| | | I started writing this newsletter in January, during a very grey drizzling train journey, when the UK felt like it was in a perpetual rain simulation.
As always, it’s taken me eons to pull this together, so now I’m concluding the writing with, what feels like, the first flush of spring - there’s quite a lot to get through! |
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| Portraits: 14-16 November Exhibition |
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Naming a body of work after a series of dates may turn out to be one of the more confusing ideas I have had... Despite this, I'm excited to announce that the series we exhibited at Paris Photo last November is finally returning home.
We’ll be displaying the complete series at Cob Gallery from the 6 March - 2nd April. The portraits were shot over 3 days in November 2024 and printed as photopolymer etchings, by Colin Gale and I, at Artichoke.
The prints are really special in person and I’d encourage you to come and experience them. Please join us for the opening on the 5 March, 6-8pm, where the book of the series will also be available to preview for the first time.
The book, designed with Matt Willey and printed by Robstolk, will be released through Helions on the 9th of March. |
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Photopolymer intaglio 29.7 x 21 cm
11 3/4 x 8 1/4 in Edition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofs |
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In other exciting news, A is for Ant is now out in the world and free to view online!
I made this film back in early 2023 - it was a chaotic, hilarious and thrilling first adventure into film making. This was the first of many collaborations with my friend, the cinematographer James Beattie, and also a project that reunited me with the briliant Shona Heath, who I collaborated with on all the set design and costuming.
I’d love for as many of you to see it, and show it to your children, friends, family and dogs. |
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| Crew Photo of A is for Ant Team |
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| Dwayne Johnson - NYT Magazine |
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A few years ago Jessica Dimson, the director of photography at the NYT Magazine, and I were chatting over coffee when the subject of photographic wish lists came up.
Jessica asked to see mine, and whilst she perused it she suddenly paused and looked at me questioningly, her finger held over the name Dwayne Johnson. "Why him?" she asked, "Of all the people on this list he seems the most unexpected?"
There's something about DJ that I have always been intrigued by, and despite his massive fame he’s never really sat for what I’d consider to be a classic portrait. One that focuses on his face and not merely on his adonis-like frame. Jessica was intrigued, and together we felt that with the release of The Smashing Machine it might be a good point to approach him with something different from his typical press portrait. |
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| Cinematographer: Mika Atlskan |
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BTS: Attached below is a page from the mood-board for this shoot and the Shelley poem Ozymandis, that was echoing around my head at the time.
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I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Shelley |
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I really enjoyed the spontaneity and speed with which George Beattie and I made Anders - and, in an effort to make it a repeating series, this is Anouk and Eyidis battling the wind in the black sand of Iceland. |
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| Jessie Buckley - British Vogue Cover |
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Jessie is someone I have always admired, her humour, beauty and strength so tangible in everything she appeared in. She is, of course, all those things and more. We shot this together on the coast of Norfolk, on one of those rare days where the winter sun deigned to make an appearance.
I loved the idea of a ghostly presence being with her throughout the story, a fragment of memory or a spectre of something more sinister. Thank you to Marina for her excellent haunting. |
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| T Magazine - Leslie Zhang |
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Last year I had a good run of the Sun turning up when we really needed it, and after autumnal days of full sun in October and November, we were due at least a day of rain. This shoot provided us with a years worth of rain - but that’s to be expected from shooting in Iceland in the Autumn. This is a bit of an audition to make a surrealist sci fi epic.
Lina was incredibly dogged, brave and patient in her unwavering ability to look chic and ethereal whilst be buffeted by wind and rain.
Thank you to my brilliant brave team on this one.
Styling - Raphael Hirsch
MU - Nimah Quinn Hair - Roxy Attard Set - Staci Lee |
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| | BTS: Click the videos below, to see a bit of a little window into our shooting conditions. |
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Last night, I opened a public discussion on AI, looking at its creep into the industry - and, unsurprisingly, lots of people had interesting points of view and stories to share. I’ve archived it all in my stories, but it will undoubtedly be a developing conversation.
In summation, AI seems to be prevalent and insidious in the following:
Moodboards
Storyboards / Pre Vis
Creative Decks
Client deliverables
Retouching / Background Replacement
Altering existing work for further usage
Despite the volume and content of the responses, I still feel that the people who fundamentally care about their creative industries, are those that delight in the tactile, the real, the silly. And those people will continue to treasure the mucky and flawed imprint of the human eye / hand / brain. |
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