Simon Wright - Talks for Charity

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I’ve never made any secret of the fact that the inspiration for many of my images comes from the work of others. If I see work I like I set out to emulate it - I don’t consider it to be copying them, rather that they have inspired me. I invariably find my version turns out very different anyway.

One such photographer was Simon Wright and his work was the inspiration for my Water Dancer project.

Simon is trying to raise money for a charity that provides mental health support for frontline health worker and one avenue he is pursuing is to do Zoom photo lectures to photography clubs and donate his fee (£75) to the charity.

His work has been widely featured in the national press & I know for sure his lecture will be both enlightening and informative and I have no hesitation in recommending him to you. You can contact him directly here.

Image in the Daily Mail

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One of my high board diving images made it into the Daily Mail this week. I was obviously really pleased about that but I was even more pleased when I found out why - Sheffield Diving Club had just won a £5k prize for the work they’ve done to keep the club going through lockdown. I worked with Nikki over several months in 2019 to set up the project to capture these images & I was super impressed with her & the club she runs. If you’d like to see how I captured images like this you can watch a video here.

Well done everyone at Sheffield Diving!

Daily Mail, 26.01.21

Mail Online

Cuban Crocodile Workups

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I managed to find two more images to workup… but only just. The shooting conditions on the day were really difficult. A super bright sun and cloudless sky created big problems in holding the highlights on both the croc & the sea grasses. Plus the bottom was very muddy (it’s a swamp after all) & if the croc or I disturbed it lots of particles clouded up the water. Oh & did I mention, I was scared which never makes it easy to concentrate :-)

Anyway, here’s the two I’ve worked up…

Back to the Mangrove Swamps of Cuba

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I’m guessing that like many photographers, I’m revisiting my back catalogue during these long Covid enforced lay-offs from shooting new subjects. I usually only work up two images (at the most) from any shoot, so I still have quite a bit of choice left. I’ve just moved on to looking through the shots I took of the crocodile in the mangrove swamps of Cuba in August 2019.

As I look through the images I’m taken straight back there. It was an amazing trip because before boarding the liveaboard boat for a weeks diving in the Gardens of Queen marine sanctuary we spent three days in the Cuban capital, Havana. If you ever get the chance to go to Havana please take it up, it’s a photographers dream - there’s literally an image on every street corner.

Anyway, back to the croc… it took us two days to find a suitable subject; not too big, not too small & not too aggressive. This male was perfect and he was happy to model for me for over an hour. I was terrified, I’ll admit that. Looking at the shots I can still remember just how much I had to keep talking to myself to stay calm.

If you’d like to see a video of the shoot you can do that here - https://youtu.be/u7jhdAs56Ik

Let’s see if I can find a couple more shots to work up to make it all worthwhile… I’m hopeful :-)

Cuban Crocodile

Cuban Crocodile

The Victorian Miners

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I’ve completed the final two images in the set now… so here’s my panel of four Victorian Miners. If you’d like to see the full size images they start here.

I’m going to get back in touch with the museum as I think there’s lots more potential to explore. Fingers X’d they are up for it.

A Revisit to the Mine

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For me there have been precious few advantages to lockdown, frankly I’ve hated it. But it has given me chance to catch up with my editing & revisit some old shoots.

Back in 2017 I embarked on a project with my good buddy David Cudworth at the National Mining Museum in Wakefield. It was a project close to my heart because I spent the first 15 years of my working life in the mining industry. They trained me as an electrical engineer & then I moved into training… there’s no doubt that those early years had a massive effect on my personality moving forward. It was a difficult & challenging environment in which to practice engineering & that required a very pragmatic “can do” approach from its engineers, something I’ve never lost. I have so much to thank the industry for.

One of the shoots was in the Victorian section of the mine & tbh I’ve never really given the images I captured the love & attention they deserve. I’ve decided to work up 4 of them as a panel & here’s the first two.