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..
Late November London skyline
Fortunately high enough to see London looking glorious with the sun low in the sky a couple of days ago, though unfortunately, through some grubby windows. The skyline looking East changing pretty rapidly at the moment. Looking West, Battersea power station looks as iconic as ever, though with redevelopment there under way, that too likely to change.
Could fill a book with pictures of suits on the phone..
Stuff, Colour
Here’s some colour work from the archive. Has been really interesting working out what works as colour and what works as black and white. I find I pretty much know when I’ve shot it, and I guess I lean towards the tradition of black and white for street photography, but sometimes it’s a vivid colour for example that gives the picture another layer of interest, or adds something to the narrative – the red on the boy’s top mimicking the red sofa, or the bright yellow sun for example.
Stuff, B/W
Been a while since last blog – have spent some time working and some time trawling through hard drives looking for some ‘folio’ bits of documentary/streetwork for possible book/exhibition/sit on desktop gathering dust project..here’s some of my faves so far
Glastonbury Festival 2013
Glasto, where the crowd are much more interesting than the musicians – though if you squint you might just be able to spot the elusive Mr Jagger.
2 Prime Ministers and a Senate meeting
Another interesting job last week courtesy of the House of Lords. The Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, spoke to members from both houses in the Robing Room, possibly the goldest room on the planet (making the recording of accurate skin tones a challenge!). Was very interesting to see the dynamic of British PM, David Cameron, and the leaders of the other parties, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, chatting very informally before and afterwards. The following day I covered the annual meeting of the heads/speakers of the Senates of Europe – i.e the House of Lords equivalents – and shot the official group photo, in a room full of mirrors, remembering to duck down at the last minute to avoid getting in the picture myself..
Thank You!
Wow, what a week..Was lucky enough to have my last post picked up and ‘Freshly Pressed’ by the lovely folk at WordPress, one of only 8 on that day, and since then have had almost 9000 views, in 62 countries!
Truly exciting to suddenly feel like you have an audience for your work, and one that’s left such amazingly positive comments. I feel the pressure now to keep the standard up!
I do hope that all the new followers will stick with me through the odd not very interesting corporate portrait, after all this site is partly designed to be a shop window for the odd punter who might help with the day job of actually getting paid to take pictures, but the feedback has inspired me to get out and do some more ‘own work’ (hate that term!), stuff like the New York shots. I’m very lucky to get paid to take all types of pictures, and it’s the real variation in subject matter that makes it so interesting, but I hope to use the positive vibe that this has given me to now maybe dust off and rediscover a bit of the drive to shoot some new documentary work, which is really the stuff I enjoy doing most.
Here’s a shot of my son going someway to describing the emotion I felt every time the inbox pinged with a new follower this week!
Thanks again for looking.
New York streets
Was lucky to get a brief stay in New York last month, and basically just spent 2 days walking the streets of Manhattan with camera in hand, so enjoyable.
The Pigeon Men of New York
Two local celebrities in Washington Square Pk, New York. Larry the Pigeon Man used to live in the park but now comes in from Brooklyn everyday to feed his friends. He seems to have names for all of them and knows all their family trees. His friend William, a real estate broker, comes down from his office overlooking the park, most lunchtimes to feed and spend time with them too. Having raised two of them by hand several years ago, he’s certainly recognised by the birds, and the come to him in turn when their names are called.
They both do their best to quash the opinion of pigeons as dirty disease ridden animals – “with a body temp of 107 degrees, they can’t carry diseases that humans can catch” says William. Larry claims they know how to read and are the 4th smartest animals on the planet.
Two really sweet, caring guys.
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