Category Archives for London

Angela Merkel addressing both Houses of Parliament

Exciting day yesterday photographing the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, visiting Parliament to address both Houses. Love the shot of the ‘duelling lenses’, and interestingly if you look carefully you can see a tiny ear-piece in Mr Cameron’s ear, up until then I’d been very impressed that he’d understood the Chancellor’s speech in German without needing the unsightly, potential hairdo ruining, headphones that everyone else had been wearing!

Moorhouse Consulting

Some portraits of the nice folk at Moorhouse Consulting a couple days ago, great to walk into their office and see some of my previous work for them, black and white street stuff, going up on their walls and being used on the covers of their publications.

Steve McQueen in Parliament

 

Oscar nominated director of ’12 years a slave’, Steve McQueen, with leader of the opposition Ed Miliband, in parliament to introduce a showing of his film earlier this week.

Nelson Mandela Commemoration

Another one in the dark of Westminster Hall from just before Christmas as members from both Houses of Parliament and invited guests commemorated the life of Nelson Mandela. As well as the foreign secretary William Hague and Labour leader Ed Miliband, the Speakers included Lord Joffe who represented Mandela at his 1963 trial in South Africa, and long time campaigner and MP for over 50yrs Tony Benn, with music from the South African Cultural Choir, voices that sounded amazing in the hall

G8 Dementia Summit

Within a week of photographing the Queen, it was the Prime Minster David Cameron’s turn, along with the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt at the G8 Health Summit for Dementia. Quite a moving day, especially listening to retired doctor Peter Dunlop who rightly received a standing ovation after successfully battling through a speech describing his experience of living with Alzheimer’s. 

The Queen in Westminster Hall

 

A bit late but here’s some pictures of the Queen visiting Westminster Hall just before Christmas to view the Diamond Jubilee Window now installed in the great window over the North Door. She also got to see the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, which is located underneath Parliament, which rather surprisingly she had never seen before. It was all a bit of a challenge light wise as: A. there was none! and B. It was pointed out to me about 10 seconds before she arrived that ‘Her Majesty isn’t a fan of flash photography, she’ll give you a look to make it clear to you if you’re using it too much..’

 

Mosque visit

Had a fascinating evening last week at a London mosque photographing the visit of one of their religious leaders. It was great to get access to somewhere that I would never dream of going into normally, I was made so welcome and nobody objected to being photographed which made it doubly great, what with an amazing biryani thrown in too!

UK Youth Parliament

Really inspiring day on Friday listening to the British Youth Parliament debating in the House of Commons. Over 300 MYPs (Members of the Youth Parliament) participated in the debate, elected by their peers to represent them. This year, a record number of 11-18 year olds – 478,386 – voted for their subjects to be debated by MYPs in the House of Commons. I came away full of optimism, truly amazed at their debating skills, confidence, and passion and belief in democracy – and relieved that the biggest group shot I’ve ever had to do of about 350 came out..