If you can't stand the heat...

...then get yourself out of that kitchen. Here are a few shots from a recent shoot at the Restaurant 'Antoine' in Paris. Photographing restaurants can always be a bit of a tricky exercise as most of them would rather you didn't shoot them during lunch or dinner service so as not to upset the punters. So therefore you're left with shooting an empty restaurant which can be a little lifeless. Occasionally you might have a place with stunning decor or a nice landmark (as seen below with what must be one of the most booked restaurant tables in Paris), but this is not usually the case.
It's always good idea to get plate shots and most restaurants will be only too happy to oblige (just don't expect to get to eat it - this will usually be done by the head chef in order to check the quality of the dishes).
So if you want some shots with a little more life and a bit of bustle then the best place to head to is the kitchen


Just make sure you get the go ahead from the head chef and if he says it's okay, then it's most definitely okay.
If you're having trouble finding the head chef look for the chef who looks the most stern and pissed off - this will be him. You can also tell him apart from all the other chefs who in contrast will have a slightly terrified look on their faces.
So you've got the green light from the chef and it's all good, the other important thing to make sure of is not to get in anyones way as you will be surrounded by lit gas stoves, knives and people carrying around large vats of various boiling hot, spillable foods.
These kitchens are usually small and cramped so a wide angle lens is definitely needed. Also watch out for the slippery floors, plus if you're shooting a restaurant kitchen in Summer be aware that even on a cold day these kitchens are on par with the hottest places on earth


Here are a few other restaurants I've shot from the archives. One here from a few years ago, 'Gauthier' in Soho. It was another that I was asked to shoot mid morning before customers arrived, the staff preparing the tables gave a few nice shots and some close ups of the prep in the kitchen also worked well.
More from this shoot can be seen on an earlier blog entry via this link



One of my favourites to shoot was the opening of the new 'Triannon Palace' Hotel restaurant in Versailles just outside Paris. The added element was that this was to be run by the chef the critics love to hate: Gordon Ramsay.
This was the daytime preparation for the evening launch and there was lots of interest, the man of the hour was dividing his time between his kitchen staff and the numerous members of the press.
He was good to work with and made sure all the members of the press got what they needed, he seemed quite on edge and the fact that the restaurant got a panning by the critics showed that maybe he had reason to.
And no, it's not an act - he does swear that often!
More from this shoot can be seen on my main website via this link

Paris Portraits for Time Out

Paris Portraits: Tania at the Maison Rouge

Each Spring Time Out magazine publishes a special Paris issue and it's a commission I've been fortunate to photograph annually for the last seven years now. This years issue was slightly different in that rather than photographing venues worth visiting the feature would be centred around the staff at the new Time Out office in Paris and their recommendations.
Each of the staff writers were responsible for different areas such as Art, Theatre, Cinema etc and I would be photographing five of them at the venues of their choice.
I only had three days to shoot and edit the portraits plus shoot another two restaurants so it was always going to be tight for time, The first of the three days shooting would be Sunday so I spent most of Saturday arranging the meets and working of what was to be the order of the shoots to maximise the time available


The first of the shoots was to be with Tania the correspondent for the Arts section and she had chosen the Masion Rouge near Bastille which was a venue I'd not previously visited. Once I met her and her friend at the venue the staff were fine with a shoot taking place in the gallery but as it was open to the public using a light stand would not be permitted (health and safety), as the exhibition consisted of works in neon lights it was perfectly understandable they didn't want a light stand being knocked over in their general direction


Luckily Tania's friend came to the rescue and acted as a human light stand holding the flash and umbrella with arms above her head for the duration of the shoot which I was very grateful for.
The exhibition gave a lot of choice for backgrounds and we were spoilt for choice, I also liked the fact that the geometric shapes in some of the work were echoed in the sitters clothing. I was after a choice of images with some including people in the background to show the place was active, luckily it was not too busy and I didn't have to wait too long for someone to either enter or exit the background

Paris Portraits: Elsa at the Theatre de Chaillot

The setting for the portrait of the theatre correspondent Elsa was to be the Theatre Nationale de Chaillot based just next to the Eiffel tower inside the Trocadero.
The Trocadero with it's Art Deco architecture is quite imposing and stands apart from the style of architecture found in the rest of the city. I had never been inside and once I had entered the foyer found the building even more impressive on the inside


We had to wait for a staff member to greet us to give us a tour or where we could and couldn't shoot while waiting we began the session with a few shots next to a statue of Jean Vilar the French actor and theatre director (thanks Wikipedia).
Once he had arrived and shown us round we moved into the auditorium itself which was huge and in it's empty silent state a little eerie. The shots in here were fine but it didn't really give a sense of the place and could have been any theatre


In the entrance to the auditorium were some huge pillars and placing Elsa between them gave some nice shots, I liked the fact that she seems in the centre of a space, in touch with it


To finish off we went back to the main stairway that led from the main foyer down to the auditorium itself. The huge mural on the wall acted a really nice backdrop, I wanted to get across a sense of the size of the space so these images were taken with me lying flat on my stomach on the floor in order to get the ceiling in the frame and exaggerate the scale


Elsa was a very willing sitter up for trying different ideas as we went along, it always makes a shoot easier if you have a sitter who is relaxed and comfortable with the situation.
While we were shooting a passing security guard took an interest and hung around for a bit. As I felt I happy we'd got all the shots we needed I asked him if he fancied having his picture taken with Elsa and he stepped up to the mark


After seeing the result he asked for one by himself and of course I was only too happy to...

Paris Portraits: Emmanuel at L'Alimentation Générale

This shoot was with the Time Out Paris correspondent for nightlife and the chosen venue was the live music/restaurant/bar/club hybrid by the name of the 'Alimentation Générale'. It's a well established place on the rue Jean Pierre Timbaud which runs parallel to the rue Oberkampf, an area which is always lively as I knew well having lived on this street in years gone by.
I wanted to shoot the venue when it was lively and arranged the shoot early in the three day shoot on the Sunday evening in order to be at the venue when there was a concert playing. A Brazilian band where scheduled to start at eight p.m and this is the time we arranged to meet


In the back of my mind I thought that arranging a shoot during a concert might be slightly problematic but having previously shot the venue I knew that the band would be onstage and I guessed it would be relatively simple to shoot Emmanuel standing in front of the stage. Wrong. When we arrived I noticed that the band were to be playing in a circle in the middle of the venue and I had the feeling it may be a bit trickier than first thought and this proved to be correct.
Once the band started playing everybody crowded round them and it proved to be almost impossible to find a way in to get the shot I wanted, this was compounded by the fact that I've got a light stand in tow which under the circumstances (packed bar/dark/alcohol) offered the perfect opportunity for someone to trip over the legs of the stand


In the end the stage came to the rescue as by standing up on it (wedged in amongst the other people sitting on it) I was able to get an elevated viewpoint to get the shot, I bounced the light off the ceiling as there was no space to set up the umbrella and the mixture of flash on the subject and ambient light on the background separated the two nicely.
Emmanuel handled the situation effortlessly and very graciously as I can't think of a situation to be photographed in to make someone feel any more self conscious. After this we tried a few exterior shots to add a bit of a mixture to the shots but there wasn't the same sense of activity as the others. It was a shot from the interior which was eventually used in the feature

Paris Portraits: Alex at La Clef

The next portrait was with the film correspondent at one of his favourite independent cinemas in the city, 'La Clef' in the St.Michel neighbourhood South of the Seine.
I'd already had a look at the venue through Google images so was aware that the retro exterior might work well. After we met and had a look round the interior of the venue which was completely uninspiring it became obvious that the exterior was what we had to play with.
As the cinema was on a corner the view down the adjacent street offered a bit of depth to the image and we tried a few images working with this


By that time in the day it was starting to get a bit blowy and having a lighting umbrella at the end of a ten foot pole can be asking for trouble. Being a photographer I've found that the one thing you learn fast is improvisation, do what you can to get the shots in the time you've got any way possible.
By taking my belt off and lashing the light stand to a nearby pole it meant that I could continue shooting without the worry that the whole set up would blow over, it worked a treat (although now my trousers might fall down, but who cares, the images come first)


At the time when I was commissioned for the shoot the Art Editor and Picture Desk at the magazine had discussed with me the idea of having the series of portraits with a relaxed casual atmosphere, injecting a bit of humour where ever possible. I really like this as a concept and with this in mind I asked the sitter to hold up his hands as if holding the key in the cinemas logo. I was pleased to see that it was one of these images that eventually ran in the piece

Paris Portraits: Amelie at The Balançoire

The last of the series of portraits was to photograph the food writer for the Time Out Paris office at one of her recommended haunts. This was to be the newly opened restaurant 'The Balançoire' in Montmartre.
By this time after packing so many shots into three days exhaustion was beginning to set in and I was reminded of this as I carted all my kit up the steep narrow streets of the neighbourhood.
We arranged to meet mid morning before the lunch service and as I arrived the place was a hive of activity as the staff busily prepared for the day. 'Balançoire' is the French for 'swing' and as well as having a motif on the wall the restaurant also had a fully functional swing hanging from the ceiling just inside the doorway. This was always going to be the shot and having Amelie sitting on the swing was nicely echoed by the motif on the wall behind her


We also tried a few other poses and settings to give the picture desk a choice of imagery but I knew that it was always going to be a shots featuring the swing that would run.
Once the session was finished I had just one more restaurant to shoot (which incidentally was never used, that's how it goes) and then it was time to get all the pictures edited and uploaded ready for the picture desk the following morning - needless to say it was a very late night...

February iPhone roundup

There's a freeze up coming

I've heard it said that it's the urgent things in life which get done first while the more important things tend to get done later. With this in mind, today on one of the hottest days of the year so far I've finally got round to editing some pictures from one of the coldest.
These images were taken in early February along the Canal St.Martin in Paris. I'd never seen the Canal frozen over before and here are a selection of the images taken during a mornings long (and very cold) walk along it

John Lanchester for Time Out

A published spread from a recent commission for Time Out Magazine. I was told that I would only have half an hour to shoot with John Lanchester for a piece centred on his new novel 'Capital'. The book deals with the effect of the banking crisis on the affordability of Londons' properties for those living in the city.
The picture desk had discussed the idea of having a residential type setting as the backdrop to the portrait to tie in with the subject matter. As I would be meeting him at his publishers offices in the centre of town in Bloomsbury I was confident that a suitable location could be found.
I arrived about an hour before our meet time and after a recce of the area found a suitable backdrop in the shape of an entrance to a Georgian block of flats that had been turned into offices


During my recce I also wanted to look into the possibility of a second location and remembering that the area had quite a few antique bookshops popped my head into the first one I found and asked them about the chance of having an impromtu photoshoot on the premises.
The very nice people at Jarndyce Antique Booksellers were more than happy to accommodate and I told them I'd be back shortly with the sitter


The meeting point at the publishers offices was on Great Russell Street and the two locations were within a few minutes walk from each other.
We had around 10 minutes shooting time at each location and were wrapped up within the 30 minutes I had been granted. I had a feeling that the images from the first setting would be the ones that ran in the piece but it's always a nice feeling to give alternative images within a tight time

The Fantastic vs The Ordinary

Evening Puja ceremony on the banks of the River Ganges, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. January 2011


Business leaders forming the judging panel for the 2012 Property Awards, Mayfair, London, United Kingdom. February 2012

The need for images is everywhere, across all types of media. Businesses of all types require images such as staff portraits for websites, shots of meetings for annual reports and bid documents and coverage of conferences for both internal and external marketing. Working as a freelance photographer you find yourself as a type of 'gun for hire' with commissions leading you to photograph subjects you may not have been instinctively drawn to.
Over the years I've carved a bit of niche for myself as a sort of corporate documentary photographer and while these are the type of shoots that some photographers may not get terribly excited about I've found that they are often the type of shoots that can push you most as a photographer.
The shot above is from a self initiated trip to India. It's the kind of scene that I'm drawn to and interests me, it lends itself to be photographed and give great images, all the elements are there, you just need get in place and fire the shutter. On the other hand when you arrive at a commissioned shoot consisting of a group of gentlemen sitting around a table and nothing more this is the kind of setting that can really call on all your knowledge and skills to try and generate engaging images.
These corporate type images might not the first I would promote but they are a large part of what I do, at the end of the day I'm interested in photographing people of all types in all settings and it's commissions such as this that make it possible for me to then take a month off to travel.
I usually shoot such settings with two cameras sporting zoom lenses of different focal lengths, a 24-105mm so I'm covered for the wide room shots and a 70-200mm to capture individuals and reaction shots. Shooting over someones shoulder at the person opposite with a short focal length is always a good way to get across the sense of discussion and once the meeting starts you'll very quickly get a sense of which angles work and the best positions to give you the images you want.




There is always room to try out a few different things visually and it's usually these experiments within such a tight shoot that can give the most interesting images for both yourself and the client.
In the shot below once I had the main images in the bag I fitted a 50mm prime and tried out a few shots at very short focal lengths to isolate the various hand gestures during the discussion


The following shot is from a meeting of architects discussing the regeneration of a site in Stoke. As the site plan was the main focus of the discussion I tried to get across a sense that these architects held the fate of the site in their hands, looking down from a lofty height


This shot from a conference held in Wales came about while walking around the back of the auditorium looking for a slightly different angle. I noticed that the video camera set up to record the event had a tiny blue light on the back of it, I stood with the back of the video camera about a foot away from the lens and composed the shot so that the back of the camera with the blue light came slightly into frame. As I'm focusing on the speaker at the other end of the room the lens threw this tiny blue light out of focus into a nice blue blob that added something extra to the shot.