People often tell me that they would like to come on one of my photoshoots to see what goes on!  The reality is probably a little different from the popular belief that glamour photographers have an easy life jaunting around the world with a bunch of pneumatic lovelies in tow , staying in fabulous locations and having a wonderful boozy time.I would be the first person to agree that ther are worse jobs, and somebody does have to shoot scantily clad models in exotic places, don’t get me wrong! My point is that with any seemingly simple photo the result hides the amount of work and effort that goes into the final image. Today with  the use of digital imagery and the possibilty of enhancing images back in the studio after the shoot, people forget that the most striking images still require someone to go out with a camera to a location with models and props and physically take a photograph, particularly when the shot demands a reality that a retouched image may not capture.

Some jobs are much more fun than others, take for example my images for low calorie butter where I had to photograph a model ineracting with the product logo, an eliptical "O" in various poses on beaches and in Pools. I had different size models of the logo made by my modelmaker before we flew off to the Caribbean, and we shipped them as cargo with us on the international flight to the busy island of Antigua. The problem was that our location was the small island of Anguilla 100 miles away and our props were too large to fit on the small aircrafts that fly in there. I sent on the client, models and makeup artist and I had to charter a plane so that I could take out the seats to accommodate the props and my assistant and I sat on the pile of 6 foot long "O"s for the flight to Anguilla!

When all had finally arrived at the location I then had to rent a tractor with a hydraulic arm to hang the prop “O” for the beach shot. The pool shot was easier as that just required an overhead view and the prop had been specifically made to carry the models weight and float I often use scale models as props in my photos, sometimes the plastic ones that have to be glued together and painted or if the image requires a special model that does not exist, I brief my modelmakers who can make me something unique, such as the model spaceship that I had made for a tyre calendar out of a car tyre which was even equipped with working LED lights. This was then taken to Portugal to be photographed on the beach at sunset with the model whose legs and shoes I spayed silver in time for us to to complete the shot at sunset and this was just one one of twelve shots featuring tyres. Jobs like this require the photographer to be more of a

mechanic and engineer but still require pre planning and experience to know what is needed and what will work thousands of miles away at a location where there may be no shops to buy anything from simple tools to spray paint! These jobs are a challenge specially when you are on location and part of the fun is the problem solving, but my favourite trips are still the ones where I travel with the minimum of "stuff"  just two models & makeup in a great location. these shoots always produce the most spontaneous results and sometimes really memorable images that could never have been planned in advance. As they say variety is the spice of life!