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..’

 

Peter O’Toole the wizard

peter o'toole blog-1

I was very lucky over 10 years ago to do some stills on a production filming at Twickenham Stadium involving Peter O’Toole, who sadly passed away this week. Annoyingly the production company ended up with the negs, leaving me with just one print, though there actually weren’t many shots as the director’s last words to me before I started were: ‘oh yeah, you know he really hates photographers’. With that ringing in my ears, I kept my distance concentrating on recording the filming process, and when I finally manoeuvred myself close enough to get a portrait, the look that he gave me ensured it was only one.

I think in similar circumstances today, armed with the quiet shutter on my Canon – much less intrusive than the clunk of the Pentax 6×7 that this was taken on – and the small matter of a decades more experience under my belt, I would be a bit bolder to get the shot. Still I’m very happy to have at least some evidence of a brief brush with Hollywood royalty/Lawrence of Arabia!

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!