GOODBYE CHARING X ROAD!

At Central Saint Martin's yesterday.



Picture by me

IRVING PENN IN QUOTES

Irving Penn is one of my favourite photographers of all time. Hence, you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled onto an old copy of Photography Annual (1966!) with a lengthy interview with Penn himself in a bookstore in Florence.

Here are some of the quotes from this brutally honest yet very educational interview.



About colour:

"I think that b&w pictures are intrinsically finer than colour. I think that I have never seen a really great colour photograph."

About photographing famous people:

"It's painful and very exhausting. It's a kind of surgery; you cut an incision into their lives, you move into their circumstances and then you pin them down while you penetrate even further into their personalities. It's the most painful kind of photography and after almost every sitting I wish I hadn't gotten into that kind of thing. It's a matter of controlling a person and yet wanting not to control him too much so that he can still reveal something that is true of himself."



About portraits:

"This is of course problem A in portrait photography - to get past the facade that people would like to present."

About people disliking their own pictures:

"Most of the time the ones who dislike the pictures the most confirm to me that the picture has hit home and is probably truer than I know. Nobody minds a boring picture, they mind a picture that has gotten to the soft core."



About commercial photography:

"The ideal commercial photograph is one that is highly sensual. It is however a controlled and used sensuality. (...) As a matter of fact, advertising clients of successful companies seem to value the sensual picture more than editors of magazines do, because they know that is a way to get at buying the public."

All photos by Irving Penn (1917-2009)

BACKSTAGE AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART MA SHOW 2011

Some of my favourite looks from Philipp Schueller and Bennett Loveday.





All pictures by me

CANDY CONTINUED

A few more stills I took at the filming of 'Candy'. Looking back, red certainly seems to be a recurring colour here.







All pictures by me

LACE, FRILLS AND BEADING GALORE

Couture week is coming up and I simply can't wait to shoot and see the shows. Fashion week is a dream, but couture is an even bigger dream. Here's one of the snaps I shot at the Elie Saab show back in January.

CANDY STILLS

Kinga Burza's highly-anticipated short "Candy" premiered on BBC HD last night. Here are some of the stills I took at the filming back in February. You can watch the whole film on the BBC Iplayer here.















All pictures by me

SOME THINGS I LIKED LAST WEEK

All pictures by me

AT THE MONNA LISA HOTEL, FLORENCE

Picture by me

B IS FOR BRUTALISM

I've always been a fan of tower blocks, so I was really excited when B magazine commissioned me for B FOR BRUTALISM - a feature on some of London's most famous brutalist spots. Among the buildings that made the cut were Robin Hood Gardens, Keeling House, Bevin Court, Finsbury Park Estate, Alexandra Road and of course, the now almost deserted Heygate Estate. Here are some of my favourite images from the story.

















All pictures by me
Text by Tom Finch

AT A WRITER'S STUDY

More soon.



Picture by me

TIME OF THE THIEVES

There's a little interview with me on Time of the Thieves, which has an amazing selection of interviews with up-and-coming illustrators and photographers (particularly love the picture from Tania Shcheglova). Check it out here.

B MAGAZINE SNEAK PREVIEW

Inside Bevin Court, London.



Picture by me