Portraits
This month Viva Brighton magazine features my regular spot called The Way We Work, where I take portraits of Brighton and Hove business people in various trades.
I was out shooting people from Brighton's technology industry, so design agency's, tech companies, media companies etc.
Portrait of a Brighton Taxi for Viva Brighton Magazine driver up at Devils Dyke, Sussex, from back when you could wear shorts and T-Shirts.
So every year I enter the one photography competition that really means anything to me, the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
Every year I get the same message back saying 'Thank you for entering the competition this year. The judges have now made their final selection and I am sorry to inform you that on this occasion your work has not been selected for exhibition.'
But this year there was a slight difference, they also added this sentence: 'However, I did want to let you know that your photograph(s) did make it through to the second round of judging which included around 346 images. This year we had a total of 4,303 prints submitted into the competition from 1,842 photographers so the competition was very strong.'
So although I didn't make it to the final exhibition (dam you, it'll happen one day!) I did make it into the top 8% (someone on Facebook did the maths for me) so at least it's a step in the right direction.
So i'll just keep on trying and keep on submitting my images to them and i'll see what happens.
I'd love to know which image(s) made it though, but sadly they don't let you know, so here are the four portraits that I submitted this year.
Tony Tree - Brighton Argus Photographer
It's always a pleasure to taking a photographers portrait and usually a bit daunting. However on this occasion it was an absolute joy.
I had to take a portrait of legendary Brighton photographer Tony Tree (which you can see in this months Viva Brighton magazine), who has worked with the likes of David Bailey and Helmut Newton. He also spent 20 years as a photographer for The Brighton Argus during the 70s, 80s and 90s when press photography was a very different beast to what it is today.
Tony was a joy to photography and to chat to about all things photographic and hear some stories of the past. He was so accommodating and I wanted to capture some of that kindness in the portrait. I also took inspiration for this portrait from one of my favourite photographers the wonderful Jane Bown. Who worked for the Observer for many many years and worked with minimal equipment and always shot on an old black and white film camera. This portrait wasn't shot on film, but I was thinking of her during the shoot.
So thanks so much Tony and Jane.
Seeing as it's currently the Brighton Festival on at the moment I thought I'd share a portrait of the Brighton Dome and Festival CEO Andrew Comben that I took recently.
This is another of my portraits which could come under the subheading 'portraits taken in corridors outside of toilets". For some reason I always end up in unusual places taking my shots.
Like most people I was very saddened to hear of the passing of the great Ronnie Corbett. I was a massive fan of The Two Ronnie's and loved his solo work.
I never had the pleasure of meeting him, however the closest I got was to meet his daughter and take her portrait at her retail shop in Brighton which is called 'Four Candles'.
So my thoughts are with his family and I wanted to say a massive thank you Ronnie for making me laugh over the years.
It's a funny thing being a photographer. I tend to not forget a face.
If I've taken someones portrait, I've usually looked really hard at them and studied their face closer than most people. Not to mention the time editing the shot as well as all those times looking at the image for one reason or another. So if I end up meeting someone again I'll tend to recognise them, even if they don't remember me.
So this happened to me a couple of days ago. I took the family down to Shoreham Fort (which is an amazing place if you've never been) as there was a special open day event. While we were there I recognised one of the guys who was in uniform. It took me a moment to think where from, but then I realised that I'd asked him if it was Ok to take his portrait at another event down at Shoreham Fort, but six years ago.
He hadn't changed that much and was in a different uniform this time. As I have a folder on Dropbox for my portraits, I was able to find the portrait on my phone, show him and have a chat with him.
I wish that I'd had a camera with me this time (although it was bucketing down with rain), as I would have loved to have taken his portrait again. As you never know, maybe in six years time, i'll bump into him and recognise him again.
