Blog
Category: Portrait
Monaco Portrait of a Silver Fox
Senior figures from all over the world have business (and perhaps pleasure) reasons to visit the French Riviera, especially Monaco. One of the things I love about being an editorial photographer here is the chance to meet some of the interesting characters who come and go. A few weeks ago, I was asked to take a portrait of a businessman in a hotel room. But not just any businessman, and not just any hotel.
Training on Top of the World
In Monaco one week and St. Moritz the next… this could be a jet setter’s timetable. The ski resort town of St. Moritz in Switzerland is known as a favourite winter playground for the rich and famous; Monaco needs no explanation. However, although the subjects of this portrait assignment are well-known in their sphere, they seem to entirely lack the jet set mindset. Champion triathletes Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee are true-blue Yorkshiremen, known for a particular brand of down-to-earth Britishness and understatement.
Ovarian Cancer Portraits
Up until this year, I didn’t know that regular stomach bloating could be a sign of anything more sinister than a diet too heavy in cabbage. Ovarian cancer may be less well-known than some of the other cancers, but its survival rate of this disease draws attention. Shockingly, once diagnosed, only 40% of women survive beyond 5 years. Symptoms often pass unnoticed, being as ordinary as feeling full quickly or bloating.
I met the head of marketing of Ovarian Cancer Action at the London ceremony where I won Professional Photographer magazine’s Press Photographer of the Year award, and she was now recruiting a photographer to breathe new life into the charity’s image. It was a privilege to be able to help raise attention to this cause.
Freedivers
France, is considered by many (especially the French) to be the home of freediving. If silver screen fame of ‘Le Grand Bleu’ [Luc Besson’s ‘The Big Blue’, the most successful French film of the 1980s] is not enough to convince you, then a healthy crop of French freediving champions and the fact that France hosted the first ever freediving world team championships just might.
Last September, the team championship event was back in the South of France, and I went along to meet today’s top international freedivers.
Corsetmaker in Paris
François Tamarin is a one-off. A corsetier (corsetmaker), he has a boutique in Paris, where he designs and tailor-makes corsets. Customers come from far and wide to be squeezed into his creations. Indeed he is not just any old corsetmaker. François has just been awarded one of France’s greatest honours, and I’d been commissioned to take his portrait. The New York Times had sent me to Paris to photograph a series of artisans who had just been named Meilleur Ouvrier de France [Best Craftsmen of France].
A Tale of Two Covers
This is a behind-the-scenes tale of two assignments. Shot for different clients at different times, both were corporate portrait commissions for magazine covers; both subjects were men at the top of their game.
Subject number one was Mikael Krafft, founder of Star Clippers cruise company. Private Banking Magazine has asked me to take the portrait aboard his private yacht. The second shoot, for Marketing Magazine, was for a feature on the CMO of Mars, Bruce McColl, who’d won the coveted Advertiser of the Year award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Portrait of Chrissie Wellington
Chrissie Wellington is something of an exception. Right now she is the world’s no. 1 female Ironman triathlete. She has been crowned Ironman World Champion at Kona (Hawaii) four times and is the first British athlete to hold this title. For those who don’t know, an Ironman consists of a 4 km swim (outdoors, in a lake), a 180 km bike ride and a 42 km run (yes, you finish the race with an actual marathon). Chrissie has competed in 13 Ironman races. And won them all.
Opticians à la Française
I was commissioned recently by a boutique optician in Nice who wanted a photographer to shoot some portraits for a new advertising campaign. A creative brief to combine quirky humour with élégance in black and white made for a particularly French feel to this photography assignment.
Travelling Light, Sleeping Rough
The ordeals faced by the many Tunisian migrants who came to Europe after the recent revolution to start new lives in France are not over. Having travelled to Lampedusa, Italy, by boat, many have wound up in the border town of Ventimiglia, on their quest to reach France. A month ago, Europe watched closely as this Italian town so close to the South of France became centre stage for a border control spat between respective national governments.
I went to Ventimiglia and took a series of portraits of the migrants, photographing each one alongside the contents of the bag they were travelling with.
Superyachts on the Drawing Board
Sitting on a sunny café terrace, if you overheard people next to you discussing Wally, Linda Lou and Queen M, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were talking about old friends graced with slightly unusual nicknames. However, I was on assignment in Monaco, just about to meet leading designer of superyachts Espen Øeino, and my companions (members of Centurion magazine’s editorial team) were excitedly discussing the yachts they could spot from our table.