Category Archives for Documentary

Sailors in Scotland

Some portraits from a great commission from the Sailor’s Society charity, shot over a couple of days in a couple of ports on the East coast of Scotland. They provide personal help for crew members of commercial vessels in ports all around the world, making sure they can contact their families etc. I got a chance to meet lots of crew, mainly from the Philippines it seemed who, despite spending many months away from their families in tough conditions, were some of the friendliest people I’ve ever photographed.

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A night at the Museum

An evening for the Children In Need charity at the Natural History Museum last night. Treated to dinner with the dinosaurs and a performance by the English National Ballet.

Yet more Parliamentary bits

 

Up in the rafters at the Commons end of Parliament to get a couple of shots of the Memorial of the 50th Anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death a couple of weeks ago. The first shot of the wreath laying is of Sir Nicolas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, and then of the PM saying a few words.

The black and white shots are of the Parliamentary Archivists preparing the Petition of Rights from 1689 and the Bill of Rights 1628 for display alongside the Magna Carta last week. Interestingly it’s felt that there’s more risk of damage when wearing gloves than without.

 

Magna Carta

To mark its 800th anniversary, the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta were displayed in the Houses of Parliament on Friday. On loan for one day only, they were delivered under tight security (ridiculously early in the morning!), with last week being the only time they’ve ever been assembled together. I was lucky to be asked to record the event for Parliament, enabling me to get up close as they arrived and were condition checked. Seen by many as a global symbol for the rule of law, they definitely seemed to produce a universal feeling of almost holy reverence from the lucky few who got to see them – from school children and ticket ballot winners, to Lords and the endearingly mad professor-like Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who spoke passionately about their relevance in the modern world and the need for a new Magna Carta for the internet.

 

 

Tower of London poppies

Some more shots from yesterday with the 40mm fixed lens, and the amazing installation at the Tower of London of 888,246 hand made ceramic poppies, to commemorate the 888,246 British military deaths in the first world war 100yrs ago, amazingly simple idea, incredibly effective and memorable.

Mudlarking on the Thames

Spent yesterday afternoon keeping it ‘old skool’ with just a 40mm fixed lens – forces you to get closer to the action/talk to people – like these ‘Mudlarkers’ beach-combing on the Thames. The first guy Alex had arranged a holiday from Australia and had his official permit from the Port of London Authorty to do just that. He assured me that the pins in his hand were from gentleman’s  Elizabethan dress and that the bits of smoker’s clay pipes that I found for the last photo date back to the 16th Century – there were lots of them in the mud, apparently they were sold pre-filled with tobacco and were thrown away once used by the dock workers.

Practising pianists

 

The amazing concert pianist duo Julian Jacobson and Mariko Brown