New Year

Connemara, Co Galway, Ireland

A very belated Happy New Year to you all.

I had a great Christmas back in Ireland.  It’s always nice to be back on the ol’ sod and catch up with family, and get away from the madness of London for a bit.  I enjoyed a lot of countryside walks and had the pleasure of celebrating New Years Eve with some friends in the wilds of Connemara.  The view above was from the back door of the cottage we were in…somehow I was convinced to go for a swim in that lake as a refreshing way to ring in the new year!

A reassuring sign to see from your kitchen window

Since then, I’ve been back in London editing the shoot I was working on for GEO in December (photos to follow next month).  Then last week I returned to photograph one of the last residents living in the Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke in South London.  Demolition has progressed a lot and it is pretty grim for the two or three remaining people living there. It’s not a nice place to be left in as many of the buildings are being pulled down around them.  It seems to be a recurrent problem, where developers and councils will make pledges that the ‘decanting’ of residents will run smoothly and alternative accommodation will be found for them before demolition begins.  In reality this rarely happens.

Awaiting demolition

Carl. The last resident in his block

I will post up some portraits from this series very soon.

I have photos up in two travelling exhibitions in the next couple of months.  My images that were exhibited at Galerie Huit as part of Les Rencontres d’Arles in the summer of 2011 have now moved to Penang in Malaysia (details here) and my Dubai images that were selected for the Flash Forward awards 2011 are moving from Toronto to The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, in Portland, Maine, USA.  March 2nd – May 4th 2012.  More details here.

With the recent events surrounding Kodak, there has been a lot of speculation about this being the end of film and the end of an era. Read this BJP article article for a bit of context.  I don’t use film for every shoot, but I still use it a lot, and I know I’m not the only one.

Merry Christmas

Taking a Break - Trafalgar Square, London

This is just a short post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I’ve been busy working on a lovely job for Geo Magazine recently, who commissioned me to do a shoot on my large format camera.  It’s been a lot of work and I’m still in the middle of it, so I will explain more in the new year.  In the meantime, I hope you all have a great break over the holidays.

I’ll be in Ireland from the 22nd December till the 3rd January.

Nathan Myhrvold, Dan Snow, Humphry Ker & Robin Hood Gardens

Nathan Myhrvold photographed in Claridges, London

I shot these two portraits (above and below) for the Independent on Sunday magazine. Although, Nathan Myhrvold is best known for his 13 years at Microsoft where he was the Chief Technology Officer, he also worked under Stephen Hawking at Cambridge, is a prolific inventor*, professional cook, and wildlife photographer. He recently came to London to promote his new cookery book which has just been published. It’s called Modernist Cuisine and is not your average cook book. It comes in 6 volumes, is 2,438 pages long, costs a small fortune and is claimed to have pushed the boundaries of cooking. It also contains some amazing food photography, where they have gone to great lengths to illustrate his techniques, such as laser cutting a saucepan in half to show food in the process of cooking.

I did the shoot of Dan Snow and Humphrey Ker last week at the Imperial War Museum. They are photographed up against a World War II German tank. I’m sure many of you will know that Dan Snow is a TV historian and son of presenter Peter Snow. When I was doing a bit of research on him before the shoot, I discovered he was a highly accomplished rower when he was a teenager and in his 20′s. I rowed a lot when I was younger too so I was very impressed to read that he had rowed three times for Oxford against Cambridge in the annual Boat Race, which is no mean feat.

Humphrey Ker is a comedian with a nerdy obsession with Military history and has become good friends with Dan. He won Best Newcomer at the Fosters Comedy Awards and will be starting a new show ‘Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!’ at the Soho Theatre, from 26 January to 4 February 2012.

Humphrey Ker & Dan Snow at the Imperial War Museum, London

I have been continuing with my new series on regeneration and recently paid a visit to the Robin Hood Gardens estate in east London. It was designed by the famous architectural couple Alison and Peter Smithson and completed in 1972. It has courted controversy over the last few years and has been labelled a sink estate in need of demolition. However, despite arguments by Tower Hamlets Council and many residents that it is an unpleasant place to live, there has been vocal opposition to its planned demolition and architectural heavy weights such as Richard Rogers and Zaha Hadid, have argued that it should be listed for preservation. I went to check it out 2 weeks ago and took an initial series of reccy images and I’m planning to return there again shortly. I have also lined up some interesting interviews over the next few weeks – with an architect who designed one of the most controversial council blocks in London and with an academic who led the charge against large scale modernist housing schemes in the UK…more details to follow.

Robin Hood Gardens, London

Fifth Floor, Robin Hood Gardens. Turn to the right and you will see the towers of Canary Wharf.

I went to the launch of the Hereford Photo Festival a few weeks back and saw some fantastic work on show. The festival is coming to an end on the 26th November, so go check it out while you have time. You can see a few of the highlights (including a pic of mine) on the Guardian Website here.

Finally, check out this great multimedia piece A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan by Irish photojournalist Seamus Murphy on Media Storm.

 

* It’s worth noting that Myrhvold’s company IV has been accused of being a patent troll. I will reserve judgment, but read this article if you want to find out more.

Tony Benn & Lindsey German

Tony Benn & Lindsey German, London

I was commissioned by The New Review to photograph Tony Benn and Lindsey German last week, both of whom I admire greatly. Lindsey asked Tony to join the Stop the War Coalition 10 years ago and they have been working together ever since. You can read the interview here.

Stop the War’s next mass assembly is in Trafalgar Square in London on the 8th October. Watch this short video if you want more info about why they have organised it.

I have an image up in The HotShoe gallery this week for the Hereford Photo Festival print auction. My print will be hanging alongside the work of Martin Parr, Simon Roberts and Shelby Lee Adams among many others. Go here for more info and to bid on the images. I’ve also got more details about the Flash Forward Festival which I will be exhibiting at in Toronto. The exhibition and book launch is on the 9th November at Airship37 in the Distillery District. Go check it out if you find yourself in Canada next month.

Kidbrooke, London

I have been continuing to work on my new series on the regeneration industry and have been out shooting at five locations around London over the past month. I will be heading north to Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow in the next couple of months, so there will be more images to follow.

Stratford, East London

Ferrier Estate

Grahame Park Estate

John Hurt & Nitin Sawhney

Nitin Sawhney & John Hurt at "The Dairy" studios in Brixton

I had the privilege of meeting and photographing Nitin Sawhney and John Hurt last week for the New Review Magazine (out today). I’m a big fan of both their work so it was fantastic to get to talk to them and listen to Nitin play his music for us.  They have worked together a couple of times before, most recently on Nitin’s latest album Last Day’s of Meaning but also on the BBC’s Human Planet series, where Nitin was commissioned to do the soundtrack and John did the voice over.  John is also in the spotlight at the moment with the release of the new movie Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy which I’m looking forward to seeing.

Exhibitions, Hereford & Curtain Call

River Wye, Hereford

August seems to have flown by. I’ve been on the move a lot this month on four wheels driving around the country for work and on two wheels cycling for 4 days from London to Paris for a quick holiday.

I’m also preparing for two upcoming exhibitions. The first one I have is for the Hereford Photo Festival, the longest running of its kind in the UK. My work will be on show from the 28th Oct – 26th Nov (more details to follow). The second is further afield in Toronto for the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward Festival 2011 which also opens in November. I will be exhibiting images from my Dubai series at both.

Hereford City Regeneration

As part of my new series looking at regeneration zones in the UK, I will be including Hereford City on the list. On a recent visit to meet with the staff at HPF, I shot a few images on my large format. The photo above looks across a part of the city due for regeneration. On the left hand side you can see the cattle sheds which are in the centre of town. These are now redundant and are due for demolition in the next couple of months.

Below is a tear sheet from a recent portrait shoot I did for the Independent on Sunday’s New Review Magazine of designer Ron Arad and cellist Steven Isserlis. It was a bit of a rush as it was a the opening day of Ron’s new installation Curtain Call at the Roundhouse Theatre. Nevertheless, I managed to get ten minutes and photograph them in the café downstairs. Both Ron and Steven are fascinating characters who have been great friends for a long time. They were brought even closer after the death of Steven’s wife Pauline. Steven wrote very eloquently about the struggle he and Pauline went through when it came to treatments for her cancer. You can read the article here.

Ron Arad & Steven Isserlis at The Roundhouse, London

Lastly…. as you may know, I shot a series on the Athabasca tar sands a while back. The environmental destruction the industry is causing in Alberta Canada is already mind boggling, but now with the approval of a massive pipeline running from Northern Canada all the way down to Texas, it looks like the damage is going to spread much further afield. Read this Guardian article for more info.

July Update

Grande Halle, Parc des Ateliers, Arles

The past month has been a nice mix of work and pleasure. I got back from France and went straight into a week of studio work. Then last Saturday I did the Dunwich Dynamo, a 120 mile night-time cycle from London to the East coast. Despite the 9 hours on the saddle and the hours of waiting around for buses to get bike and body home, it was well worth it. Suffice to say, I was aching severely on Sunday.

Tired cyclists sleeping on the pebble beach at Dunwich, Suffolk

For those of you who haven’t been to Arles this year, it’s well worth a visit if you have time. It was my first time there so I was lucky to go with photographer and friend Alastair Thain, who’s exhibited and been there a number of times before, and was able to show me around. It’s a beautiful town, filled with lots of great photography, delicious food and drink and has great weather. What more could you ask for? The opening night of the exhibition I was part of at Galerie Huit was a success, with lots of great work on show and it was nice to see a few familiar faces there too. In fact, as Arles is so compact, I saw familiar faces all across the town. It was easy to spot many well known photographers, curators, agents and picture editors wandering around.

A few highlights of the festival for me were….. the New York Times Magazine exhibition showing 30 years of incredible photography; an amazing exhibition called “101 Tragedies of Enrique Metinides“, a very amusing clip from a movie called Love Exposure by Sion Sono and an interesting documentary by British filmmaker Trisha Ziff called The Mexican Suitcase. It’s about the loss (and eventual rediscovery) of a set of negatives shot by photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour during the Spanish civil war. I recommend checking it out when it comes to the UK. Although be warned it doesn’t go into detail about whether Capa’s “falling soldier” is real or fake.

I also got to hang out and have some beers with some of the great people who represent me at Picturetank in Paris.

Pedestrian Bridge over the Rhone river, Arles

I’ve been continuing with my project on regeneration in the UK, and in particular looking at the proposed Cricklewood redevelopment. I finally managed to get access to the tallest building in the area, which is the Holiday Inn at Brent Cross. After a bit of persuading, the manager of the hotel very kindly allowed me to take some photographs from the roof. So I hauled all my large format gear up there and harnessed myself down. Unfortunately, the morning I went up, the weather was poor and the wind was very strong, so I couldn’t stay for long. However, I managed to get some establishing images, and I will return later in the summer and get some more when the light is better. Here’s a sample anyway. This view will look radically different in years to come if Barnet council and the developers Hammerson get their way. They want to build an entire new town centre through much of the foreground you see here. Although judging by what some residents have said to me so far, they may have a tough fight on their hands.

Looking South across the proposed Brent Cross Cricklewood Redevelopment Site, North London

Lastly, the image below is from a recent portrait shoot I did for the lovely people at Modus magazine. The photo is of an art dealer called Tania Buckrell. See the full issue here.

Tania Buckrell

Les Rencontres d’Arles – Galerie Huit

I will be exhibiting some of my images at the Open Salon at Galerie Huit in Arles this summer. For those of you who don’t know…. every year Arles hosts one of the biggest photo festivals in the World so it’s definitely worth checking out if you’ll be in the south of France in the next few months. The show will be up from the 4th July till the 18th September. More info here. I will be in Arles on the 8th and 9th July for the private view and to check out loads of photography.

Roma Tearne / Anfield

Roma Tearne, Oxford

I was recently commissioned by Albin Michel Publishers to photograph the artist and writer Roma Tearne at her home in Oxford. Although I didn’t have a huge amount of time with her we managed to squeeze in some interesting chats about her work and about the troubles in Sri Lanka.  As a consequence I’ve started reading her book Brixton Beach, and from what I’ve read so far, I’d highly recommend it.

I’ve been slowly scanning some more images from my recent trip up to Anfield in Liverpool to document the ongoing redevelopment of the area.  After doing some more research into the proposed plans, it seems there is a lot of anger directed towards Liverpool FC’s indecision over whether they are going to rebuild their stadium in situ or move it to Stanley Park nearby.  What they finally decide to do will have a huge impact on the surrounding residents and the direction of the regeneration.  Apparently some form of decision will be made in the next month.  Alongside this there is uncertainty over future government funding for the scheme and there is now a growing fear that these once busy residential streets will remain boarded up for years to come.  I’m now planning on visiting a number of other regeneration sites around the UK (there are several hundred) and documenting the changes taking place.  I’m interested in these areas that are deemed to be in need of redevelopment and how top-down regeneration schemes alter the urban environment and affect the communities involved.

Anfield, Liverpool

Lothair Road with Anfield Stadium in the background

Lastly, if you’re in London and are looking for some interesting photographic exhibitions to go to, I would highly recommend checking out Paul Graham’s show in The Whitechapel Gallery and Simon Norfolk’s new exhibition at the Tate Modern.  Both very different styles, but equally inspiring.

Yuppies Coming…

I’ve been a bit slack with the updates again.  I have been out and about enjoying the incredible weather and the multitude of bank holidays and as a result have tried to stay away from a computer as much as possible. Instead I’ve been out shooting lots and I now have a stack of negatives sitting on my desk that need scanning.  So I will slowly start adding some online here.

A couple of weeks ago, I revisited the Heygate Estate in the Elephant and Castle.  I hadn’t been to see it for about a year, so I wanted to take some update images.  The place is fairly deserted, besides the last handful of residents who seem to be dotted around the flats and maisonettes, plus an active bunch of guerrilla gardeners who are planting up fruit and vegetables in the old communal lawns.  The image above is of one of the metal doors put up to keep out squatters.

Continuing with the regeneration theme, I went up to Liverpool last week to photograph the boarded-up terraced streets around Anfield stadium. Anyone who supports Liverpool FC will probably be very aware of them already.  I only found out about them a few months ago when I was photographing Wayne Hemingway and he talked about the Anfield regeneration project, which is sadly resulting in the demolition of these historic houses and streets.  I am sympathetic to the viewpoint that these houses can be quite small and lack gardens, but I do think it’s short sighted to demolish and replace them with fairly characterless modern houses and apartments.

Anfield Regeneration, Liverpool

Funnily enough I did a shoot recently for Modus Magazine (here), of the Victorian Terrace retrofit project at the BRE site in Watford.  They have been exploring new techniques and technologies for refurbishing old houses rather than demolishing them. The image below is of the two gentlemen who run the project.

John O'Brien and Peter Bonfield, BRE

I also got some good news last week.  I have been selected as one of the UK winners of the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Awards for 2011.  It’s nice to have my work recognised by the foundation alongside some other great photographers.  More info can be found here.

Burned out Rolls Royce (well, that's what I think it is). Marble Drive, Brent Cross, London

Lastly, many of you will have heard the terrible news about the death of photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Misrata in Libya.  There have been a lot of articles written about both men, but this one in Vanity Fair by Tim’s friend Sebastian Junger stood out to me.  You can read it here.