Tea with world leaders

The leaders of the world’s two most populous countries in two weeks for Parliament – President Xi of China and Prime Minister Modi of India, who between them lead over a third of the world’s population!

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!

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.

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..

Aung San Suu Kyi addresses MPs and Lords in Westminster Hall

A shoot from last year before I started this blog, but worth putting up as pretty memorable. I was quite a distance from her, struggling with an immense 500mm lens for most of it! Interesting to see Labour leader Ed Miliband chatting to the then Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell, who has since been forced to resign over ‘plebgate’