The Press Photographers Year 2010

My story Memories of a House is currently showing at the National Theatre (Lyttelton foyer) on the South Bank in London as part of The Press Photographers Year 2010.

"Do or do not, there is no try." - Yoda

Good advice. I watched an interesting webinar hosted byPhotoshelter the other day with photographer Tim Mantoani called Focus on Your Passion: Finding Yourself in Photography. Not all my type of imags but his words were inspiring and it was an interesting hour and a bit. He touched on a few things to think about when trying to find the right story/subject. He discussed the barriers that photographers tend to put infront of themselves - eg. 'If I only had the right camera/lens/lights/subject I could shoot this or that project'. His basic message was if you want to get out and create something, choose a subject you're passionate about and let this shine through, don't wait for it to happen. Start small and work your way up, sooner or later your opportunity will come to gain more commercial work.

His ongoing project Behind Photographs shot on a huge 20x24 Polaroid camera shows the person behind the many iconic images we all know and love.

Mary Ellen Mark

Elliott Erwitt

Glastonbury40

Went to a brilliant exhibition in Somerset last night. If you are heading that way it's well worth a look. Glastonbury40 celebrates 40 years of Glastonbury Festival by seven Somerset based photographers and is on at the Atkinson Gallery in Street just down the road from Glastonbury itself. It's an amazing retrospective with black and white images of the 70's, with beards, horses and motorbikes up to the past few years with mud fights, crowds and crazy outfits. There's also some tents and straw with screens inside showing different elements of the festival. You can sit back in a camping chair and pretend you're back there drinking cider and watching some great music. The legendary Michael and Emily Eavis were in attendance and it was a lovely Somerset night. Smile. A big congratulations to the talented Anna Barclay and Matt Cardy for putting it all together.

Some exciting news

I just found out I have won first prize in the Press Photographer's Year multimedia section with my project Memories of a House, which is extremely surprising and very exciting! You can see my entry and all the other brilliant work on the PPY website, especially the talented Oli Scarff who won first prize in the 'The Arts' section with the image below.

Sky television film a performance of Swan Lake by the English National Ballet in 3Din The Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. 9th April 2009.