This was taken on an Olympus workshop called “Fashion Portraits in the Studio” and run by Rob Pugh and Gavin Hoey in February 2016. This shot was taken in the morning session and showed what may be achieved with simple lighting. This was a single flash head fired through some sackcloth that was held up by two volunteers. The model was Amber Tutton.
This is an early studio shot where I was trying to create something a little different. Neil was often unshaven and I had this idea of peering out of a jail window. I then evolved it into him trying to look out of a print mount. It was a bit of fun to do.
I used to work with Stan Samalionis and this was one of his natural poses that prompted me to ask him into the studio. He loves this shot. It was taken on medium format and printed on fibre paper in the darkroom. The hand was burnt in a little since it was closer to the light source than the face and caught the light a little more.
Actually, this is Eileen and she is from Jamaica but she went to Nigeria and bought this outfit and wanted to wear it in the studio. It may look like an outdoor shot but the background was black and I replaced it with a small slice of the left-hand side of the image and applied a generous amount of blur to it.
My wife found Jean working in a Cambridge store while looking for bathroom cabinets. Jean is quite a character and very much young at heart. She had these amazingly long nails and I really wondered how she managed to use the computer and credit card machine where she worked. I wanted a soft romantic look for Jean but had to include those hard-edged nails!
Charles Rush was an artist with a great sense of humour. He kindly modelled for me a number of years ago. This image was actually shot on 35mm film (FP4) and was one of my early successful images. Sadly, Charles is no longer with us.
This isn’t a real Vogue cover. The model was a Turkish girl called Burcu and she lacked a little confidence. I said that she looked good enough to be on a magazine cover but she didn’t believe. I created this and gave it to her – she was impressed.
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With Laëtitia, I wanted a 1920s look. She had the clothes and we found the props. A little work was needed in Photoshop to give the muted colours of a hand-tinted print.
Her real name was Dolly but Dolly didn’t seem right for somebody with a complexion like this and dressed in a sari. It somehow made me think of a cloned sheep! I renamed her ‘Ramani’ which is Indian for beautiful girl.