my belly and said it was time to get into shape. And in my early thirties, while on holiday in Sitges with my uber-fit friend Alan, he pointed out I needed a serious fitness regime.

Previously, however, losing weight wasn’t a problem. When I was ten, I didn’t need to pay heed to my teacher’s wise words. I hit puberty soon after and got taller, dispersing the fat while keeping the ice cream. Problem solved. When I was in my twenties, I just picked up my running shoes and lost the weight. No change necessary. When I was in my thirties, I resorted to the gym in order to lose the weight so I could land a boyfriend. But now that I’ve hit the forties, am a bit more settled in my ways. I have a partner, own a house and run my own business. I know that my metabolism has changed a bit, and more importantly, my lifestyle has changed a great deal. The question at hand, what would motivate me to do something to prevent slipping even further. Vanity? Perhaps. A lot of gay men I know tend to have the Barbie complex—you can never be too rich or too thin (or in this case, too fit)! But Lee and I have never really subscribed to that mentality. Sure, I’m probably just as vain as any other guy I know, but vanity only goes so far, there has to be a motivating factor that is deeper than what I see in the mirror. Some motivating factor to transform my Pilsbury Doughboy self-image into one a bit more along the lines of a maturing Ken doll. And that something was found at the Bootcamp shoot. People who had embraced fitness as part of their life and reminded me of that lifelong commitment to themselves.

Practically every summer over the last six years, I have photographed an annual forum in Seattle called the Pacific Health Summit. Here healthcare leaders from across the globe come together to discuss the major health issues confronting society across the globe. Two years ago the topic was nutrition. The forum focused on the problems of malnutrition in the developing world and the issue of over-nutrition in the developed world. One of the speakers shared an interaction he had with his own GP. As I was photographing the event and not responsible for the minutes of the event, my recollection of his exact words are a bit cloudy, but the message was quite clear. Will exercise, watching his diet and keeping consumption of alcohol to a minimum make him live longer? His GP’s response was, probably not, but it would help him live better.

The story got a number of chuckles across the audience of industry professionals, but the speaker’s message was loud and clear. We in the developed world have the choice to look after ourselves. We don’t have to worry where our next meal or snack or drink is going to come from. We have the choice to regulate or indulge ourselves, and have the luxury to choose to exercise or not. The net result of our choices, however, is perfectly clear. As a society, we are choosing that extra cookie and we are choosing that pint of beer over a run, and we are consistently choosing it on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Myself included.

So what’s the punchline? I’m still confronting this issue head on, and truthfully, I expect that I will continue to do so for as long as I have the will power. I’m back at a comfortable weight, but for how long? How long is a piece of string? I gain strength from the Rods in my world and accept that maintaining a healthy and balanced diet is an ongoing process. I also remind myself of the things in life I truly deserve: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A slice of chocolate cake may give me pleasure, but somehow that doesn’t fall into an unalienable rights. While nothing in life is ever set in stone, let’s hope that the next time I wish to indulge myself, I’ll simply add an extra mile to my run or do a few extra sit-ups to make my day. I may not live longer, but it will help me live better.

Making Lemonade

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Posted by admin on August 18, 2011 – 11:49 am
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Shop closed in the middle of the afternoon

Over the last week, images coming out of England have painted a dark and dire picture of this country that is now my home. Scenes of riots, looting,

Woman jumping from burning building in Croydon

Woman jumping from burning building in Croydon

and the silhouette of a woman jumping out of a burning building are now ingrained into the psyche of people across the globe. Videos on YouTube of people flagrantly oblivious to the suffering of others, endless Twitter messages and the non-stop barrage of politicians, police and pundits stepping forward (now) to discuss how to fix “Broken Britain” has created a complete sense of unease here in the Capital, as well as across England. In the aftermath we have images of shops boarded up mid-afternoon to prevent any further disturbances and then ultimately the stories of the disenfranchised yobs and dishonest Samaritans, who seized the opportunity to wreck havoc on society, now being wrangled by the law to face judgment in court.

While these images are now part of our collective memory, I thought it might be good to take a step back and remember that there are good things about this country, and that even though the ugly side of humanity has shown its face full-on, this country is beautiful and I’m fortunate to have the chance to photograph here.

A couple of weeks before the riots, I had an assignment from my client, Kinleigh Folkhard & Hayward estate agency, that was quite different from my mostly people-centric photography; they asked me to photograph a bridge in Finchley, north London. They included a photo of the bridge in the brief they sent me. It was a lovely bridge across a babbling brook with dappled lighting and delightful contrast. They included directions to the bridge and sent me on my way. Initially I was to have done the shoot on a Monday, but because of a mechanical problem with the aircraft on my flight from Minneapolis to London, I was delayed a day, pushing the shoot to Tuesday. It was cutting the deadline a bit tight, but the client understood and we agreed to have it done Tuesday afternoon.

The sunset on Monday nightArriving home on Monday afternoon, I delighted at the beautiful summer evening, and looked forward to an equally beautiful day for the following morning. It never came. Clouds moved over the British Isles around five o’clock the next morning, and hovered over London with their grey light, completely devoid of any contrast or vibrancy. As I walked from the tube station to the bridge, the clouds seemed darken even further, and any prospect of a cloud break seemed bleak at best.

Following the client’s directions, I came across a lovely arched footbridge over a babbling brook. I took a meter reading of the light, set my aperture and shutter speed to what the reading indicated and began photographing the bridge. After having captured it from a number of different angles, I decided to look at the photo the client provided in the brief once more. As I couldn’t replicate the lighting, I could at least replicate the exact location and position of the bridge in the shot. I pulled the image up on my phone and began scouting for the precise place that photo had been shot. Hmmmm…as I came to the spot I believed the photographer had shot it, I noticed that the trees were a bit different. Upon closer inspection, however, I realised that the bridge I was photographing and the one in the photo were two separate bridges. The one before me had a gentle arch, while the one in the photo was flat. This was really strange. I had followed the directions to a T, but oddly enough, this wasn’t the bridge they wanted.

I rang my client. We discussed the bad lighting and the arch of the bridge, and she asked for a few minutes to confer with her colleagues.When we spoke again, she understood the lighting dilemma, but it would have to suffice due to the tight deadline. She also confirmed that there were actually two bridges over the brook. A pair of patrolling police officers passed by. I asked them if they knew where the second bridge was. One of the officers pointed to my left and said there was another bridge about a mile in that direction. I asked if there was anything to my right, and he just shrugged saying he only knew of those two. With camera and tripod in hand, I began hiking. The canopy of the trees darkened as I proceeded deeper into the woods. A gentle pattering of rain fell and then ceased and I continued walking.

After about fifteen minutes, the foliage cleared and the path ended at a main road. “That’s it?” I thought. I looked  around me for signs of a continuing path, but there was nothing. I googled  for any information the Internet could provide on the park, the trail, on footbridges in Finchley. Nothing. I resigned myself to bad lighting and the wrong bridge. Frustrated, I made my way back to the arched bridge.

Setting my gear down at the side of the bridge, I flipped through my shots. Frankly, none were really that interesting. There was no beautiful lighting, no dappling from the sun kissing the bridge through delicate foliage. Just plain, drab grey light. Then it hit me, I would underexpose the shot and push it in Photoshop. This technique is called push processing, and when done properly can create more vibrant colours and contrast when needed. I’ve used this method countless times when doing portraits when I’ve wanted to increase the saturation of the shot. It made perfect sense that it would work in this situation too.

Photograph as shot

To achieve a successful push, you first need to underexpose the image. I looked at my light meter, then decided to stop-down one and a half stops. In layman’s terms, this means I decided to underexpose the picture 1.5 times. Then, when I uploaded the image onto my computer, I would then be able to increase the exposure, and in theory, it would provide greater saturation and contrast.I began shooting again, this time with the confidence that something good would come from it. Looking at the resulting images on the back of my viewfinder, I saw dark pictures with a few highlights. But I trusted that with the right attention on the back end, I could create an image that met my client’s needs.

After shooting a card full of dark bridge images, I packed my bag and headed up the trail, back to the station. As I came to the fork in the trail where I once turned left,  I decided to go right instead. About fifty feet later, I found right bridge. Since I was there, I pulled out my gear once more and began shooting the client’s bridge of choice, employing the under-expose/push trick to this as well. Once I had enough options, I re-packed my gear and went home.

I sent the proofs over to the client and within an hour got a message back indicating they wanted the arched bridge. I then set to work processing in Photoshop. I pushed the image about 1.5 stops and the contrast popped. The final resulting image was going to be a black & white image, so once converted into black & white, I was able to tweak it once again to accent the contrast even more.

Black & White final

Sending the final image over to the client, I paused to think about the entire image creation process. Though the client had quite a specific image in mind for the final product, time and weather constraints scuppered that vision. In order to meet their needs, it required a bit of ingenuity and a few well tried tricks to fulfil the brief and satisfy the client. The resulting image was not what they had initially planned, but one that was indeed unique for them, and distinctly from me.

While I may be over-stretching the mark to use this as an analogy for what England needs to do in the aftermath of the social unrest, I do think that there are a number of parallels to draw from. If we as a society only focus on the surface “truths” from the events, we see nothing but gray skies. If, however, we look for ways to deal with the social issues at hand that employ some fundamental basics that have indeed been tried and tested over time, we as a society may find our own Eureka! moment. Though some may choose to use a giant paintbrush to claim that the root of England’s social unrest lies either in racial or socio-economic-based divisions, for us to find a solution, or even just a solid repair job, for Broken Britain, we as a society need to look at our collective bag of tricks to find a unique and distinct solution for these problems. By not putting it off to a sunnier day and dealing with the situation at hand head-on, we may be able to take these lemons we now hold and make lemonade.

Scholar Stones

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Posted by admin on April 20, 2011 – 10:03 am
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A few years back I met Rod Titian at a breakfast meeting in the city. Though a  charming and handsome man (I actually think he is the love-child of George Michael & James Caan), I was most impressed by his talent for restoring, gilding and creating beautiful works of decorative arts. Rod’s company Titian Studios was founded by his father, and Rod and his wife have carried on the legacy, and over the course of years, grown the business even more. Royalty, rock stars and ambassadors all know his name and like me, are in awe of his craftsmanship.

Early this month, Rod rang me up and asked me to photograph some stones for one of his clients; not just any old stones, but Scholar Stones that he had gilded with gold, platinum and other precious metals. The work had been commissioned by a celebrity known for elegant style, and Rod’s call piqued my interest.

Scholar stones are naturally occurring rocks that have been weathered and shaped by the elements. They are characterized by having interesting shapes and paired with open gaps. The stones have been revered by Chinese aesthetics since 1200 a.d., and are still widely used in traditional Asian gardens and homes.

Rod met me at Shepherd’s Bush station and gave me a lift to his workshop, a delightful den where old world meets new. After a cup of British coffee (instant coffee, milk and two sugars), I set to work. The craggy shapes lent themselves to a moody shoot complete with shadows and patches of darkness. Using just one light and a reflector, we shot our way through the rocks.

In the early 1990′s, I spent a year living in Taiwan. While there, I first became familiar with the Chinese love of rocks as decoration. Mountains carved out of giant pieces of jade, pillows made from beautiful marble, and of course decorative stones placed strategically in a garden to help aid the flow of qi. At the time, I didn’t know that these were called Scholar Stones, and I was completely unaware of the demand for them. Do an Internet search and you can find site after site featuring, discussing and selling these objects. Then of course there is the second question of gilding the stones, and upon further reflection, it made perfect sense: beautiful, ancient, with just a bit of bling thrown in for good measure.

I too happen to have a number of rocks tucked away at my home (I just  haven’t had them dipped in gold), as I find rocks to be good luck. If I go for a walk and come across a pretty stone, I’m apt to tuck it into my pocket–I’m the antithesis of “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” Okay, maybe I’m not that bad, but I do find a small stone is one of the sweetest reminders of a happy moment. I have pebbles from a family outing in East Sussex, I have a stone from a trip to Andalucia with Lee, I have a perfectly polished piece of basalt from a hike outside Seattle, and I have a giant agate from the sand pits behind my aunt & uncle’s farm in rural Minnesota.  While none are as glamorous as the Scholar Stones, they  each evoke a distinct memory of where I was at in my life at the time I found them, who I was with and the land from which they came.

While shooting the Scholar Stones, I was enchanted at how turning them even slightly resulted in a completely different photo. At first I was hesitant to move them myself for fear of having them crash to the floor. But once I got into the swing of things, I was able to manipulate them and the light around them in such a way to create these shots. Towards the very end of the shoot, I asked Rod to step into the frame, resulting in one of my favorite portraits to date.

 

The Spice of Life

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Posted by admin on March 2, 2011 – 1:24 pm
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Shooting—that is what gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s funny, but when the days are filled with marketing, phone calls, web updates and accounting, it’s all I can do to pull my head away from my pillow. But when I am shooting, it’s a totally different story. The chance to make a beautiful image is sublime. Whether it’s a beautiful blonde in a swimsuit or an overweight businessman in a slightly snug suit, when I take a shot and  know that the lighting and the positioning are right, I can feel it in my toes. I guess that is what makes my work so exciting, having the opportunity to shoot so many different subjects. I guess if I was a fashionista or a foodie, I’d completely dedicate myself to one of those fields, but let’s face it, who doesn’t enjoy a change of scenery.

The other day I had what can only be called a photo-filled-day-o-rama. I had three clients, all in need of images immediately. Through careful planning,  I was able to stack them all together into one day, maximizing my time and ensuring that I could deliver the right shot for each. As each of the shoots required a different net result, I made a detailed plan the day before, to ensure that the day would go without a hitch.  I sketched out my lighting for each shoot, made a detailed list of all of the equipment I needed throughout the day, packed my bags, charged all batteries, gave a call to Marek–who would be my assistant for the day, and finally plotted my journey from home to shoot A to B and then to C. When my alarm went off the next morning, I was rearing to go.

Cut-out shot on the left, Composite on the right.

The first shoot for the day was to create a couple of images for a mortgage brokering firm in “the City.”  When people say “the City,” they are referring to the area that was the historical center of the original Roman settlement  Londinium. Today this area is the heart of the UK’s finance industry, and arguably the heart of all international banking. At the center of the City sits the Bank of England, affectionately known as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, and next to the Bank is my favorite building in London, the Royal Exchange.  Londoners also commonly refer to the City as  “the square mile,”  because the original settlement was one mile by one mile and surrounded by a great wall. Remnants of the wall still remain, and if you know where to look, you can still see sections that remain.

Bank is the main underground station at the center of the City, and is notoriously busy in the mornings and evenings. Though the journey to Bank lasted just over half an hour, it felt like a lifetime. If you haven’t experienced the joys of a London tube journey at rush hour, I highly recommend you give it a miss. Crammed between a man with headphones tinning out some head-banger hit and a woman with too much perfume applying eyeshadow while standing on a speeding train is not my idea of a good time. Then of course there are the never-ending glares that other passengers are giving me because I had my an entire portable studio along for the ride. Still, once situated in place, the trip advanced with relative ease, nothing compared to what Marek and I would face once we reached Bank.

Bank at 8:45 am is one of the most frenetic places I have ever been. Why I agreed to shoot there at that time of day is  beyond me, but keeping a stiff upper lip and all that, we soldiered through the crowd. Picture Disneyland at 9:00 am on the fourth of July: a seemingly endless sea of people all pushing to get to the front of the line, only to turn a corner and find another line of equally epic proportions snaking its way into the horizon–that is what Bank is like every morning. Marek and I let the bulk of the people pass. Seeing a small break in the crowd, we jumped in to secure a place before another train could arrive, spitting out another throng of people. I was glad to have Marek with me. Apart from being a very talented photographer and an exceptional assistant, he is both tall and strong, two qualities well suited for schlepping heavy gear up and down the tube system.

We got to my client’s office and set up. I was shooting two images both on white background, one of a youthful man in a call center headset, the other of a confident gray-haired guy to be the face of their business. This photo was to be shot as a cut-out, meaning that the person would be cut out of the image and put onto an other background. My client had already selected the background, but now needed the right face to represent their brand. I really enjoy shooting for spec, because it means that my client has really thought through what they want. Many times when working with small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the customer knows they need something, but can’t quite put their finger on what they want. They know if something is wrong, but many times are unable to articulate what is right. Fortunately for me, however, Rob at Capital Fortune knew what he wanted. He and I had considered a number of different models, and then settled on someone Rob knew. A lawyer by day, our subject embraced his role as a model and as the face of Capital Fortune, and we swiftly got the shot we needed. No time to rest, we had another shoot to get to.

Leaving Capital Fortune’s office, I was struck at how quiet the City was. In less than forty-five minutes the madness had been transformed into a nearly zen-like garden. I could almost hear the birds chirping in the distance. Clearly all the bankers were off counting money and doing whatever else bankers do. Marek and I, however, were delighted by the great fortune of getting back onto the tube without passing anyone. Destination: Finchley Central. This was the first time I’d travelled this far north. Living in south London, it’s not uncommon to never go north of the Euston Road. The City and the West End are the typical stops, but unless there is a reason to go beyond your hood, you just don’t. When I first moved to London, I was told about the north/south divide.The Thames cuts the city in two. People who live on one side rarely cross over to the other side. I have one friend who simply said, “I never go south. I’m north of the river, south of [Hyde] Park.” The only fitting reply to that is, “I’m south of the River, North of Croydon.” Funny, but my version just doesn’t conjure up the same visuals.

The second shoot of the day was a series of three portraits of property developer Jonathan Salsbury. Like my previous client, Jonathan had thought about the distinct purposes for his portraits. One was for his company’s web site, one for LinkedIn and a final portrait for Facebook. I find it incredibly interesting how in the space of just four years, how LinkedIn and Facebook have forged their place within the overall market approach for businesses. Recognizing the importance of each medium, Jonathan wanted to vary the way he was portrayed in each, while maintaining a consistent caliber of photography for each.

Assessing the space, I got to work lighting each shot. As his company was quite conservative, I chose soft lighting accented by soft shadows. Using the same white background as before, I simply didn’t light it, resulting in a pale gray effect. For LinkedIn, we chose a more trendy lighting style. Strong shadows against a stark white door, a touch of fashion to this mover and shaker. Finally for his Facebook portrait, a softer, kinder look created by softer, kinder light–generated by the sun and a reflector. When I’d taken the last frame, I knew we had achieved our objective. A quick sandwich and off to our final shoot of the day.

We arrived at the Dorchester Hotel just before 4:00. Upon entering the elevator, Marek gave me a giant grin. He’d not been to the Dorchester before and it was the perfect place to end our day. While the brief for this shoot was a bit less structured, I knew the task at hand–to create one beautiful shot that could be used to promote a men’s underwear show that was being held during London Fashion Week. The designer greeted me warmly. I met the models and from there set out to create the exact effect. The room itself was tastefully decorated in soft neutrals, but I wanted some drama.  A mirror shot, using ambient lighting and a tight grid spot made for a lovely shot.

After packing up our gear and saying our goodbyes, Marek and I nipped into a cab headed  to Victoria Station. We giggled at the span of work accomplished in those short eight hours. From the City to the inner suburbs and back to the West End. From banker to developer to fashion model, it was a day of wild contrasts with peaks at every stop along the way. While looking out the window of the cab, I couldn’t help but think that it was this kind of variety kept my motor running. Certainly, it isn’t necessary to do this every single day, but maintaining the freedom to shoot a wide range of subjects does keep it interesting. Over the last several years, I have met several art directors who want to place my work into a box. They claim this makes it easier for them to find the right person for a specific job.  I’m very interested in turning the question back to them: if you are a design agency and have just finished a brochure for a bank, does that mean you can only do brochures or only work with banks? If you are a graphic designer and have created a logo for a ketchup bottle, does that mean you only work with bottles? Do you ever venture beyond tomato-based foods? People are generally my preferred subject of choice. But once the lighting is right, and the styling is just so, it is the connection with my subject–whether a fashion model or a corporate titan–and listening to their stories, that gives me the variety I love.

 

Happy Shoe Year

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Posted by admin on January 26, 2011 – 10:29 am
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Since the first chime of midnight 2011, I knew it was going to be a special year. How fitting that when all the bad habits get the boot and I opened my arms to new opportunities, my first shoot of the year was a pair of beautiful shoes.

I’ve known about Franklin & Sons for a couple of years now. Their founder Jane Franklin approached me at the tail end of 2010 to photograph her shoes for an advert in GQ. We’d never met, but when I got a text message from her on New Year’s Eve wishing me a happy new year, I figured it would be a matter of days before we’d start working together. It was the first week of January when she brought the shoes around. We hit it off quite quickly, chatting about  life, redecorating houses, and the different personalities of our cats. She then pulled out two pairs of gorgeous shoes, which in just a glance I could tell these were the real deal. Franklin & Sons is one of those “bespoke British” companies that designs and hand-crafts shoes for the very well-heeled.

After recovering from my shoe-struck moment, we began discussing how she would like them photographed. We looked at the ad layout, and then dove onto the Internet for what she casually referred to as “shoe porn.” We visited countless sites of competing brands with gorgeous shoes. Some of the sites we looked at were as beautiful as the shoes they  presented, while others may have had  quality shoes, but the photography and web design fell flat. Note to competitors….an iPhone snapshot doesn’t really do your shoes any favors.

“You know your tea image,” she said, “I’d like a shot like that.” I’d done a shot a few years ago of a pile of tea in front of a teacup. I’d put the image on my site for a while, then forgot about it. Jane hadn’t forgotten it, but I knew precisely what she wanted. We continued perusing the various shoe sites, then she left me to it.

I must admit, I don’t have an extensive track record photographing shoes and when I think of my work, shoes aren’t the first subjects that spring to mind. People, yes. Clothing, yes. People in clothing, again a yes. People out of clothing…um…er…yes. But shoes? Why not? One of my photography classmates put it best, “It doesn’t matter what the subject is, as long as you light it well, the shot will be beautiful.”

Photographing Jane’s shoes was a delight. They were solid yet sleek, and beautifully crafted. While the upper part of the shoe was impressive, it was the sole of the shoe that really grabbed my attention,  as it was constructed with what Jane called a “London Waist” or “Fiddle Waist” sole. The waist of the shoe refers to the  different heights/extremes of the part of the sole in front of the heel, and with the London waist style, there is a beveled effect. Franklin & Son’s London Waist was even further accented by the two tones of leathers used to construct the sole. It’s this level of detail that men’s shoes, quite frankly, miss out, and consequently places this pair into a league of their own.

After having shot this exclusive pair of shoes, I decided to treat  a few of my own shoes to a glamorous photo shoot. Why not? If beautiful lighting could do wonders on a gorgeous pair of shoes, surely my own shoes could benefit from  bit of pampering and attention.  Shoes are one of those things in life that I am really particular about. I don’t keep a large collection of shoes, ok, maybe a fair few more pairs than my brother, but he’s straight. Tennis shoes (a.k.a. Trainers for Brits), street shoes, running shoes, suit & tie shoes shoes, hiking boots, slippers and flip flops constitute my core collection, and each pair has been carefully selected to ensure it serves a specific purpose. I have little to no redundancy in my shoe collection. Also, I maintain a strict standard during the buying process, as if a pair happens to slip by and I’m not completely 100% behind them, they become abandoned at the bottom of my closet where they collect dust until they are donated to a charity shop.

While I tend to keep my idiosyncratic obsession restricted to myself, I am acutely aware of the shoes of those around me. When my parents were selling the family home, we met with a number of different estate agents (Realtors for American readers), and I advised my parents to not to go with particular estate agent (Realtor for Americans) based upon his shoes. When I told my mom, she nodded in agreement. She too couldn’t trust a man in those shoes.  Even more importantly though, I’ve even made  dating decisions based upon a prospective partner’s footwear. I shared  shoe-selection criteria with my friend Rod, and he thought I was crazy. He insisted that “You can always change a guy’s shoes.” The only logical retort to that, however, was simply, “Yes, you may be able to change a guy’s shoes, but you cannot change that element within his psyche that told him it was ok to purchase–and wear–a pair of shoes like that in the first place.” Call me judgemental, and I’d have to agree.

I recognize that my own shoe selection may or may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s quite possible that I too have been ruled out of dates or lost out on a business deal  because of my footwear, trust me, people are that petty (present company included). Still, they are my shoes and I stand in and by them.  Lee says I’m hard on my shoes, so I shall apologize now if they look a bit tatty. Though the lighting did’t change, I decided to “keep it real” and give an un-manipulated view and ever-biased commentary on my own shoes, a photographer’s take  of an “Unplugged” album from the 90′s.

I will start with my slippers. These were a Christmas present from Lee’s folks. Lee’s mom Wendy knows I love slippers and every Christmas I get a fresh pair from M&S. I wear them all the time, right now as I type in fact. I hate ambling around the house with cold feet or dusty socks. Ever since I was a kid, I worn slippers. When I was just five, I thought the best present I could give my cousin Chris was a pair of slippers. Not having any money, I wrapped my own red slippers up and gave them to him for Christmas. It elicited gales of laughter from the adults and I was informed how I shouldn’t give a pair of used slippers as a present, but in all honesty, Chris needed a pair of slippers and I didn’t see the harm. The slippers were put back into my own closet and I ultimately grew out of them. Most likely, they were chucked into a bag and given to Good Will.

My Workhorse pair is an ageing pair of shoes that had their its heyday in the early 2000s. Bought while on holiday in San Francisco, this pair replaced my absolute favorite pair of shoes, a pair of Diesels that I’d bought while living in Holland. While that pair is long gone, this pair is reminiscent of them. The red accenting  first caught my eye, and to this day, keeps me from tossing them out. Though the soles are worn thin and the leather is scuffed beyond recognition,  they are still good for painting the hall and demolishing walls.

My Suit & Tie pair has seen better days. Purchased at a time when the Pound was incredibly high against the Dollar, I gulped as I bought them thinking, “HOW MUCH???” Still, their price pales in comparison to the pair from Franklin & Sons. As I now rarely put on a suit, the shoes simply serve as a gentle reminder of a different time, a different life.

My Sporty Spice pair was purchased as a whim at an outlet mall just outside Seattle. Though I was searching for a different pair altogether, these grabbed my attention. Practical for walking, easy on the eye, and sporty enough to wear most anywhere. I’ve destroyed them a few times over, but a little dip through the wash and they’re like new. Lee isn’t a fan of this pair. He fails to see how well they round out my shoe collection, branding them as somewhat chav-tastic.

Asics are my running shoe of choice, and my Runners probably get the best beating out of all of my shoes. My friend Ben introduced me to Asics years ago, and I haven’t looked back. I’ve run two marathons in Asics, and every two years I go out and buy another pair. This pair is just over a year old and I’ve  logged about 800 miles in them. Perhaps they will see a marathon in 2011, or maybe they won’t. Not sure yet, but at least they will keep me going on Tooting Common.

Controversy is the only word that comes to mind for this next pair. First off, I’m not a fan of white shoes. Kathleen Turner killing  Patty Hearst in Serial Mom has left me scarred. Secondly, this pair is made by Ecco. Not that I get too hung up on brands, but my perception is that Ecco shoes are for a slightly older crowd. This was confirmed when I showed up at my friend Will’s place and he made a similar comment. White shoes for the geriatric crowd, nice. Still, Lee pointed out that the yellow banding made them somewhat trendy, so I conceded.Comfortable and attractive, they now make a a fitting pair for a man of my age.

My Sneakers were purchased last Easter at Aldo. While Aldo does have some stylish models, the quality of their shoes has a lot to be desired. I’d worn through a previous pair and thought I’d give this one a go. Within two weeks, the strap at the back broke. Having spent the better part of three months looking for “the right pair”, I opted to superglue them and not bring them back. They’ve been through shoot after shoot, street after street and finally last week decided to pack it in. The front of the shoe became unglued. Time to retire this 9 month old set.

My Boots were an impulse buy. I haven’t worn boots since my Doc Martins wore out in the early 90′s. I slipped them on and found them a nice change of pace from my largely tennis-shoe-centric collection. Although they were attractive, they were designed with one glaringly bad design flaw–they had a leather sole, which in rainy London is a recipe for disaster. After slipping my way through Soho one wet afternoon, I had them resoled with rubber and now they’re fine.

So those are my shoes. Simple, straightforward but trustworthy.There is a particularly memorable line from the film  Sunset Boulevard. When the down-on-his-luck writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) sneaks behind Rudy’s shoe parlor  to pick up his car which he has hidden from the repo men.  Gillis quips,  ”Rudy never asks any questions. He’d just look at your heels and know the score.” Similarly, if I see your shoes, I’ll be passing judgement too.

 

 

 

 

’tis the season

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Posted by admin on December 2, 2010 – 1:26 pm
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Christmas has to be one of my most loved and most hated holidays. I love what the season is all about, giving, sharing and fellowship. I detest the stress and hype that is part of the Christmas I know now.

One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing anything remotely “jolly” before December 1st. Call me old fashioned, but I really mean it. Selfridges annoys me to no end with their Christmas shop opening in August. I cringed at the beginning of November when Oxford Street installed their holiday lights, and at the end of October, I caught my first whiff of an eggnog latte from Starbucks! What is this all about? Christmas comes in December!

That said, I am not a total Grinch. I do enjoy the time with a warm fire, a hot drink in hand and some light carols (not Channing) in the background. The smells are great and the general feeling brings me back to “name that decoration” with my sister Heather in the rec room of our Minnesota rambler.

This year, I decided to celebrate the season in pictures! My friend Federico (model/opera singer/gorgeousness incarnate) and I teamed up to create this little wonder. Lee’s sister Sue made the box. She is a trusty handy-woman to be sure (quite a totty too!). One of the best parts of preparing for this shoot was buying the wrapping paper and ribbon. There were two Chinese women behind the giftwrap counter and one was making my bow. Assuming I didn’t understand Mandarin, one of them turned to the other and asked, “Did you just fart?” I immediately began to giggle and said I believed she did because I could smell it too. The woman was mortified, but we shared a laugh in the end.

Federico was a great sport. He popped into the box. We did the shoot and within minutes, my season’s greetings was a reality.

Electrocomponents Annual Report

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Posted by admin on July 22, 2010 – 12:14 pm
Filed under Shoots

Corporate photography is a big part of my business. While it is a solid source of work, many times  corporate-types shy away from creative photography.  The concept of “No one ever got fired for buying IBM” permeates into the marketing departments, ensuring that everything is safe. While I can (and do) respect that professionalism is an important aspect of a corporation’s image, so many times clients are unwilling to take any risk whatsoever to create an image that stands out. How refreshing it was to meet Andrea Barnard of Electrocomponents. We were introduced about a year ago through one of my favorite clients, Hoffman Europe. Andrea and we discussed at length how to use photography to help solidify brand identity.

Our conversation lasted about two hours and we left the meeting with a number of great ideas. But even better than the meeting itself was that over the course of the last year,  we have actually executed many of the photos we first discussed, culminating with the photography for Electrocomponent’s 2010 Annual Report.Electro Component’s 2010 Annual Report

For those of you not in the business of international distribution of electronics or electrical components, they are one of the world’s largest distributors of electronic products. They handle thousands of manufacturers, millions of products and have offices in twenty-seven countries. They started out selling radio parts during WWII at Elephant & Castle and grew to become this massive international player.

Working with Electrocomponents for the last year has been really cool, particularly since the work has been quite varied. Starting with some cool executive portraits, we then moved onto capturing their first ever investor’s forum in London. Getting the chance to create the cover for their annual report was really a lot of fun though. Upon getting to their offices just outside of Oxford, they presented me and my assistant Marek with one of their delivery vans. For the next eight hours, we got to shoot the van. It was great. Marek drove the van up and down the drive while we captured both a day and a night version of the speeding van. I’d never photographed a moving van like this before, so it was a bit like being back in photo school. A little trial, a little error, and then success.

By the second day of our trip, Marek and I felt quite at home with the Electrocomponents gang. They took us up to their UK distribution center in Nuneaton. It was a massive facility that reminded me of the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash.  When we got there, they gave us some heavy boots to wear. Marek was got a pair of Red Wing boots, as I grew up in the same county these boots were from in Minnesota, I knew it was going to be a great day.

Our mission was to capture the massive facility in a way that supported the overall brand. Yes, shots of the interior and the whole process were important, but creating a visual link between what was happening in the warehouse and its positive impact on the customer experience was paramount. Everything neatly found its way back to that first conversation–the importance of a strong image on brand identity.

Electrocomponents was hands on through the whole process. They understood that each resulting image was part of the brand identity and  by entrusting my team to deliver all of the images, they could ensure they had a consistent consistent set of photographs that were stylistically in keeping with each other.

Blooming Lovely

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Posted by admin on June 24, 2010 – 11:32 am
Filed under Shoots

One of the toughest parts of being an “emerging talent” is finding customers with whom I share a common vision. Many times their agenda and my agenda are not necessarily completely in sync. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy shooting practically everything, but there are definitely some exceptional situations where the client’s creativity and my creativity go hand in hand, and that is when the fun truly does begin.


I met the florist company By Appointment Only Design (BAO) at the Terrence Higgins Trust auction earlier this year. They had provided all of the flowers for the event, which were fantastic. The proprietors, Javier and Tony, and I began chatting shortly after a very drunk woman bumped into one of the floral pillars knocking the massive arrangement onto the floor. I’d witnessed the event, but Javier and Tony had missed it. Upon inspection, they found that only two of the stems were damaged, the rest were miraculously well in tact. We shared a drink and decided to meet up after the event.

Since starting my photography business, florists have been some of my favorite clients. In Seattle I had the pleasure of working with the brilliant team at City Flowers. I shot store set ups, products, floral arrangements, installations and more. City Flowers creative team was led by the largely deranged (and I say that in the most loving way possible), Jonathan von Gieseke. Jonathan and I have known each other for years, and when the opportunity to work together presented itself, we both jumped at the opportunity.


Probably my favorite shot done with City Flowers was their Halloween promotion. The City Flowers team sorted out all the props, the location, the wardrobe, the jewelry and even the chihuahua. We shot on the steps of St. Mark’s Cathedral on Capital Hill as the sun was setting. I stood on the hood of my car and lit it with two giant soft boxes, a few reflectors and a couple of grid lights. It was quite a production and I was incredibly lucky that Lee was with me to ensure everything went to plan.


Stepping into BAO’s shop in Marylebone, I was instantly reminded of the creative spirit I had found with the Seattle gang. They had magnificent arrangements, tasteful products and great music softly playing. They offered me a Nespresso and we sat and chatted in their meeting room alcove in the basement.

While reviewing my portfolio, BAO commented they wanted to deviate from the standard adverts found in bridal magazines, and have one that had a fashion sense, was sexy and at the same time didn’t feature a bride. We decided to photograph a handsome man holding lavish bridal bouquets and wearing color-coordinated jumpers (sweaters to you Americans). Lure  budding brides to visit the BOA shop with the fantasy of a handsome prince.

It’s funny where you can find these princes. I spent years kissing frogs until I found mine in a bar in south London, but for BOA, but it was in the frame of a party snap I took. I hadn’t actually seen him at the party, but when I got home and was processing the final images, I couldn’t help but notice the stunning face in the crowd. I emailed my friend Neil, the event organizer, and he quickly got us in touch. That is how we landed  the BAO cover boy Federico.

I did a few test shots before the actual day, but it was one of those Eureka! moments that I typically get around 2:50 in the morning while lying in bed awake, that I decided the background shouldn’t be a plain color, but rather a damask made from the bouquets themselves. When dawn came, I dashed a mock-up to Javier  and Tony and we were off.

The shoot itself went all to plan. We shot the model on a plain white background. He was styled and primped throughout the day. Wardrobe change, bouquet adjustment, music changes and even some great lunch. The entire team was on the ball. I explained to the team what we were doing and got a couple of blank stares, but then showed my mock-up and started getting them on board. Javier and Tony, however, were already with me. They could see the same vision and we were on our way.

To create the background for each of the shots, I photographed each bouquet individually. This was placed as the background layer in Photoshop, and then I cut out the final photo of Federico and layered that on top. Finding the right balance between showing the background as flowers and color was a balancing act, largely accomplished by trial and error. The post production work on the shots was both fun and fulfilling, but definitely time consuming.


The resulting images delighted the client and Bride’s magazine. It also gave me a wonderful series of cool and beautiful shots. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on when it runs.

Just Shoot!

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Posted by admin on May 24, 2010 – 3:48 pm
Filed under Shoots

A few months back, when I started blogging, I had plenty of time to write long posts about my images and share my thoughts about the entire image-making process. I had time, because less than six months ago, business was slow. Suffice it to say, the last three months have been crazy-busy, which for a free-lance photographer, means work, and consequently, blogging takes back seat to taking pictures. Simple enough.

At the beginning of 2009, the two words on everyone’s lips here in the UK were “Credit Crunch.” You couldn’t swing a cat without hearing them. I think that the US simply called it a recession, but the Brits love their alliteration, so credit crunch it was. Yes, the financial crisis was systematically far more serious than a simple crunch, but why call something by a much more mundane name when credit crunch rolls off the tongue so much easier. It’s a bit like calling sodas fizzy drinks or calling a ski mask a balaclava, if Brits can find a fancier way of saying something, then they will. Mind you, they did invent the language, so I suppose we should leave it at that.

The credit crunch was for me a time for a bit of reflection, but mostly one of action. My magazine work dropped significantly, companies were reluctant to invest into marketing, and even private clients tightened their purse strings. To lift a phrase from the Queen herself, 2009 turned out to be an Annus Horribilis with regard to photography work. Marketing my business became my full-time job. Networking, emailing, phone calling, blogging, twittering and more networking became my standard operating procedure. At one point, I realized that I had actually become a professional networker and had lost sight of my real business, taking pictures. Still, I continued pressing forward with another meeting and a new twitter post, all the while anticipating the next gig.

During the last week of photography school at SCCC, our instructors sat our class down and imparted their advice. “Give yourself five years” one said. “You’re only as good as your last shot,” said another. The words of my instructor Robbie Milne, however, left the biggest impression on me, “Just Shoot.” When times are tough, pick up the camera, and shoot something, anything. Two simple words that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend at that time. Upon leaving school, work began coming in. Times were good. Even when Lee and I moved to London in 2006, work came. But then came the credit crunch. Commissioned work became limited at best. Marketing and meetings got me the right connections, but there was something missing. Then one morning at 3:45 am (or thereabouts), Robbie’s voice chirped up inside my head, “Just Shoot.” Aha! I thought. But what?

One of the first struggles I had to overcome when I left university was my perfectionism. I was obsessed with trying to achieve perfection, and became paralyzed by my fear of imperfection. My paralysis became apparent when I was working as an intern at a weekly commuter newspapers in Minneapolis. I’d been given the assignment to write a profile about a comedic actor in a local show. I interviewed him, wrote the article, and then sat on it. In retrospect, the article was less than insignificant. It was not a life or death article, it was a profile of a comedic actor in Minnesota; most likely a highly-disposable fluff article that would end up with a coffee ring and a hand-drawn mustache. At the time, however, my fear of imperfection and the significance I placed on the article itself was insurmountable. I’d never written an article for a newspaper before. This would be my first published piece. What if it looked bad? Would people laugh at it? Was I out of my league? Still, I was overcome by my fear of imperfection and continued sitting on the article for a few more weeks.

About a week before I was due to move to Seattle from Minnesota, I got a call from the editor. He was kind but firm, the actor’s play was opening in a week and the article needed to run the following Tuesday. I read through it once more, popped the floppy disk in the post (long before email). A couple of weeks later while living in Seattle, I got a package from the editor. It was a copy of the article, and it looked pretty good and provided me with a tactile reminder that life doesn’t just happen, but you have to make it happen. This was the first real-life lesson I had in “Just Shoot,” and I had been lucky to have had such an understanding editor.

When I moved into the business world, I took the lesson from my internship and ran with it. I learned quickly that the people who asked just enough questions and then took decisive action were the ones who got the most done. In an entrepreneurial environment, perfection doesn’t exist, and perfectionism can’t be tolerated. Yes, a team needs to work together to produce the best in its class, but in a fast-paced environment, waiting for perfection means imminent death. Sometimes a company just needs to act, and make improvements in the dot release. In the software world, it became known as “Just Ship!”

Photography is no different. “Just Shoot” has become my mantra. If times have been slow and the phone hasn’t been ringing, it starts the moment I click the shutter. It’s as if there is some cosmic energy out there that never fails. Mark meet camera, camera meet Mark. Go! Just shooting is the perfect way to unleash latent photographic potential and transform it into reality. It never fails. The results of just shooting have varied over the years, but each time I learn something new. Whether it is testing out a new lighting set up, working with a different type of film, or simply exorcising visions from my brain. It gives me the opportunity to create and also define the next steps I will take.

Payback for just shooting is not necessarily immediate. Yes, the phone starts to ring and work comes in, but the intent of just shooting is to create a lasting image, and one that hopefully inspires people to want more. Lee and I worked incredibly hard on the Howdy Partner shoot. We cast multiple models, bought wardrobe, built an elaborate set and spent a full day in the studio shooting. Afterwards, not a single one image was licensed. The resulting images ended up first on my web site and then quietly made their way to my hard drive. Then one day, I showed I showed one of the shots to a prospective client. She was sold. That was what she wanted, only different. All of the work that I’d done before had more than paid off. Together she and I created some lovely pieces to promote her business.

So back to Tooting, London, 3:45 am, early 2010. I needed to just shoot. A year ago I met the actor Charlie Condou at the Terrence Higgins Trust auction. I’d liked his work in Gimme Gimme Gimme and we got chatting. I asked him if he’d pose for me and to my surprise, he said yes. The scene needed to be set. When Lee and I moved to Tooting a few months back, we started visiting a local place just a few minutes from our house called The Tram Shed. It is one of my favorite places in London. The interior is very cool, hip–but not over the top. Just a good place to hang out pretty much any night of the week. When I first walked in, I knew it was a place that I wanted to do a shoot in. I also have a penchant for feather dusters (If I can’t wear a boa in public, at least let me have a feather duster!) I found an amazing lime green one on a trip to Canada. It was a perfect fit: handsome Charlie with a vibrant feather duster.

Charlie has a wonderful face, I wanted to photograph him ala Hurrell. Working with a single, undiffused light, I worked to emulate Hollywood glamour from the 1930s. His bone structure and his strong nose fared well with the contrasty lighting.

Working with just daylight, I also created this more casual, boy next door shot. Doing this shot pushed me in new directions. I’m not really a fashiony type guy, but I can appreciate great styling. For my limited Just Shoot budget, I got the opportunity to procure the wardrobe, photograph it, and then casually return the clothing afterwards. Um, er…I know that professional stylists do this all the time, it just pushed me right out of my comfort zone though. Nonetheless, it was all part of the learning process.

And what was the net result of this endeavor? Business is back on target. Work has picked up and I’ve even finished shooting one of the biggest projects to date. While I am sure I can market and promote myself until I am blue in the face, remembering the wise words of Robbie has re-charged my batteries. Here’s to 2010!