Hugo Platt, printer, photographer.

Hugo Platt is back in town. You may remember him, as the brilliant b&w printer, based in Havelock Terrace South London. He has a show of his fabulous b&w landscapes at The Gallery, Cork Street, London, all taken on his 10x8, and printed by himself.
You can see some of the photographs here and on his website
Hugo, good to see you and your work.

House and Garden Magazine.

House and Garden, May issue, is out now.
My first published garden feature, given a lovely eight pages, leads with this dps of sheep in a field in this stunning English rural idyll. It's so refreshing to see landscape photography used boldly in magazines. Very exciting.

You thought it was all over...

So did I, but isn't that the great thing about the English weather?
This is last weekend, during Easter, somewhere near Great Langdale.
Not that I'm complaining. There's little to beat the sound of snow, whether it's being swooshed over on skis, or being crunched under walking boots. And at last I revisited the Striding Edge, one of the approaches to Helvellyn. My Mother took me down this route off Helvellyn when I was nine years old. We both wore wellies, and carried nothing else. These days, everyone seems kitted out for an ascent on Everest. Probably wisely too.

To Direct or Not?

Why not? It's a mini performance, and the photographer may be shooting to a brief.
Here's an example of one received recently:

"She should appear confident, aware and intelligent, challenging, authentic, engaging, innovative, dynamic, distinguished, knowledgeable, esteemed and entrepreneurial in spirit".

It doesn't refer to the shoot with Omid Djalili, shown below, where the brief was, well, brief. "Get some nice shots of 'im."

This wasn't directed, and I'd very rarely ask anyone to put a hand to their face, but sometimes there's no harm with going with the flow.

To young and inexperienced photographers, directing a 'star' can seem a bit overwhelming. But plough on I say, it's your shoot, you'll be judged on the pictures, and sometimes your subject needs a bit of direction.

How Many?

"You're bound to get at least one good one, if you shoot that many frames." Some of us have heard this once, and some of us have heard it more than once. During a photoshoot with a British airline chief recently, he asked why on earth I took so many frames of him. I could have said because you don't look like Brad Pitt (which would have been honest and true, if not a little unkind). No doubt he would have taken it on the chin.



But it is true, and it informs us about something of the nature of being photogenic. Brad Pitt looks great in photographs, and you don't need to take many frames to end up with a great set of shots of him. The same is true of many people, but actors are especially adept at looking good in photographs. So they should be, given that they use their faces to express their work. They know what works well on camera. They probably know what works well with the lighting set up being used. If you've ever sat way up in the gods, and not been able to make out an actor's expressions, then you are missing a whole chunk of the performance.



Combine this professional use of the face with what is often 'good looks' and you have a winning combination in front of the camera. Take someone who may not be so good looking, and who hasn't learnt to exploit their faces to their full potential, and you will soon see that more frames equals a better chance of getting a good shot. Combine that with the vast number of muscles in the human face, with their multiple permutations, and you'll discover that variations in expressions are limitless. The challenge is often to try and get something unexpected from the professional, and something great from the non professional. Much fun can be had in doing both, regardless of success. It was Brian Dennehy I saw (or who I didn't really see) from the gods in Death of a Salesman. A wasted opportunity if ever there was one.

Mark Rylance

Last night, Mark Rylance won Best Actor (Olivier Awards) for his role in Jerusalem. Jez Butterworth's play, not short at a hefty three hours, is on in London's west end. Also starring is Mackenzie Crook. The play is set in woodland; Crook owns a wood himself, so was well cast for the role.






Many people struggle with theatre productions, but most consider this is a must see performance by Rylance. Much is made of the strongly "Middle English" audience, who sympathise with the main character's disdain for the little englander bureaucratic administration prevalent here.
Hooray! At last someone is shining the spotlight on some of the ghastly officious people annoying us all to distraction with their approach to our green and pleasant land.

Goodbye Winter

Hopefully not tempting fate to say farewell to this gorgeous winter. The highlight for me has to be Katrina and PW's wedding in Battersea Park. Half way through a guest even demanded that the cup cakes should immediately be photographed (what special occasion would be without cup cakes these days?). What's a photographer to do other than jump to it? So here's Battersea Park, KJP & PW, and the cakes.

Megan

You are not a terrorist, or Polish, but you are a wonderful assistant, and we all wish you a very happy birthday. X.

Stone the Crows.

Dear William,

Have you been to the Penn at the NPG? No loss of quality there. Gorgeous.

Remember the only time CH was apprehended by the thin blue line? It was a gig shooting Richard Reynolds, a Guerrilla Gardener (good headline: Hopkinson shoots guerrilla). It's worth keeping one's eyes open for the guerrilla's efforts, as many a dull traffic island has been transformed by their green fingers. Ah, the sweet irony of the peelers feeling the collars of photographers as the guerrillas go free.









Talking of brightening places up; have you been for a walk around Sheffield recently? Nigel Dunnett has also done sterling work with some simply superb planting on the site where once stood horrible 1960s tower blocks. Perfect for a spot of wildflower meadow planting. There are a few old 60s tower blocks around here, but the developers pounce before floor 22 has even been reduced to sea level. Just like greased lightning, whatever that is.
Just look at the power of plants, especially wild flowers. Cannot fail to lift the spirits sky high.
Rock on Sheffield and Dunnett.









I've also just come accross "Out of My Head' on Blurb,com.
Very nice, and my copy is on its way. Keep it up Jackson.

Less Is More.

Dear Bill,

Here's the Hemmingway guide to photography. Don't you think less is more? Germaine Greer was on the box last night, explaining that when men are given free time, they tend to do nothing, except maybe angling or golf, which amounts to the same thing. Women on the other hand like to fill the time. Some truth in that. Sarah B used to do a quick hoover before the char arrived, and I've seen copious amounts of cleaning of plates before they're loaded into the dishwasher.
Remember that Picture Ed who as soon as you arrived with the contacts would ask: How did it go?
Fine one would reply. How many rolls did you shoot, she'd ask. Oh just the one I'd say, got it on the first roll. Look of horror spreads over face of Pic ed.
Bill, you should see what the fashion crowd would demand, rolls and rolls and rolls of film, endless shots of the most photogenic people on the planet. Work that one out.

Still, one cuts ones cloth.... Now it's digi time, we have a list along the lines of what ADs expect from shoots. Some want an edit of no more than 10 frames, others no less than 50. When did you first hear: "My name is nuff. I am a fairy. Fair enough". Willie Fullerton ?

Years ago, on my first advertising shoot, I told my assistant to wrap it up after half an hour.
Can I have a word, she said, as she dragged me out of earshot of the AD. You simply can't call it a day now, she explained. But I've got it I told her. Maybe, said the assistant, but they expect a long process, tons of Polaroids, sucking of teeth, things moved about a bit and so on. So back we went, shot loads more, and they used a frame from the first roll. Maybe it's about what ones expectations are, for the money shelled out. It should be that the more you fork out, the less nonsense ensues, and the product is delivered as asked for pdq without palaver and so on.

I've got a print from my parent's wedding upstairs, and came accross the whole shoot the other day. A total of 20 frames. No mucking about then, eh?

Enough rambling. Here's a print of the great Germaine Greer. She was Fun with a capital 'F' to photograph. She's with a chicken and her dog. I think the poor hen's name was Anne Robinson. May be wrong.

Dear Bill

Well, a happy belated New Year to you, and V good to see you the other evening in such great company. Heard a story the other day about a friend of mine who took a client to Saint John's for a power lunch (whatever that is)only to discover she was a veggie. Salads and blushes all round I suppose. Some of my best friends are vegetarians.

As you know, I also love Americans. Strange, we seem to be in the middle of a bash the US thing here at the moment, but when it comes to photography, I just can't get enough of them. I love that brassy attitude of "come on, make me look a million dollars" as opposed to the Blighty "Oh heavens, I hate being photographed nonsense..." GET OVER YOURSELF" as they say across the pond.
Of course, you'll know that Kim Cattrall was born in Liverpool, though apparently, not a lot of people know that.

Quite a few of our number are complaining bitterly about the work front, all the normal stuff about clients being tight and even going bust etc. Strange thing is, this has been coming for yonks, as I was warned back in 1990: don't for God's sake consider a carreer (odd word to use for a vocation, still) in photography, because there are far too many photographers here already. Oh drat, I'll try my hand at something that few others are doing. Still, we've been lucky I suppose, and I'm not stopping whislst I can still turn out the odd masterpiece or two.
Print sales are another story altogether, I know, but it's all cyclical, and no doubt it will pick up soon, say in the next ten years or so.







Blom/Hopkinson publication number two is in the pipeline, here's a tiny tester to whet your appetite.

Polly Hope.

Looking back (oh so briefly) at last year I've remembered a lovely shoot I had with the artist Polly Hope. She lives in the 'countryside' recreated just off Brick Lane in the east end of London. There are dogs wandering around, chickens pecking in the courtyard and a parrot squarking in the corner of a large barn. Outside in the street wafts a faint hint of curry. Two times novelist, Polly Hope owns this amazing easel, used in a painting of Queen Victoria, though history doesn't relate as to who the artist was. Anyway, it was a shoot to enjoy, a fabulous subject in a great location, something to think about when next working in a company's boardroom somewhere in Esher.

2010. As I stepped out.....

With acknowledgement to the late Laurie Lee.

Street Life.

Much of my work is shot in London, often travelling by road, rather than going underground.

It's a road that's odd sad and funny. I love the two cabbies arguing over who is in the wrong, while parked on a bus stop. And what is a British Sex Shop? Maybe you get a free pair of socks with every purchase.

My favourite though is the one at the end. Many a childhood summed up in one photograph.

The Poet and the Garden.

Here's a bit of synchronicity. Hot on the heels of the post about the new book '100' (see below) is a shoot I had with the poet James Fenton.
I knew of him through reading his book A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed.
He's now selling up, and Intelligent Life magazine commissioned the shoot of his portrait and garden.
The title they used is The Poet and the Plantsman, and profiles the poet, the garden, and his gardener, Mike Collins.




Apart from a day out out of London, the shoot was a dream not least because Fenton has an orchard.





Orchards send me directly to seventh heaven, for no particular reason that I'm aware of, they just do. And I've got a thing about ladders too.

Glasshouse Books.

Look out for Glasshouse Books in 2010.

Promising to give away their digital books for free, they're aiming for people "who don't read".

Bobby Nayyar, publishing entrepreneur, explains: "We're trying to reach people who can read but choose not to, be it because they don't have time, or they don't know what to read, or books aren't being published to their taste."

Part of their six book line up for 2010 is 100, a book of 100 words each by 100 people, aimed at teenagers and those about to leave university.





Coming in February 2010 is the Freelancer's Diary, followed by a book of Free speach, and so on through out the year.
If you'd like to find out more go here.

Photographing People

An odd thing happened at work two days ago. I had to shoot a CEO of a large TV company, for an editorial client (magazine). The CEO turned up with one of his marketing staff. (I thought he was the bodyguard.) We set off into the street for three locations I had recce'd earlier. The first one was a plain white wall. The marketing/bodyguard type vetoed the location as being 'too public'. I was so bemused and taken aback I just pressed on to location two, which was equally public, as was location three. No veto followed. I've since turned this event over in my mind, and agree with what my assistant told me after the shoot. This was that the veto was a way of marketing/bodyguard man justifying his existence on the shoot. We agreed that in future we'd have a couple of dummy locations to test this out. Then I thought about it further and decided it just wasn't on, and now regret not taking marketing man to task. But that's not really practical in the middle of a shoot. In hindsight, I think it was just rather discourteous of him to interfere in such a way. A couple of weeks ago I met Terry O'Neill, and we had a long discussion about what photographing people is like today, compared with how it was in his day. Then, you got a fortnight on set with Frank Sinatra. He wasn't in any doubt it was the intervention of the PR crowd that has reduced photography to the 'you've only got ten minutes with him/her' that is the current scene. "They've ruined it." he said. I'm not always against the quick shoot. It is obviously spontaneous, and I've evolved a system to cope with such a short time slot. Still, these fast shoots can be a tad ridiculous at times. The most absurd, in any number of ways, was an eight day trip for seven minutes shooting. Still, I wouldn't have swapped the experience for any other shoot I've ever done: It was a unique and wonderful experience, one which I doubt will be bettered, and I count myself lucky beyond description. There were no marketing people present, just one lovely silent abbott.









Yesterday was taken up with a shoot of the writer Elizabeth Speller. She was a dream to photograph, even though at the end she said that it wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be. Is being photographed so ghastly, or are photographers awful, or is it both? I think the British protest too much. I can't imagine that anyone wants a bad photo to be taken of them.




They may well take a leaf out of the book from the Americans. Generalisations apart, Americans seem to have a very positive attitude towards being photographed. Americans have no shame (why should they?) in wanting to look good, and no coyness about you the photographer knowing that.








The opposite seems to be the case with the Brits, who would shudder at the thought that one knew they were trying hard to look good for the camera. "I hate being photographed" is almost always the opening line with someone from this island. It's never followed by "could you tell me how I can look good in the photo?" I wonder why not? Maybe it's because they don't want to be seen to want to look nice in the results. Odd when you think about it. And a bit silly too.

Gathering Evidence

How best to record a walk? Sometimes photographs fall short, and need text. Collecting 'evidence' enhances the depth of recording the walk and the experience. Sound can too. So far, I've drawn the line at moving images. That will happen in 2010.

In October I was lucky enough to walk in the Wadi Rum. Fans of David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia will instantly recognise the landscape.





At one point in Lean's film, the American journalist turns to Lawrence and asks: Why do you love the desert so much Lawrence? And Lawrence, played by Peter O'Toole, replies: Because it's clean. Alas, no longer. The advent of the plastic water bottle has seen to that. Tourism is a strange thing, as it often destroys its very raison d'etre.

It's still hot in October, and searching out the shadow of the mountains is a way of escaping the 40 degree heat.






Cool early morning; gentle light without the high contrast of overgead sun. This image was taken on a shaky Holga, a plastic toy camera that takes 120 format film.







Nothing much stirs in the day, save for the occasional Bedu with their livestock and of course, mad dogs and Englishmen.
At night, the evidence points to frantic activity amongst the sand and rocks.








Back in the studio there is time to photograph some of the 'evidence'. I'm still waiting to identify the seeds shown here.