7 years ago this month Di and I went to Paris with our baby daughter and our 6 year old son. We left our house, we took our son out of his school to try homeschooling and we looked forward to our baby’s first foods being in the land of gastronomy. It was the beginning […]
I was up very early this morning. In the streets of East London I watched the pre-dawn sky change colour, from the magnificent midnight blue to ever lighter shades of blue. Colourful ribbons of pinks and yellows burst across the sky, and little wisps of purple and blue clouds appeared and disappeared at random. There […]
Photography has chosen you! Do it! On my workshops, taking photographs of strangers seems to conjure up a wild mix of terror and excitement. Most people are naturally drawn to photographing people, and I understand. I love it too. I think it’s a tremendous honor to photograph people, as they go about their lives and […]
Greetings from a balmy Rome. Today I wanted to take a look at Ernst Haas, my favourite photographer and, hands down, the biggest photographic influence on my work. When I discovered his books in the 80’s I was blown away by the beauty he discovered in the most mundane views or objects: lines on a street, […]
“One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things.” Henry Miller A few evenings ago I left my office in Waterloo to head home to see my rambunctious kids and have dinner with my wife. The evening had an interesting feel to it, a misty, wintry fog hung in the air […]
Finding the confidence to make brilliant portraits out on the street About ten years ago, on one of my dawn escapades, I came across a homeless man who was asleep in an alley. He had covered himself in magazines and newspaper to keep warm. Lying on his chest was a magazine-spread of a lady’s buxom […]
“The question is not what you look at but what you see.” Henry David Thoreau When we are confronted with a beautiful scene our first reaction is to take a photo. “Done – can’t wait to show my friends. Let’s get lunch.” This is what I would call the obvious photo. A snapshot. What […]
I talk a lot about when I go out to shoot early in the morning how empty the streets are of people, that the city is completely deserted. Well, it not absolutely accurate – I do meet some people in my wanderings and on workshops, here and there. And the one thing they all have in common is […]
When I was picking my next city to shoot at dawn after London I was super resistant to Paris. I had been to Paris on a few weekends with my wife since I arrived in London from LA in 2000. To me it was a pretty, dinky little city that was good for eating but […]
Paris is such a wonderful city and regardless of what the guidebooks say July is a great time to be here. We are staying in the 15th arr. on Rue de la Convention in a brilliant flat on the 7th floor with a view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. It’s a really nice […]
