Who or what are your biggest influences?
I was very influenced in my early days by music generally and album cover design of the 1970s, which I thought was an exceptional period, because LP covers were a big canvas to work with. Photographically speaking, Storm Thorgerson and his graphic studio Hypgnosis have been a great influence. Movies are also a big influence. The visual impact of the small budget movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006), about a child travelling around America to be in beauty pageants, was fantastic. I also love Amélie and Peter Greenaway’s movies from The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover through to The Baby of Mâcon. I like elements of society that are slightly odd. I love Mexican wrestling for instance because it’s so bizarre. The quirky side of life is what I live for.
How much influence do you exert during a shoot?
I feel that I can bring a hell of a lot to a brief and I find people come to me for that reason. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to strongly influence the creative element of the job. It’s one of the advantages of having been around for a while.
I’ve just shot a lovely campaign for Branston pickled onions, and they wanted me specifically because they knew I could bring another element to some black & white portraits. I can pull more out of a shot and give it an edge that it wouldn’t otherwise have. I have such a good team around me that I’m free to concentrate on small detail.
Tell me about your choice of equipment for shoots.
I generally use Elinchrom lights, but I’m not really an equipment snob.
In the States Elinchrom isn’t as commonplace so we tend to use Profoto or Broncolor.
I think cameras are more important than lights. The small-format stuff I shoot digitally with the Canon, and the large-format I shoot with a Hasselblad H2 and a P45 digital back for its larger file size. The Canon was great for the Guinness job, because we couldn’t carry tons of equipment around and it also enabled me to sneak into small spaces very easily. The majority of that was shot handheld. One of the jokes was that I bought a new tripod to take with us, and hardly ever used it.
And in the studio, are you shooting tethered?
Absolutely, yes. We tend to have a dedicated operator alongside my two assistants, who will be hired in from many different places. I use The Flash Centre, which offers a good all-encompassing service. A good operator is constantly thinking ahead and making sure both the client and photographer can see what’s going on – which is a great advantage of shooting digitally.
How hands-on are you with the retouching?
I do all my own retouching as I think it’s a crucially important part of the creative process. From my point of view it’s an almost unbreakable rule, on the major jobs at least, that I do all my own retouching.
Is there an average amount of work you’ll put into one image?
There’s no average. I could spend five minutes or five weeks.
Is it easy to overdo elements, like the colours in particular?
It would be if I wasn’t so used to doing them. I’m constantly referring to the gamma settings on my computer to check that we haven’t pushed things too far. The task I have is to produce images that are rich in colour but don’t overstep the mark so that CMYK printers can’t print them.
What do your future plans hold?
I’m hoping to do more for the Guinness Book of Records because I enjoyed that shoot. I also really enjoy the work I do for PlayStation, which is a fantastic account. I did the initial campaign for a karaoke game called SingStar two years ago, which had an over-the-top feel to it, and it’s become a big selling game, particularly among the gay community. So this time around we’ve gone purposefully camp with the shots. One that I love has three firemen in a burning building with their tops off watching a smouldering TV. They are my two biggest prospects for the future.
