I am a professional photographer living and working in the South-West of England. An experienced concert photographer and wedding photographer, my style lends itself to a wide variety of themes in social and event photography.
I've recently retired from a busy day job as a senior IT Business Analyst, which has freed up time for even more photography projects.
Concerts
A photo can never truly represent the experience of a live concert, but it should be able to portray some of the emotion and atmosphere felt by those who were there.
My first experience of concert photography was in 2004 and since then I have photographed well in excess of 2000 individual concerts. Over the years a lot of my photo opportunities with bands have resulted from a reputation for quality and good relationships built with other bands. Artists do talk to each other and if you’re good enough and they like you they’ll recommend you to their colleagues and acquaintances in the music business, resulting in more opportunities. Sometimes that opens doors directly, but at worst it at least stops automatic rejections from busy promoters who don’t know you and don't have the time to research you.
I photograph concerts all over the UK, and sometimes overseas. Being based in the South West of England (Swindon) that usually entails a lot of travel to most gigs. But hey, that’s rock’n’roll, and the buzz I get at the end of the journey is worth it.
I get commissioned to photograph specific shows by various magazines, and have also worked for various review sites and venues, but most of the time I’m working directly with bands, promoters, PR organisations etc as a freelancer photographer.
I’ve worked closely with artists like Journey, Thunder, The Union, Joe Bonamassa, Jeff Scott Soto, Tyketto, FM, The Ultimate Eagles, The Australian Pink Floyd and many others, producing concert images used in programmes, posters, album and DVD covers, and magazine articles, as well as all over the internet. To date, my photos can be found on the covers of at least 50 albums by various artists.
More recently, I have been shooting a few up and coming bands for Emerging Rock Bands (ERB) Magazine. This is a UK based glossy magazine and radio station focused on new and emerging rock bands. Check them out here...https://emergingrockbands.co.uk/
Band Photoshoots and Portraits
Music artists and bands need to be very conscious of the image they portray to the world. Often the first impression of the artist that a prospective new fan gets will be from a photo seen online or on a poster, or on an album cover. For more established and familiar artists, keeping that image up to date, and taking into account personnel changes, fashion changes or theme changes for new music, is equally important. I can provide images of an artist or band, taken on location or in a studio, customized to their exact requirements.
I’ve been commissioned to carry out many formal photoshoots with bands and individual artists. The resulting images are privately made available to them for immediate or future use in a range of different media.
Weddings
I really enjoy shooting weddings. My photography is all about capturing expressions and inspirational moments in time, and weddings represent some of the best occasions for doing that. However, they are also very hard work – sometimes up to 12 hours shooting time on the day and then several days of editing afterwards. It is also quite pressurized. Under ever changing lighting – indoors, outdoors, with flash, without flash etc – it is vital to get every shot right at the first time of asking. There are no second chances, and that’s why many professional photographers will not even attempt to photograph a wedding.
For these reasons I deliberately set myself a maximum limit of about 6 weddings in any given year. Any more and it would feel to me like a production line and my enjoyment of shooting weddings would wane.
I’ve been photographing weddings for over nineteen years. In that time I believe I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. I certainly don’t have all the answers yet but I do have many very satisfied clients. Virtually all my wedding bookings come to me from word of mouth recommendations and I really appreciate that. It means that most of my promotion has already been done for me, and by somebody with personal experience of my photography. It also presents me with a challenge to at least equal and hopefully exceed everything I’ve done before. With weddings, as with every other form of photography, as soon as you rest on your laurels and treat the task as routine, that spark you are looking to capture has already gone. I don’t ever want to feel that way.
Although most weddings follow a similar pattern in terms of the main activities during the day, every wedding is unique because of the locations, the people and personalities involved, and my aim is to capture some of that uniqueness.
Landscapes
When I'm not photographing people, I like to take in all the beauty that nature has to offer. I've been fortunate to travel extensively and have seen and photographed beautiful landscapes in many parts of the world, and also at home in the UK. My landscape gallery contains a few of my favourites.
Portraits
I offer a portrait service too. This includes personal and family portraiture, commercial and event portraits - whatever your requirement is, I can provide it.
