F.A.Q

Please be patient as this page will be updated asap.

I get asked questions all the time, here are most of the common ones. Please do not ask questions as I don’t have enough time to answer the e-mails I get from students.

1. How did you get to where you are?

Hard work, perseverance and being outgoing and friendly. I also have a business degree which really helped with the behind the scenes part of photography.

2. How did you get into photography

I’ve never really ‘started’ I took my first picture at a family gathering when I was 5 years old on my fathers old canon eos500, after that he said I had a good eye for photos, I believed him.

Throughout childhood I used his cameras and his film and he was kind and supportive enough to get them developed. When I was sixteen I bought my own camera, a canon eos 300 and I then took photos of everything!

In 2001 I moved my life to Sheffield and continued photographing. I moved to digital and invested what I considered to be a huge amount of money in the fairly new Canon ‘D60’ and started my digital workflow. After I had met a few local bands I started shooting press shots for a band from Sheffield called ‘Bring Me The Horizon’ after signing the band continued to succeed and I shot the majority of their press shots to date. Whilst in Sheffield I was privileged to meet some awesome people and some amazing bands, sadly many of them have split but a few have gone on to have huge success and I’m lucky to count them as members of the ‘TB’ family! You Me At Six have had me shoot almost all their press shots and this part of the FAQ is currently being written whilst touring with them.

After 6 years in Sheffield, I decided to move south to just below London, I’ve been based in Guildford since. I continue to shoot music and portrait photography and have my studio based here down the road from my house.

3. How did you get your work out there.

I approached the right people when my portfolio was strong enough. I was also fortunate to be in the right place at the right time on a few things which then led to bigger things including a permanent place at a magazine.

4. What Equipment do you use?

Cameras
       3 x Canon EOS 5D mk 2
       1 x Canon EOS 7D
       1 x Canon EOS 550D
       1 x Bronica SQai Kit
       Nikon FM2 & 50mm 1.2
       20 various old film cameras.
       Hasselblad hired in for shoots that require it.

Lenses
        Canon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye
        Canon 17-40 f/4 L
        Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L
        Canon 50mm f/1.4
        Canon 85mm f/1.8
        Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L
        Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX

Lighting.
        Too much to list, all made by Profoto.

Light modifiers.
        Various boxes by Calumet & Creative Light.
        All other modifiers by Profoto.

Light stands by Matthews, clamps by Manfrotto.

Cases by Pelican, custom cases by Castle Cases.

Memory Cards & readers by Sandisk

Editing.
      Apple Aperture 3
      Adobe Lightroom 3
      Adobe Photoshop CS5

Computing.
      Apple iMac i7 27” 16GB RAM
      Apple Mac Pro Octocore w/ cinema display.
      Apple MacBook pro 17”
      Apple MacBook pro 15”

5. Will you let me assist you?

Probably not, but there is a reason. When I’m working on bigger jobs I want my team to know exactly what is going on and if something goes wrong I need to be confident that they will know exactly what to do. As my gear is high end it is undoubtedly complicated and unless someone is competent with it and knows what is going on I won’t have them on set.

6. How do you edit your shots?

I use the latest version of Photoshop to edit my images and keep my editing techniques close to my chest, the main thing to take from this is that there is actually only a small amount of editing done and the majority of the image is shot like that, I shoot for the image and not for the edit. I cannot tell you how important good lighting is.

7. Can you give me some advice?

The most commonly asked question and also the most vague. Best bit of advice I could give is advice someone gave me, “work hard, then work harder”, non-working photographers who think of it as a cool job literally have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and also how much hard work it really is. 

8. Did you study photography?

I am 100% self taught, in all my years working as a full time pro not one client has asked me what photography qualifications I have, studying photography is completely irrelevant and in my opinion you are wasting your time. If you have the passion and the drive for it you can teach yourself and develop your own style rather than what your tutor says or likes.