EPUK Editorial Photographers United Kingdom and Ireland. The private mailing list and public resource for editorial photographers

Henna, by Michael J Amphlett

Lottie Davies invited me to submit something for the December 2023 EPUK Showcase, so I actually submitted two images of the same subject. She’s chosen the close-up of the original subjects’ hands, and I’m very happy with that!

As I’m sure many of you will realise, the Indian sub-continent is a boundlessly interesting place to visit, both for its people and their extraordinarily colourful lifestyle and culture. But, everything seems to step up a gear during the wedding season, with even more colour and, more audibly, lots of noise from musicians and recorded music blaring at ridiculous volume from loudspeakers at the wedding receptions!

In many parts of India, the months of November through February are considered the most auspicious period in which to marry, and there’s plenty of evidence to support that if you ever visit during these months. It was estimated that 3.2 million weddings would take place in India during the November 2021 - February 2022 period!

Be it a high value wedding of wealthy city peoples at an expensive hotel, with hundreds of guests or, a small rural wedding in a remote village, gold is heavily featured. Ladies wear their characteristic Nath (nose-pieces) through a pierced left nostril, with a golden chain connecting it to a hair band, or the left ear. Gold armbands and necklaces are also worn, all of which show marital status and wealth. However, in the Showcase image here, we see the traditional use of Mehndi - temporary decoration of the skin - more commonly known as ‘Henna’. Henna is produced from the dried and pulverised leaves of the Henna plant (Lawsonia inermis), a smallish shrubby plant which grows in Asia, and is used for decoration of the hands and feet with traditional patterns, contrasting with the colourful armbands and garments worn by the women. In Rajasthan, the grooms are often decorated with henna, and just as elaborately as the women!

At 73, and having now retired from a 27 year digital imaging career in 2020, I’m not certain how many more visits I’ll make to India, so it’s lovely to be asked to submit a picture and look back through the catalogue of images I’ve made over the years. But, as I said in my September 2019 Showcase, and will repeat here, as I believe it still rings true, regarding photographing in India - “the rewards are many and great, but I do worry that these rural lives will change, or worse, unwelcome change will be forced upon them.” Our photography documents these changes, often unwittingly, as things seem to change so quickly and dramatically these days. Maybe nostalgia and history go hand-in-hand.

The Showcase image is part of a personal portfolio. Shot on a Nikon D3S, with a Nikkor 28-105mm at 55mm, ISO 800, 1/80 sec at f8.

 

Artists of Scotland, by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

“Yes, we can be photographed, but to let you know there’ll be two of us and we’ll most probably be wearing boxes on our heads.”

"Eh, ok”, I thought, smiling, as I read the email from two Glasgow-based artists I’d written to.

For the last year I've criss-crossed Scotland photographing portraits of prominent artists in their studios, a self-initiated project to follow more my interest in art, and to also learn more about the contemporary art scene here. In my career I’ve photographed so many people, politicians, authors, sports people, but I came to realise in late 2022 that I’d never really photographed many artists in Scotland, only a few. Considering we have the internationally renowned Glasgow School of Art, and multiple Turner Prize winners and nominees, it seemed a glaring omission in my documentation of Scotland.

Since my career’s work was acquired by the University of St Andrews for their photography collection in 2021, and they obtained all I’ve shot in the last 33-years of freelance life, I’ve become ever more attuned to the idea of what I need to do in what I now think of as Part Two of my career - and that is to really concentrate on photographing and documenting Scotland. And hence to the artists, and photographing two perfectly sane, articulate, educated grown men in a small studio wearing cardboard boxes on their heads, the duo of internationally respected artists known as Beagles & Ramsay.

I contacted a few household name artists here in Scotland, telling them who I was, what I wanted to do - to photograph 100 artists of Scotland, and from there the project began. As I photographed each artist I’d ask them, “who do you think I should photograph?”, and the list grew organically. I’ve since photographed over 115, from household name artists such as Alison Watt, Ken Currie, Peter Howson, and many Turner Prize-winners and nominees; Christine Borland, Nathan Coley, Martin Boyce, and then also long-established artists and those just starting out on their journey but already being noticed. I thought 100 might be enough, but having gone over that number I realise there are still many artists I should photograph, so for a while longer I may continue the project.

It’s been an inspiring journey, not only do I have 100 great portraits of those who contribute to the cultural fabric of our nation, but I’ve also had 100 great conversations, seen great art, learned and made new friends. With my Canon 5Ds as a passport, I’ve been privileged to enter studios I never thought I’d get the chance to visit. I’ve seen some great places, some small, some in back bedroom and garages, all with unique personalities.

A selection of the portraits, about 40-45 of them, will be exhibited at a small gallery here in Glasgow at Stallan Brand Architecture + Design, in November and December this year, opening next Monday, 6th November.  There are talks underway with a few other parties which may lead to further exciting news for the project and the portfolio, and in the coming weeks I’ll keep pursuing a few more artists I’d like to photograph, either with cardboard boxes on their heads, or without.

Artists of Scotland, by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert is on show from 6th November - 21st December (except 8th Dec), Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm. Weekends by appointment. Stallan Brand Architecture + Design, 80 Nicholson Street, Glasgow, G5 9ER. Exhibition supported by Street Level Photoworks, Scottish Contemporary Art Network and Greyfriars Art Store.

'Don't Tell Me How To Run My Art School' - Guildford School of Art Sit-In, 1968, by John Walmsley

At the time, this student protest was the longest ever sit-in at an educational institution in the UK, and it led directly to students and staff being invited onto the Advisory Boards at schools, colleges and universities across the country.

'Don't Tell Me How to Run My Art School', a new publication by John Walmsley and Claire Grey, tells the inside story.

On 5th June 1968, Guildford School of Art experienced an unprecedented student revolution; the start of a sit-in about their narrow education and their desire to change it, that lasted for eight weeks. This event marked several firsts in the UK’s education system, including the involvement of parents in higher education, a local authority taking its own students to the High Court, over forty teachers being suspended at once, and the ATTI lecturers’ union blacklisting a school. Though not the only student occupation that year, the firing of seven full-time tutors sparked a three-year campaign for their reinstatement that reverberated throughout the country’s educational institutions. For those who were present, the experience was both creative and frightening, and those involved have never forgotten. The foresight and dedication of Claire Grey in keeping a detailed diary, as well as collecting a vast array of typewritten notes, posters and press clippings, has resulted in the true inside story of the sit-in being told. She has captured not only the order in which events took place, but also the feelings and reasons that influenced the protest. Her diary entries transport us back to those times, making Claire the custodian of an invaluable historical record. John’s photographs from the time are remarkable, especially considering he was still a student. His early work is a unique and insightful look into protest from an insider’s perspective.

As John recalls; "Three weeks into the occupation of the art school building, Surrey County Council cut off the electricity to try to get the students to give up. We, of course, just carried on, using tilly lamps and candles so we could still type up our reports and documents to send to the press and to use in our meetings. Shooting in such low light and with film was difficult. I had to rest my elbows on anything solid nearby, use slow shutter speeds (think, 1/15 of a second), and hold my breath. The film was pushed (developed for longer) so I ended up with ‘golf ball’ grain. Even with all this care, I still needed a big dollop of luck and, looking back, some have worked very well. Film was expensive so we bought it in 200 feet rolls and loaded it into empty, used cassettes, measuring it in arm widths. One and a bit full stretch arm widths was about right. Doing it this way did save a few pounds but also introduced light leaks, scratches and fingerprints so was not ideal. I do remember washing the processed films for the complete recommended time, no short cuts, to remove as much chemical as possible. It seems to have rewarded me because the vast majority of negs are usable some 55 years later."

The book, already in the National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, is available to buy from John's website at £25 HERE

Potato in Motion by David White

I created this image as an entry into the 2021 Potato Photographer of the Year competition (RIP).

In case this esteemed competition passed you by, it was the child of Benedict Brain’s brain, and was first launched in 2020, inspired by photographer Kevin Abosch’s image of a potato which sold for $1million in 2016.

I was attracted to the competition for a few reasons: all proceeds from the comp’s £5 entry fee went to The Trussell Trust, to help provide food for those in poverty, there was no rights grab, and it seemed to be a light hearted rebuke to all the money grabbing, rights grabbing photography competitions which proliferate now. Plus, I was bored, and it seemed fun. Then I got carried away.

This is a series of images of a potato in motion, the motion only evident when you image a spud at 120,000 frames a second. It even leaves the ground at one point. This is a scientific revelation, but it is apparently of no use to the scientific community. Bastards. I have had some interest from Heston Blumenthal however.

I had entered the comp the previous year, managing a solid 2nd place, and was determined to better that. Unfortunately the esteemed judges did not appreciate the revelatory nature of the content (I blame Martin Parr, he clearly knows nothing about potatoes) and I came 6th. I therefore cannot claim to be the greatest potato photographer in the world.

Trafalgar Square in the heatwave of '76 by Brian Harris

The summer of 1976… I remember it oh so well…it was hot with a capital ‘H’….

I was just starting to crack the London national press freelance market getting regular ‘shifts’ (at about £15 a day) from The Sun, BBC News, The Times and UPI (United Press International)…it was a busy time often working two shifts a day starting at 8am and going past midnight at The Sun….great times to be a stringer!

In the middle of the summer the country experienced a major heat wave with stand pipes in the streets supplying water and dozens of fires on the heathlands of Surrey and Sussex. I was based in Islington and so I got the London ‘Hot Weather’ gigs for all my clients…not too difficult as London was melting.

This picture was shot in Trafalgar Square whilst walking around town hunting for a picture…it was never published as it was almost impossible to print with extreme shadows and highlights. I found the neg a couple of years back and made a nice scan playing with the details in Photoshop until producing this image…a memory of nearly 50 years back!

Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight by Patrick Eden

I have lived on the Isle of Wight most of my life. This is the view from the Military Road down into Freshwater Bay and along the cliffs to Tennyson Down. The road runs along the dramatic south west coast. It was part of the coastal defence network and was upgraded during the 1930s as a link between forts and barracks, protecting the Island from invasion. Hitler considered occupying the Island as part of his invasion plan for Britain, “Unternehmen Seelowe” (Operation Sealion). This area is also part of the Jurassic Coast known for its geology and the proliferation of fossils, most notably the Iguanodon, a large herbivorous dinosaur.

The north coast fronts onto the Solent, celebrated for sailing events and maritime history. The main event is Cowes Week, it is the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world, with up to 8,000 competitors crewing about 1000 boats. It has been running since 1862.

This project has been going on since I started photography back in the late 70s. I am considering a small book and exhibition sometime soon.

Robert Plant at Jazz à Vienne 2014, by Tim Motion

Vienne is on the site of an old Roman town situated on the Rhône River thirty kilometres south of Lyon. Being an avid jazz enthusiast and photographer, I had discovered the festival in Nice on the Cote d’Azur in 1982 after five years shooting music in dark clubs and old friend Ronnie Scott’s in Frith Street London, although my first jazz photographs were taken at the Lisbon Jazz Festival in 1971. When passing through Vienne on the A7 autoroute a friend told me about the festival which had started in 1984. I attended in 1988 and have been going ever since on the way south. Occasionally I flew back to the UK for an important commission, although one year I covered five festivals including San Sebastian. There were often commissions for editorial photography and descriptive text, and meanwhile I was building my Jazz & Blues Archive – An Eye for the Sound.

For Jazz à Vienne the main events take place in the Theatre Antique, a Roman amphitheatre seating eight thousand people. Access to the press photographers’ pit in front of the stage requires clambering over a very uneven and well-worn Roman wall in near darkness. Then begins the contest for the best position between twenty-five very competitive photographers. However, on this first night of the festival featuring Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin in a solo appearance, no one was allowed in the pit. This is becoming more frequent at festivals for photographers, who are often stationed a very long way back behind the mixing desk, from where a 500mm lens is not enough! I had to find a ‘view’ from the audience which was packed to the front of the stage on the wide flat area below the steep stone terraces of the amphitheatre. Who sat there 2000 years ago?! Now the only option is a crowded passageway behind this, about 50 metres from the stage with the seating already raised. Fortunately, being tall at 6’2”, I managed to find a narrow sightline between two peoples’ heads, glad that I had my monopod and prayed that they wouldn’t put their heads together.

Here is the full frame I was able to achieve at 200mm. Camera: Nikon 800E, Nikon VR 70-200mm f2.8. Exposure: 1/500th f4. ISO 800, not much light and not always on the performer! This was literally my last shot out of about fifty, before we were moved away, being over the proscribed time limit. I feel that it is a poignant image of a great old rocker from one of the greatest rock bands, expressing emotion, passion and dedication to the music.

A print from the cropped image of Robert Plant measures 1,20m x 0,85m, and has been exhibited at the AdLib Gallery in Fulham and the JM Gallery in Portobello Road. I feel that it is a poignant image of a great old rocker from one of the greatest rock bands, expressing emotion, passion, and dedication to his music. Considering the shoot conditions and enlargement the details are very well maintained. I have another project in the pipeline for an exhibition in the City later in the year with some of my personal favourites, perhaps comprising a separate showing of my desert and aerial work.

Here are some images from Vienne. All photographs ©Tim Motion/Jazz&Blues Archive

Cecile SAVANT

Tom JONES

 

SEAL

Miles DAVIS

 

England and Wales from the air, by Jonathan Webb

Aerial photography with drones is now omnipresent in the media, so many people will be surprised that I still take aerial photographs from aeroplanes. Why bounce around in an aeroplane when you could stay on the ground? you might say. And the answer is that actually being up there with the camera gives a great deal more freedom. We live in such a wonderful country, full of stunning landscapes and fascinating historic buildings, and there is no better way of viewing them than to go flying.

I have always been fascinated by historic buildings. It doesn’t matter what age they are whether they are a medieval church, Roman remains or an 18th century stately home, it's always fascinating to see how our ancestors lived and went about their daily lives.

While my photoshoots are usually meticulously planned, there is always happenstance – the unplanned luck of the day that something unexpected will show. There is always a great deal of luck involved with weather and lighting but sometimes things come together so a location perfectly catches the sun at the right angle with no clouds covering anything.

Shooting from an aeroplane travelling at 100 mph has its own challenges, which makes the experience quite different from any other form of photography. To shoot a building exactly square on you have less than a single second to get the image exactly right. If you miss it then you have to go round and shoot it again. The difficulty is compounded in that with many aircraft, such as the Cessna 172 which I have used so often, the wing strut is in front of the window partially blocking the view and in the way of the photograph. If you're not careful it's easy to end up with bits of aeroplane in the photo. This means that the pilot must add a little bit of rudder at exactly the right moment to slew the plane round and take the strut out of the photo. Adding a bit of rudder is like putting the hand brake on in a car on a bend although usually it needs only to be applied subtly as we can’t fly completely sideways. Incidentally slewing the aircraft round was how the Red Baron used to shoot down his opponents. He would fly nearly alongside and the hit the rudder followed by the guns. We do the same to shoot photographs.

While it takes some practice to master the technical challenges of shooting from an aircraft, it does have many advantages. We can fly almost anywhere and shoot almost anything from above, whereas if I were to shoot with a drone, I would be limited to just 400 ft up, ie the height of a tall building. For photographs like those in the showcase you need to be much higher; I typically work between 1000 and 2000ft in the air although occasionally I can be much higher. In some places, especially near major airports, we need permission to enter controlled airspace however that's usually just a matter of a radio call to ATC. If I wanted to shoot the same location with a drone it would usually involve filling in forms and waiting for weeks and then having to shoot on a day when the weather is not very good. Frequently in the plane, if the weather is unusually good we will just pop over to a location on the spur of the moment to catch it in the sunshine.

For this Showcase I have chosen six wonderful places which are all open to the public. They are:

Ashdown House and Park (above) an unusual 17th century Dutch style house in Oxfordshire. The Grade I listed building is owned by the National Trust who organise guided tours.

Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, a Cistercian monastery was founded in 1132 and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539. The remains have been made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the grounds of being "a masterpiece of human creative genius".

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, an Elizabethan "prodigy house" which took seven years to build from 1590 to 1597. The architect was Robert Smythson who was working for Elizabeth Talbot, the Countess of Shrewsbury who was more usually known as Bess of Hardwick who was the wealthiest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I.

Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk. Constructed in 1482 Oxburgh Hall is a moated manor house rather than a military structure and although it was restored in the 19th century , still retains many original features including the magnificent 15th century brick gatehouse.

Powis Castle (Castell Powys) near Welshpool, Powys, is a proper Welsh Castle and was built by Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn around 1283. During the English Civil War the Castle was garrisoned by Royalists but taken by Parliamentarian forces in 1644.

Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire, built in 1693 with various alterations and additions through the centuries.

Barbecue Picanha by Charlotte Tolhurst

I was commissioned by Olive magazine for a day’s shoot in which I photographed nine recipe images. On a day such as this it was important to pace the day so that we didn’t go over the studio hire hours, whilst not rushing the shoot and making sure each image was worthy of publication in a national magazine. For this particular set of images (there were three in this set) the art director asked for a sunny day and dappled light effect.

Each image required firstly that the props were in the right place to allow for copy over the image. I emailed a low res to the art director so she could load it straight into her page layout and check it was all working nicely. Next I added the lighting and made sure we were all happy with the shadows and highlight areas. We then signalled to the food stylist we were ready for the food.

We added the sauce to the bowl in the image, then placed the hero, the meat, in shot. It was then a matter of shooting quickly before the food lost its gloss and freshness and the meat started to ooze blood. Once the meat was in the right place we added the sauce over the meat and I took several frames varying the dappled light so we could choose where it hit the food in the most flattering or eye catching way. Once we were happy the food was covered, we filled up the glasses with beer and again snapped several frames to get the right froth and bubbles. The beer frames are then comped into the best food image in post production.

Food photography is a process of building up an image so that things can always be added or taken away if they don’t work or spoil. I hugely enjoy working with a team such as this - food stylist, prop stylist and art director. Images created through collaboration are often stronger than working on one's own.

To see the image in the final article (and get the recipe!) - see Olive Magazine- BBQ Picanha

United in Grief, Remembering Chris Kaba by Elainea Emmott

On a Saturday in October 2022 I happened upon a protest at New Scotland Yard, Westminster, which I had been unable to attend the week before. The family of the murdered young black man, Chris Kaba, whom the police had chased and killed were awaiting the final stages of justice. These protests are very raw to me - grief was evident in the many who showed up for him and his family.

I am a self-taught photographer, and I learned by teaching myself to use an analogue camera after a motorbike accident. I progressed to digital but treat my images with the same care, framing and questioning as I take a few considered frames. This was the case on this day, as I stood at the back of the podium listening to the speeches and heckles from the crowd. As I was watching I noticed a relative come off stage. His friends were rushing to the back of the stage and he suddenly saw them and their arms opened as he stumbled into them with such emotion. I always signal that I am going to take a photograph, with an arm gesture or words - I touched his hand, he opened his eyes, looked at me and then I took the picture, framed as you can see now. I often get very close at first, with permissions and this was no exception.

Having been doing this since 2015 I had begun to feel very jaded and poor doing so. As a rarity – a woman - and even rarer a black woman aged 54, it has never been easy to get booked for corporate jobs or magazine/newspaper jobs - rather the opposite - I couldn’t hire studios, or get anywhere, so I felt I had to give up on that dream, head back to corporate offices and support my son as divorced single mum of a wonderful man with autism. A fellow photographer suggested I enter the Portrait of Britain competition last year, but I declined as I needed the money to put food on the table rather than waste it with competitions. But on the very last day with one hour remaining, I decided to enter, despite the £40 entry fee. This image was picked as a winning finalist by BJP, published by Hoxton Mini Press and displayed on billboards around the UK.

The award has given me confidence. I have always been creative in whatever I do, but it never seems to pay - now I feel a renewed vigour in learning again and creating better work weekly. Whilst I still work full time in a stressful demanding job in the city, I would like very much to work collaboratively devoting more time to my art. I am particularly interested in women and people that look like me, who are different - I feel that this is my place, producing work of humanity which makes people feel something. I will do this work for life, perfecting my art well into my 90’s God Willing – my fire is stronger now than it has ever been and I intend to quietly produce pictures until the end of my days.

HEMS 'Shout' by John Callan

I was working with the HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) that operates out of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel when we received a call to attend a child with a serious head injury. Upon arrival the police and ambulance service were in attendance but handed over to the HEMS doctor due to the seriousness of the casualty, who was a five year old boy.

He had fallen at least three storeys onto a concrete patio and had started fitting when we arrived. After a very intensive period of work the doctor assessed that the child was stable enough to be stretchered to the helicopter and flown to the London Hospital. I have no idea if he survived; I just hope to God he did.

I have been a photographer working alongside the emergency services for 45 years - I started working with the London Fire Brigade when I was 12, going to Paddington Fire Station at the weekends, and I remember attending my first fatal fire in Grenfell Tower soon afterwards. I started working with London Ambulance and the Met when I was about 17. I did photograph other subjects for a while, especially live rock music, but I decided to spend my life within the secretive world of the emergency services.

Lynn's Object (Brass) from 'The Lie of the Land' by Joanne Coates

This object was chosen by Lynn, a woman that came forward to be part of the project.  It is her instrument and part of her identity. The importance of brass bands in the North East and in rural areas affects the history of the area. It is also Lynn's hobby and something that helped her to be herself. All the women that came forward self-identified as working class. Each woman I worked with chose an object to be photographed that represented them in some way.

The Lie of the Land unravels the social histories of the countryside in the Yorkshire Dales and the northeast of England. The stories of women and class in this area has been long forgotten or never told. The series depicts twelve women who identify as working-class – self-defined as managers, matriarchs, multitaskers, miner’s daughters, milkers, and mams – all living and working in rural environments. The work looks at the lasting effect of the systemic damage to working-class communities throughout history, considering the sense of place, power structures, identity and community. The Lie of the Land was originally commissioned through the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards, and more about the project can be seen and read in this feature in VICE. 

The Lie of the Land is currently on show as a commissioned collage at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, with thanks to the Fitzhugh Archive in Teesdale who helped sourcing archival maps of villages from the 1800s to the present.

Igloo at Dusk, by Bryan Alexander

I took this photograph of Tatigat, an Inuit elder, kneeling at the entrance to an Igloo at dusk in Nunavut, Canada in 1993.

The Igloo is one of the most iconic symbols of the Arctic and Inuit culture. Along with kayak & anorak, it is one of the few Inuit words to have been incorporated into the English language. In English the word “Igloo” is something of a misnomer because in the Inuit language it simply means a “building,” In fact any building, so from an Inuit perspective Buckingham Palace is an Igloo. These small domed-shaped shelters made from blocks of compacted snow that we call an Igloo; the Inuit have a completely different word for. They call them “Igluvijaq.”

When I began photographing Inuit life in the Eastern Canadian Arctic, back in the 1970s, Igloos were still being used by some Inuit as overnight shelters on winter hunting trips. These journeys could last anything from one or two days to several weeks, depending on where the hunters were travelling to, and the prey they were after. On the trips that I joined them on, we would hunt, and sometimes fish, all day, and then before dusk try and find a place with suitable hard packed snow to build an Igloo and spend the night. The following morning, providing the weather was good enough; we would pack up and move on.

Building an igloo was quite a laborious process. It involved cutting snow blocks, usually with a panel saw, then trimming the blocks with a large snow knife and placing them in a spiral, gradually building up the wall area until it was high enough. The final touches involved trimming a snow block for the door at the base of the igloo, and making a very small ventilation chimney called the “Qingaq” (nose) in the roof.

Most of the hunters that I travelled with, particularly the older ones were skilful and could build a small Igloo, large enough for two or three people, in about an hour or so. They would then take inside some caribou skins to sit and sleep on, a small Coleman stove to cook with, a kerosene lamp, and some food.

With a warm sleeping bag, I usually managed to get a reasonably good night’s sleep in an Igloo. The snow bricks provide insulation against the cold. Even when the temperature dipped down below minus 40̊ Celsius at night, it still kept relatively warm inside, just from our body heat and a kerosene lamp. Anyone who has spent a stormy night in a tent knows just how noisy it can get with the wind flapping the tent fabric to and fro. By contrast, inside an Igloo you don’t hear the wind so much. This is partly because the snow bricks insulate you from the sound, but also, the shape of an Igloo allows the wind to pass around it rather than buffeting it. The only comments about noise inside an Igloo that I ever heard, were the remarks of my fellow travellers about how loud my snoring was.

Although the use of Igloos has gradually declined over the years, they remain culturally important to the Inuit. Some communities in the Eastern Canadian Arctic still hold an annual Igloo building competition to help preserve the knowledge and skills involved in their construction. After finishing, each contestant has to stand on the top of their Igloo to demonstrate that it is strong enough and well built.

Kinnock takes a dive into the sea, 1983 by Brian Harris

The dream ticket of the election by the Labour Party National Executive Committee of left-leaning Welsh firebrand Neil Kinnock as Labour Party leader and right of centre professional Yorkshireman Roy Hattersley as his deputy at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton 1983 was supposed to herald a new dawn for the party after the terrible mauling (the worst election result for Labour since 1918) under the previous leader Michael Foot by Margaret Thatcher of the Conservative Party.

As is tradition at all party conferences by the sea-side, the leader and his wife always have an ‘impromptu’ heavily stage-managed walk along the promenade preceded by photographers and television crews, all very contrived and set up. The situation nearly always results in a set of dull predictable images. This bright October Sunday morning was, on the face of it, no different. The press, the politician, his wife Glenys and Labour Party minders assembled on the seawall looking out to the cold grey English Channel slapping onto the beach below. The Kinnocks were making small talk with a couple of local lads fishing. This was just so dull and uninteresting that the pictures had no chance of making the next morning’s papers.

I was nominated by the other photographers, as ‘the man from The Times’, to ask Neil and Glenys if they would like to go for a walk on the beach. Neil looked hesitant and his press office minder, the moustachioed Peter Mandelson, wasn’t sure either. I mentioned a beautiful photograph taken of the young Bobby Kennedy running along a beach in Oregon with his dog shot for Life magazine by Bill Eppridge, and how he, Neil, being the new young leader of the labour party could perhaps reprise the picture. I used the button words ’young and leader’, he was hooked, ‘Oh yes boyo, I remember that picture’ he enthused in his wonderful welsh lilt, although I’m not sure he did, but he wasn’t going to admit that to me. I turned to all the other photographers and TV crews and told them that Neil and Glenys would go for a walk on the beach as long as we all stayed here high up on the seawall and out of their way. Perfect, a great vantage point.

Neil and Glenys, hand in hand, merrily skipped down onto the beach like a couple of teenagers in love. The shingle beach at Brighton slopes and falls quite sharply and keeping a foothold, even for the young at heart, can be difficult. The photographers and TV crews zoomed in on the couple skipping merrily along using telephoto lenses when all of a sudden Neil and his wife went over the final shingle edge at breakneck speed. There was never any chance of Neil saving himself. He went in. Neil Kinnock, newly elected leader of the Labour Party, had fallen into the sea.

Splash, bang, wallop. It all happened in a matter of seconds. Glenys tried frantically to pull him upright out of the crashing surf but his footing and dignity were well and truly done for.

Of course this was duly recorded by one and all, except for the photographer from the Press Association. The PA were on an economy drive that week and the photographers were all issued with 20 exposure cassettes of film. He was on frame 18 as Kinnock started his run down the beach…..all I could hear as he ran out of film after two frames was. ‘f**k, f**k, f**k’. Another photographer was using a new telephoto lens for the first time and although he could see what was happening with his open eye he couldn’t find the subject through the viewfinder. The Daily Mail snapper had his camera on ‘auto exposure’ and as a consequence had a beautiful set of silhouettes as the white surf completely blew out his auto exposure settings. Another photographer who shall remain nameless to save his shame never even made the ‘photo-call’. As we all left the beach he was walking towards us completely oblivious to what had happened a few minutes earlier. He asked where we were going and what we were doing, we were all a little smug. When told that he had missed Kinnock running down the beach and falling into the sea he responded by saying, ’…but no one told me he was gonna do that this morning…’, no, I’m sure you weren’t told, you just have to get up a little earlier in the morning and be prepared for the unexpected!

I and a couple of the other photographers had the complete set, the run in, the fall and the pulling out. Moustachioed Pete was not amused, nor was a young Charles Clarke, Peter's boss and neither was Dave Hill the Labour Party chief press officer and boss to both Pete and Charles. A somewhat damp and bedraggled Neil and his very dry wife walked towards us as they came off the beach and asked ’I trust you boys that none of those pictures will get published’. Yeah, right oh, boyo ! The following morning my paper, The Times, ran the 4 pictures across the entire 8 columns of the front page. There were cartoons alluding to Kinnock walking on water and the popular satirical TV show ‘Have I got News for You’ ran the TV footage every week…..for about 20 years!

It has been argued that Kinnock never became Prime Minister because of that one little trip. I’m sure the fall didn’t help his credibility at home but both he and his wife seem to have done very well in the European political scene ever since. Maybe he was making an early pre-emptive dash for Europe, just over the water, when he ran down that Brighton beach all those years ago?

New Dawn for Europe by Paul Raftery

This image was shot at dawn at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, birthplace of the Solidarity movement. It is the opening image my new exhibition “New Dawn for Europe” at Anise Gallery, London from 7th to 22nd October.

All the photographs in the exhibition were shot at dawn in the nine former “Iron Curtain” countries of Eastern Europe: Poland, East Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, where demonstrations took place between 1987-1990 to demand political change and an end to communism and Soviet oppression. The demonstrations took many forms and were received in differing ways. In the Opera Square in Timisoara, Romania, many protesters where shot, whilst at the Song Festival Grounds in Estonia, the authorities watched on as many thousands of Estonians sang their folk songs and waved the national flags (both activities were banned.)

The images show the Lenin Shipyard, Gdansk, Poland; Saint Nicholas Church, Leipzig, East Germany; Freedom Monument, Riga, Latvia; Vingis Park Song Ground, Vilnius, Lithuania; Song Festival Grounds, Tallinn, Estonia; Alexander Nevsky Square, Sofia, Bulgaria; Opera Square, Timisoara, Romania; Freedom Square, Budapest, Hungary; and Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czechoslovakia. Whilst the events differed at every site, the one thread that combines them is the desire for democracy. 

Each country subsequently became a member of the EU, and each location in each country has its own history and its own cultural and political references. Over the last three years (with Covid sandwiched between), since the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, I visited these sites, shooting them all at dawn – the beginning of a new day and the beginning of a political era. The work is a meditation on the use of public spaces and an investigation of memory, democracy and place. These sites have even more relevance now in 2022 when many of these countries live in fear of a return to autocracy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The strong personal impetus to begin this project came after the UK’s Brexit vote, and my reflections on the contrasting emotions that inspired the 1987-89 demonstrators to seek a better future that would ultimately be within the EU. It is also a reflection on how the desire for democracy and democratic values manifests itself powerfully in public spaces. The full series can be seen here. 

Anise Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with a strong focus towards the architectural aesthetic, presenting an exciting programme of exhibitions, events and talks that relate to architecture, technology and the built environment.  All EPUK members are of course welcome to the opening on the 6th October 6 - 9pm 

'New Dawn for Europe' runs from 7 - 22 October 2022 12 - 5pm Friday - Sunday and by appointment Anise Gallery at The Old Chapel 27-33 Malham Road London SE23 1AH 0208 858 3226

Brockie the Dog with Stick, from the series 'What Happened Here' by Tim Gander

What Happened Here came about almost by accident.

Personal projects have become increasingly important to my professional photographic practice as they allow me to exercise my creative skills outside of the constraints of a client brief.

For several years I’d shot personal work using the same digital cameras I used for client work, and couldn’t understand why they weren’t giving me the fulfilment I was seeking until I realised that the workflow was too similar to my paid work.  And so in 2017, with no particular project in mind, I decided that my next project should be shot on film.

Not having much budget at the time, I asked around my contacts to see if anyone had any old film languishing in a freezer drawer they might be willing to sell me. Helen Stone, Andrew Spiers and David Hoffman all stepped forward with offers, and I ended up with a huge mixed bag of film types, from black and white to colour transparency in 35mm and 120 formats. With some of the stock having expired in the late 1990s (some having been manufactured in the former East Germany) I decided to try a few rolls out at a derelict industrial site in my home town of Frome, Somerset, known locally as Saxonvale. I figured that if the film was no good, at least I hadn’t committed a lot of time to a lost cause.

However, within a few initial visits I was seeing something interesting emerge, and what started as a bit of fun turned into a two-year project with a darker narrative than I had anticipated.

The photo of Brockie the dog was taken one morning when I made a visit to discover that the travellers and homeless people who had been living on one section of the site had been evicted. Rather than poking my lens into their distress, I looked for a picture I could make which while not necessarily telling the story in itself, would allow me to illustrate the situation in a more oblique way. Brockie was one of two dogs belonging to a pair of travellers, and oblivious to the drama which had unfolded, he did what dogs do and played with the biggest stick he could find while his owners considered their next move.

If I remember correctly, this was the same morning I helped one of the evictees shift their caravan to another part of the site. That evening I was shooting a fundraiser for a client and found myself in a roomful of multi-millionaires. It was a surreal contrast.

This shot was taken on expired Kodak Portra using a Canon EOS 1N and 40mm lens, a combination I used for many of the 35mm images in the project, while for the medium format film I used a Bronica SQ-A.

'ROAD' by Nigel Dickinson

Tania and Clive blow a triumphant lament over the cutting, during a mass trespass Road Protest action at Twyford Down, outside Winchester, against the M3 road extension, Summer 1993. This photograph became the key image of a self-originated, longterm documentary project, shot in colour transparency film, in the early nineties. I was living on and off with Road Protesters, starting with Twyford Down, covering the Dongas daily lives of resistance, protest and actions on the Cutting, and the later siege’s along London’s MII route. I remember walking with Tania and Clive, when they decided to stop on the edge of the Cutting. I shot several frames and was able to nicely frame them and the police standing below. I was also aware of a plane flying into the middle of the sky. It was shot on my first Canon EOS1 with a 20-35mm lens, which I’d won in a competition, the year before.

The British Road Protesters movement began in the early 1990s when the Donga tribe squatted Twyford Down to save a site of scientific interest, an ‘SSI’, from the Ministry of Transport's road building programme. The Dongas was the name ascribed to the ancient walkways, the paths trodden in the middle ages by people walking down to Winchester. A small tribe of protesters were joined by people of all walks of life who came to Twyford Down to defend it. A long hard battle over a few years ended in the ‘cutting', a new motorway built through this ancient monument and destroying it.

The Road Protest movement in Britain continued for many years and more battles were fought in London against the MII both at Wanstead then in Leytonstone, and subsequently at Newbury, and elsewhere. The protesters were very inventive in their use of non violent peaceful direct action. They barricaded themselves into squats, made tree houses, tunnels and had huge demonstrations against bailiffs, police and private security, who tried to force their way through the physical defences of this alternative popular environmental movement. Many of the roads were built eventually and many sites of great beauty lost, but the government had to stand down from its road building policy and eventually the programme was halted. The protests cost the government billions. Out of that movement grew many environmental NGOs who have to this day kept fighting for ecological and sustainable environmental solutions rather than following the cult of the car, petrol and roadbuilding.

The final work ‘ROAD’ has been exhibited and published widely, across the UK National Press, French Liberation and GEO magazines, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Krakow Photo Month and foreign exhibitions about 1990’s British photography. The image of Tania and Clive blowing their horns, was made into postcards, which at a certain point in time, seemed to be found adorning mantlepieces and toilet walls up and down the country.

Forthcoming exhibitions:

• This and half a dozen other images from the 1990's Road Protest and 2020's HS2 Resistance feature in TATE Liverpool’s 2022 Art exhibition ‘Radical Landscapes’, exploring alternative uses and representation of the British landscape in modern and contemporary art, currently in Liverpool, moving later this year to The Mead Gallery at Warwick University.

• A wider selection of Road Protest and HS2 Resistance photographs will also be presented at this year’s Visa Pour l’Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France, and are part of the traveling 'Resistance Exhibition' shown at Glastonbury 2022 and other festivals across the UK.

The FA Cup Run, by Duncan Elliott

Duncan Elliott is an award winning commercial and editorial photographer specialising in environmental portraiture with a love for photographing stories of people and subcultures. His clients include many international newspapers, magazines and advertising agencies.

Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee. Stepney, East London 1977 by David Hoffman

I’d only started working full time as a photographer the previous summer. I was getting a little work from the local paper and occasional magazine commissions but mostly I was following my own ideas.

I was living in a fairly derelict squat in Whitechapel, an area of slum housing and street homelessness. The City was demolishing its way eastwards, closing the small shops that had served the area for so long, forcing out the cabinet makers, leather workers, chicken slaughterers, kosher cafés and a host of other now-forgotten trades. I’d been moved on by the bulldozers a few times, the last being from the 17th century Black Lion Yard, once the site of Jonathan Muff’s notorious Molly-house. By the time it was levelled by an uncaring council it had become home to more than a dozen jeweller’s shops, and was renowned as the Hatton Garden of the East End.

I had mixed feelings about covering the Jubilee celebrations. I was fascinated by the traditions and rituals of British life but angered by the money being thrown at lavish state banquets and high-profile celebrations set against the very visible growing poverty and disregard of the vulnerable.

The sudden peppering of the generally tatty East End with a mixture of Union flags, balloons and posters of royalty alternating with ‘Stuff the Stupid Queen’ graffiti was just the kind of contradiction that attracted me.

I had just one camera, a Nikon FTn. I’d scraped together just enough money to get a worn out second-hand 28mm f2 – the worst lens I’ve owned since my 9th birthday present of a 1955 Kodak Duaflex 2. The only thing in its favour was that the vignetting and the flare helped hide how unsharp the corners were. 35mm colour transparency film was pretty rough and, with a useable dynamic range of maybe 6 stops on a good day, exposure was critical. I shot this picture on Ektachrome-X, 64 ASA, an E3 process film which was a bit cheaper than the rather better Kodachrome.

Jack in the Green, by Chris Parker

The Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green Festival is an annual folklore celebration that takes place in the historic seaside town, and the May Bank holiday is probably the busiest weekend in the local calendar. The festival is a four-day event that attracts thousands of people to witness the ritual slaying of winter and the welcome release of summer into the world, a tradition which started in the 17th century, from an earlier custom that involved decorating milkmaids with flowers. The earliest reference to a Jack in the Green is from a 1770 account of a London May Day procession, and the tradition became associated with Chimney Sweeps in the 19th century, before dwindling in importance in the early 20th century. Revived in 1983 and getting bigger every year, it has been variously described as “folksy”, “neo-pagan” and “slightly goth”. It offers music, Morris dancers, drummers, sweeps, giants and fire eaters, culminating in a wild, costumed procession where Jack is slain to release the spirit of summer.

Having photographed the Jack in the Green celebrations since way back, I decided to adopt a different approach for what was very much a personal project, and set up atemporary studio for the 2012 & 2013 processions to highlight the amazing folklore costumed characters in a fun yet contemporary style. Technically, I used a state of the art Nikon D800, some very old monolights, a large soft box and a paper backdrop. Two assistants were despatched to select people before the start of the grand procession leaving me with approximately five minutes with each subject, and after an extremely intense 30-minute shoot it was all over.

From these sessions, selections were later chosen for displays in The Jerwood Gallery (now Hastings Contemporary) in 2015 and also to accompany a John Piper exhibition in 2016. A collaboration with The Lucy Bell Gallery bought about a Pagan calendar in 2014 and an exhibition was held in the Crown Inn, Hastings Old Town. Since then, Alamy have looked after the odd sale or three.

Ukraine

Hand Pollination in China, by Mariann Fercsik

This image of an elderly farmer taking a break on the top of a pear tree was taken around the eighth day of my assignment in the mountainous slopes of Jiuxiang. As a photographer I find my work drawn inexorably towards social and environmental issues, where my passion lies in capturing the interaction between people and their environment. As we have become more and more reliant on technology it feels like we have lost something of the inner rhythm that connects us to the natural world, a cadence that was perhaps more apparent to past generations.  My hope is that by documenting instances where that rhythm is disrupted, we might take time to reflect and recapture something that has been forgotten.
 
An example of that disruption is in our relationship with bees, which we have relied on for thousands of years.  We now find that this relationship is under threat and nowhere are the complexities of this situation more apparent than in the Sichuan Province of southwest China. It was while researching the nomadic beekeepers of Transylvania that I discovered the topic of hand pollination.  One study, in particular, written by Professor Tang-Ya of Chengdu University, outlined how hand-pollination has been practised in China since the late 1980’s.  This well-written paper became the core of my research work and was the main guidance for my project.

With the introduction of China's Home Responsibility System in the 1980s, the farmers of Hanyuan County in Sichuan Province found it economically beneficial to replace their rice paddies with fruit orchards. The mountainous slopes of the region lent themselves well to fruit production, particularly pears, for which Hanyuan County is now renowned.

Any crops grown beyond the quotas of China's collectivized farming program could now be sold on the open market and, in order to maximize their yield, the farmers began to increase their use of pesticides. This, in turn, had a negative effect on the population of the natural pollinators, and the local beekeepers were driven to relocate their colonies out of the cultivation areas. With the disappearance of the bees, along with the desire to control the quality and purity of the pear varieties, the farmers began the labour-intensive task of pollinating their crops by hand.

With simple tools such as a bamboo stick and chicken feathers, they embarked on a journey of learning, not just how and when to pollinate, but when to collect the stamens, how to dry them, and which varieties respond to which pollinizer. Additionally, not all the pear varieties are self-compatible, so cross-pollination is needed in order to achieve a desirable crop. With skill and patience, the farmers can produce a high-quality, high yield product, albeit with increased labour costs than if they relied on nature alone.

As industrialization continues to push up the cost of hiring a workforce, the farmers must find an alternative way of cultivating their crops in order for them to remain viable. With pear production accounting for forty to fifty per cent of the household income, the stakes are high and adaptability will be key to their success. The return of natural pollinators is possible, but this is unlikely without a coordinated approach to limiting the use of agrochemicals. What the future holds is uncertain and further work is needed to find a successful solution that balances economy with ecology.

In Juixiang even the oldest are capable to complete physically challenging tasks like pollinating each blossom one by one even in the most difficult and dangerous environments. This old farmer was taking a break on the top of a tree in his pear orchard of 35 trees which he planted 30 years ago. He explained that hand-pollination was getting tiring at the age of nearly 85.

I found the generosity and good nature of the people of Jiuxiangzhen humbling, and I was allowed free reign to explore how the relationship between this community and their environment has changed over the years.  The town is situated in a rugged environment that demands energy and purpose, something that the residents have in abundance.  The lack of a common language barely needed acknowledgement and was more than made up for by the enthusiasm, friendliness and hospitality shown by the locals.

This story has been published editorially worldwide and will be published as a book by Northern Bee Books, available from this April.

Football in COVID by Iain McLean

Albion Rovers FC play in the lowest league in the SPFL (Scottish Professional Football League) and occupy Cliftonhill Stadium which can be found in Coatbridge, a traditional coal mining/iron works town 8 miles east of Glasgow.

I’ve been following the club for 22 years and started going along with the idea of recording a social document of the fans and environment of lower league football however the project spluttered along before eventually picking up a head of steam around 2010. Since then there have been many days and wet Tuesday nights (my favourite) spent at Cliftonhill as well as quite a few away stadiums visited over the years.

When the Coronavirus lockdown came along in 2020 the games in our league were suspended. Fans were fortunate to have access to a live stream to watch games, but sitting in the back room watching on the lap-top was a poor second best so I contacted the club and through my connections there, and my press card, managed to get into the stadium to shoot a sub-project showing the effects of Covid on the football club.

This photo was taken at the end of April 2021 during a 1-0 victory over Annan Athletic. With the dark, grim winter over I was in the ground and spotted a sizeable group assembled on the hill overlooking the stadium enjoying the game in the spring sunshine. Refreshments had been taken and the boys were pretty lively, so after hovering around for a while getting them used to my presence I decided to go down the hill with my back to the stadium to see what happened. A few of them were very nervous about being photographed but everyone reacted with this explosion of joy when we scored.

It had been a terrible time for all at the club so these guys were all just glad to be out with their mates, having some beers in the sun and watching their team again.

A feature on project was recently published by Document Scotland .

Moonlighting, by Mark Harvey

I have been a fell runner for over 30 years and this involves training during the winter and running in the Peak District National Park when it’s dark and in all weathers, sometimes with a group but often alone. On those rare occasions when it’s full moon and the sky is clear the landscape takes on a different look and feel, and even when visiting tourist hotspots you very rarely meet anyone else.

As opposed to sunlight the light from the moon is reflected so for the last few years I have been experimenting using this light in the landscape during the middle part of the moon’s gibbous phase.

I have found a number of challenges carrying out this work, firstly there are only four or five days a month when the light is strong enough to create strong shadows and of course the sky has to be clear. On many occasions I have set off cloud-free for it to become overcast by the time I’ve walked in to my intended location. The other challenge is ‘seeing the light’ - in daylight I look to see where the shadow detail lies but at night I have to look for the areas of light which are sometimes quite subtle. The final issue I find challenging is how light or dark to make the image, I find it tempting to overexpose the image to make it look like daylight whereas what I experience is a heavy feeling of being alone in the space I see through the viewfinder, similar to being under a cloth when using a 5 X 4 camera.

This work is very much a personal project, I have only entered the work to a couple of competitions and it was shortlisted for the RPS annual show this year.

Roma Christmas, by Nigel Dickinson

In 2003, Stern photo director Harald Menk commissioned a number of photojournalists for a special issue on how Christmas is celebrated in different communities across the world. As I was well known for my Roma work, Harald asked me for a reportage about ‘a Roma Christmas’. Stern had guaranteed my work across the Balkans, during the Kosovo war. I chose to go to Romania. I brought a couple of expensive bottles of wine with me as gifts, and was slightly surprised later to find myself drinking them with bubbles, until I found they had been mixed with coca-cola.

It was a crisp early Christmas morning in Alexandria, photographing the Christmas pig being wrestled to the ground and slaughtered in the backyard, then children sitting on it for good luck. We were snowed in for a few days and drunk a lot of hot vodka grog. The shoot went as well as could be expected.

That in the bag, continuing my longterm work on Roma, I went via Timisoara to Belgrade, visiting a Roma patriarch friend, who works as a radio journalist. It was in Belgrade that I got to know David, who drove me around the city, playing Roma drum beats on the dashboard of his van and who wanted me to photograph his tattoos. We became friends and I was invited to his home, on the 7th of January, for a traditional Orthodox Christmas. I arrived at 4am, to be his first visitor, and symbolically light the fire with an oak branch.

We sat drinking vodka for several hours until first light. Eventually, his family woke up, and then his parents and relatives arrived. David said, he had been in all sorts of trouble as an adolescent, but had grown out of it, adding ‘don’t worry about my brother but be careful of my brother-in-law’. At 10am we all sat down for Christmas dinner; the table was smothered with sweetmeats, peppers, traditional roast pig for the Orthodox and roast chicken for the David’s Muslim parents. In true Roma tradition, the patriarch and matriarch, the visitor and the men, we were seated at the main table, whilst the women and kids sat at another table, behind, near the wood burning stove. I sat with my back to against a huge window, with a snowy blizzard howling outside, David’s parents sat on each side of me, David sat opposite me between his brother and brother-in-law.

David looked at me and somewhat accusingly said ‘so when are you going to take the f*****g picture of me and my tattoos then?’. To which I replied ‘what about right now?’ In a trice their shirts were ripped off, David asked me how they should pose. I replied, ‘just be normal!’. At some point David’s younger kids joined us at the table and I squeezed back against the window as far away from the scene as I could, and I shot it on chrome with my trusty Leica M6 and a 35mm 1.4 Summilux lens. I knew I’d got something special.

By midday, I was drunk twice over, and absolutely stuffed, when Milos, who had left me at David’s at 4am, arrived to take me back home. All I could think of, was going to bed and sleeping it off, but we arrived home, to find the whole family waiting at the grand dining room table, for the visitor (me) to join them for Christmas lunch. It took me a few days to recover.

I stayed in Belgrade until Orthodox New Year, and then returned to Paris, and developed the E6 films. I scanned the selection on my Nikon Coolscan 500, and sent the Romania Christmas set to Stern who were delighted. I mentioned to Harald, that I’d shot another set for Orthodox Christmas, but he said not to bother sending them, it was a job well done. I sent him the picture of David’s tattoos, in any case - I had a feeling he would like it. Harald telephoned me right back, to say that it was the best picture they’d received, and offered me a nice bonus. |t made a double page for the Christmas edition. Harald added ‘it is the salt in the soup, nobody was smiling’.

Belgrade, Serbia. January 7th, 2004 © Nigel Dickinson

Wester Hailes, by John Walmsley

In 1979, I had a grant from the Scottish Arts Council to live and work on the Wester Hailes estate in Edinburgh, work with the kids in the new school and wander the neighbourhood taking photos and chatting to the locals. It meant many hours out and about looking, hoping and trying to impersonate ‘un flâneur’. Most of the time, nothing. But, occasionally, extraordinary images. Now, 40+ years later, I’m self-publishing a book of the photos with reminiscences from people who were there at the time.

As it was shot in the city, I asked Edinburgh College of Art for some students to work with me on the book (I’d done this on a previous book and found it works very well). So, two students did the retouching and one has designed the book. They all got paid and we all now have a book. A win, win situation.

There’s an exhibition at Whale Arts, the community art space, in Wester Hailes, 25th Oct to 18th November this year. Plus, a full set of the photos will go into the archive at the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, for use by students and researchers. View the photos here on my site.

I have two other books in the pipeline; one for spring 2022, on life in repertory theatre in 1973. There are many ‘Front of House’ photos but, as far as I know, my set covering all rehearsals from first read-through to first-night, plus time off in the pub, shopping, in the laundrette and earning lines in the digs, is unique in its breadth. Many of our ‘National Treasure’, actors, who readily agree they wouldn’t be where they are today had they not had Rep’ training, have contributed pieces to the book. The second, for summer 2022, will be a celebration of 100 years of A S Neill’s democratic school, Summerhill. I first went there when still at Art School and the photos were published the following year as a Penguin Education Special.

Wester Hailes, 1979, (21 x 21 cm, 164 pages, softback) by John Walmsley, is available here from 2nd November for £15 + £4 P&P to the UK & EU. The book will be launched with a short talk at the Photobook Café in Shoreditch on Tuesday 23rd November 6.30 to 9pm. To register free tickets (numbers are limited to 40) go here.

Street Performers of Dublin, by Ian Shipley

What started out as a simple task for twelve images for an internal corporate exhibition a decade ago has been slowly rolling along ever since and is now an archive of over a thousand images and growing. I continued the project as I could feel things changing on the key busking areas of Grafton Street, Temple Bar and Henry Street in Dublin. Where we used to have full bands playing a set for a few hours, regulations now limit amplification along with the requirement that street performers switch places on the street every hour. The upside of this is that for the watchers, you get a great variety of performers, the downside for the performers is that on a good day they can be waiting four hours or more for a prime busking slot. I’ve been lucky enough to photograph performers on the streets and then a few years later at venues where they are headlining.

The current crop of buskers are young, starting around seventeen years of age, and some of them have millions of views on Youtube to help them draw a crowd. Allie Sherlock is one of those who, having been seen on Youtube busking on Grafton Street was flown over to the USA to be on the Ellen show. She still busks most weeks in Dublin. At the other end of the scale is 81-year old Vincent Fottrell who is still busking and just moved on to using an amp - Youtube is a long way off for him. Then there is Mick McLoughlin aka Mick the Busker, who spent two years sleeping in Debenhams doorway while busking his way off the street. When you take the time to talk, there are endless back stories. For me it's often the interaction of the public with the performers that makes things interesting.

One aspect that keeps me going back at every opportunity is that every day is different; you never know what or who you will find. A normal day at the office for buskers may mean a street cleaner going by, someone riding a horse up the street and a multitude of other distractions from drunks to junkies and people who would like to join in, but they keep playing, rain or shine. It's not uncommon for me to photograph a performer only to find I previously shot them a few years earlier. Some of the buskers are regulars like Jacob Koopman who's been playing on Grafton Street for a decade now, while many more play here for a few weeks before continuing their global travels. On good days you will find performers who are Irish, Brazilian, German and Indonesian, all on a street no more than a few hundred metres long. The interaction between the buskers and the people on the street is on-going as is the camaraderie between fellow buskers (very similar to our own field).

When I am photographing, I don’t believe in hiding away or using a small pocket camera - the artists know I am there and over time it has allowed me to become accepted as part of the scene and allow me to get shots I otherwise wouldn't. My workhorse is a Canon 5d Mrk lll, primarily with a 24-70mm, and from time to time I’ll just work with a 50mm; it helps me to look differently if I have to move as opposed to zooming. There is an ongoing balancing act between the buskers, authorities, retailers and city dwellers, with the latter having forced a no playing prior to 11am rule for buskers, along with other restrictions. I can slowly see them getting squeezed out, certainly some of the larger groups like Keywest and Mutefish who used to perform, now cannot make it worthwhile with only an hour to play before moving on. Another element that makes the buskers’ lives harder is that too many people now have their earphones in 24/7 and simply walk on by, living life by their own soundtrack.

To see the many more photographs in this ongoing series, please see Ian's Instagram

Bird/land no 15 - Carrion Crows, by Jeremy Moore

For many years I was a landscape photographer who watched birds. I then suddenly made the connection…why not actually photograph birds? But after all that time out in the landscape I found it impossible to avoid including their surroundings in the images. Most bird photographers do whatever they can to avoid giving their subjects any context at all, but I resolved to give both equal billing. I began work on an exhibition, Bird/land, and just to make it more difficult for myself, each “piece” consisted of three or five separate images in panoramic format, linked in some way with each other. The links consisted of location, species, activity, purely graphic elements, or a combination of two or more. I received funding from the Arts Council of Wales for the original showing of Bird/land in 2017 in Machynlleth. It then showed in an enlarged form at Aberystwyth Arts Centre in 2018.

These particular images were taken at a red kite feeding station near my home. There were no particular technical challenges involved, other than a long telephoto lens, a sturdy tripod and the right weather conditions. While waiting for the kites to perform I noticed that carrion crows were using this dead conifer as a perch while waiting their turn to grab some food. I took a series of images on two separate visits to the same location as different birds came and went. It was then a matter of selecting the images, processing, cropping as required and arranging them in a custom template in Lightroom to create the finished work.

The Leap, by Stuart Freedman

I made this photograph on assignment for Conde Nast Traveller Magazine several years ago. When the (then) Director of Photography, Caroline Metcalfe called me and asked if I’d like to photograph a story in São Tome and Principé, my answer was not immediately ‘yes’ but ‘where?’. As I soon discovered, this tiny but devastatingly beautiful African nation comprises two volcanic islands that lie off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Originally a port for slavers, the islands’ independence had been secured (unusually peacefully) from Portugal in 1975.

The story centred around eco-tourism and for much of the work I found myself happily trotting through forested regions and bumping along rough tracks stopping at villages where I tried out my very poor (read almost non-existent) Portuguese much to the hilarity of all involved.

The image came on the second day of shooting on the smaller island of Principé, reached by a fifty-minute flight on a small, (rather shaky for my liking) propeller aeroplane. As I walked around the bay in the capital, Santo António, I could just make out some boys jumping off a tiny (and broken) pier. I hadn’t yet made a frame that day and one always gets a little nervous that pictures aren’t going to come. Especially in such a beautiful place. I double checked the exposure and as I moved closer, I decided to shoot the thing quite simply on a 50mm and try and make something that would fit a double page spread.

I didn’t want to lurk on a long zoom and neither did I want to disturb the kids on a wide-angle lens that would have inevitably altered the scene by my closeness. Only one boy clambered back onto the pier and then dripping, decided to jump straight back into the clear water without looking in my direction. I composed quickly, ‘anchoring’ (sorry) the frame slightly off centre using the cross as a guide. I made sure that I had plenty of sky either side to let the picture ‘breathe’ - or for the inevitable text. This was the first and only frame that I made before his friends turned up and insisted, quite rightly, on being in the picture. I spent the next fifteen minutes shooting the kids jumping into the water in a variety of ways, but nothing worked as well or as graphically as the spontaneity of the first frame. It’s often the way. It’s why I often try to shoot first and see what happens later: the world moves very quickly and if you miss it, it’s gone.

JUAN ASSIGNMENTS - Jazz à Juan/Antibes, Côte d’Azur, by Tim Motion

The Juan open-air concert venue is situated under the pine trees of La Pinède, overlooking the beach and Cap d’Antibes. I have been attending this festival for 35 years excluding three, and the work constitutes the basis of my Jazz&Blues Archive/An Eye for the Sound. It has been an essential part of all my summers, in order to shoot pictures, listen to great music, and reconnect with groups of friends and itinerant colleagues.

The photograph above was taken at the 32nd jazz festival at Juan les Pins/Antibes in 1992. I chose it because it shows Ray in a rare moment of calm and contemplation in the midst of an exhilarating big band session. It is a cropped image from a couple of dozen shots with the Hasselblad from that night, part of my favourite series of the great Ray Charles whom I photographed between 1987 and 2001. On this particular night the lighting was quite good. Often however it is variable to non-existent and shooting moving people at f4 with pushed film in semi-darkness can be something of a challenge. Added to this are the increasing restrictions on photographing the artists, often limited to three songs or three minutes or no pictures at all. My favourite instruction at a later Ray Charles concert was: “You may shoot for three minutes from when the Raelettes (Ray’s backing singers) pick up their tambourines.” A French rugby scrum formed.

With my passion for photography, music and travel it was no surprise to find myself making a yearly pilgrimage to three or four of France’s special jazz festivals from 1982 onwards. I wish that I had started earlier. Depending on other commercial work in UK I regarded these trips as working holidays, sometimes with editorial commissions for ‘words and pictures’ from specialist magazines like Jazz on CD, Jazz Express and Jazz Journal, current at the time. Occasionally I had to fly back to London to fulfil a worthwhile commission but, added to the daily and nightly photography, after a couple of years a camaraderie formed amongst the international photographers in the excellent Press Bar at Juan les Pins, and I would often meet up with the same gang at other festivals.

In those days of analogue my camera equipment, chained to the floor, took up at least half the locked boot of my car and consisted of two Hasselblad bodies, three 12on backs, four Zeiss lenses, three Olympus OM bodies and four or five lenses, plus monopod, tripod, folding stool and an extra bag containing the usual essentials that photographers will never travel without even if they may not need them; but of course, they will, and yes my Pentax spot meter still works! I also included a 5x4 Wista field camera for the occasional landscape. In fact, in 1988 I shot a sunflower field on the way home, and the print won a Gold in the AoP (AFAEP as it was then) Awards landscape category. In the car with no aircon, film was kept in a 12v fridge and cold bags, though admittedly the cooling effect was inconsistent in 80°F heat.

For me, 1986 to 1992 were peak years at Jazz à Juan for photographing many of the great musicians in jazz, blues and other genres. This year I am honoured to exhibit 21 pictures in the Palais de Congrès in Juan les Pins to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the festival. The prints will be on display during July and August. I am considering extending the exhibition to other areas in the region at a later date, with different material, and am planning at least one photo book. My music pictures have been exhibited widely in London since the late ‘70s, and in France, Spain and the United States.

In 1963 in Portugal I shot a series of lifestyle and people reportage photographs with my old Leica for a book on the Algarve. A collection of these photographs was made into a photobook called “Algarve 63”, printed in Portugal in 2017. Some of these photographs featured in exhibitions from 2005, locally and in London, and in Arles during the Rencontres de la Photographie in 2012.

Come Hell or High Water, Summer Solstice 2020. By David Hoffman

On the banks of the River Thames at Limehouse there's a pocket of resistance. A small rectangle of foreshore appears on no maps and was left off the plans for the looming Canary Wharf development. Now the orphan place belongs to no-one. Returning twice a day at low tide, this liminal space exists between earth and water, shifting between private and public space as the moon chooses. Suspended between wealth and poverty, earth and water, past and present, and an unknowable future, it’s a tiny anomaly.

Briefly exposed as the tide recedes, the small foreshore was host to a series of performances between the winter solstices of 2020 and 2021. Celebrating imagination as an act of revolution, these Come Hell or High Water events, fuelled by around 60 artists over the year, celebrated the connection, expansion and strength of wind and water, of light and sound, of flesh living and breathing.

This is Elspeth Owen performing using voice, descant recorder, percussion, music box, birdsong and a great deal of yellow string at the Summer Solstice, 21st June 2020.

With no internet presence and word of the events passed discretely only between performers, friends and a few other carefully selected beings, it was a privilege to be frozen by arctic winds, soaked to the underwear by Storm Dennis and, together with my camera, repeatedly coated in stinky, slimy Thames mud.

The foreshore is muddy and extremely uneven with jagged buried rocks, chunks of scrap iron and rusting steel cables snatching at my feet just beneath the sludgy surface. Staying upright at all was a challenge, more so with my ancient arthritic knees, but I needed to be a bit nimble, so I shot all 13 events with just one camera, no flash, a Nikon D500 with a 12-24 zoom – that’s an 18-35 in old money.

Technically some days were easy, sunny with enough cloud to soften the shadows and a comfy 500th at f8 but working in dark driving rain with frozen fingers, wide open at a 15th, an iso higher than the national debt and a mud splatted viewfinder I struggled to take anything home at all. Still fun!

More images from the series can be seen here: Come Hell or High Water

I have a box set of Café Royal books and also a rather fatter hardback book about the East End in the 1970s and ‘80s coming soon. Forty years on from the Brixton riots I have photographs in Steve McQueen’s forthcoming series “Uprising”. I’m proud to have work selected for Martin Parr’s “Island Life” at the Bristol Festival later this year as well as a longer series from the Brixton riots in an exhibition at Morley College & Carnegie Library. Once that’s done I’ll be starting to edit down around 20,000 photographs for a book on Protest.

Female Farmers in Rural Britain by Joanne Coates

During 2021 I received a residency in partnership with Berwick Visual Arts, Newcastle University's Institute for Creative Arts Practice and the Centre for Rural Economy. I worked with Professor Sally Shortall, Duke of Northumberland Chair of Rural Economy, at CRE, exploring contemporary issues around diversity in agriculture.

Women’s contribution to the farming industry is significant but often overlooked. There are underlying barriers such as access to land, class, motherhood, and lack of clear leadership roles. When tasked with imagining a farmer who comes to mind? Women make up 28 percent of the farming industry in the UK, but despite playing a central role in agricultural progress throughout history, documentation of female farmworkers is slim. Over time, the stories of women who have shaped the land have been left unheard. This project examines the unique challenges women in agriculture face, focusing on rural issues from a socially-engaged standpoint, which places communities at the heart of my practice. Although still a work-in-progress, the series has seen me travel across Northumberland to document forty women at work.

Rural Britain as is often portrayed by the outsider’s view. I wanted to go into this complex subject and avoid farming cliches, to look at the roots of issues; to have the farmers speak for themselves. Issues of gender in farming are rooted in societal and economic issues. A systemic problem I came across was access to land; only 14.9 per cent of registered farm holders in the UK are female, despite 64 per cent of graduates from agricultural studies being women in 2018/2019. The start-up capital required to purchase land is substantial, meaning access and agency within food and farming has remained a privilege. The vast majority of those farming are only able to do so due to inheritance, which traditionally has left women at a distinct disadvantage, and which it continues to do. I’m based in the Northern Dales, was raised in rural areas and wanted to show a subject close to home.

This image shows Paula, of Mill Pond Flower Farm. Paula is a female farmer, she also holds a Phd and was previously a nurse. Throughout 2021 I visited Mill Pond Flower Farm when it was safe to do so, while the project came to several stand stills as the pandemic hit. The project will continue throughout 2022 as I explore gender, agriculture and how the pandemic has affected female farmers.

Amanda Palmer, by Gabrielle Motola

In 2019 I was commissioned to photograph the American independent author/singer/songwriter Amanda Palmer on the UK and European leg of her world tour of “There Will Be No Intermission”. She infamously ran the first million-dollar Kickstarter and is the co-founder of “The Dresden Dolls”. She authored the biography “The Art of Asking” and gave a TED Talk by the same name, which has been viewed more than 11 million times.

Benefit gig for “Open Pianos for Refugees” Karlsplatz, Vienna

My job was to document her, the shows, the crew, the fans and produce four long-form articles published on Medium. I worked alongside the Australian writer Jack Nicholls whom Amanda hired to write the words. We had access to all areas and carte blanche to create whatever we wanted.

The show (just over three hours long) was a theatrical blend of songs and oration, illustrating how Amanda uses songwriting to process life’s more challenging events. Essentially: this is the story of what happened, and this is the song I wrote. The album traverses relationships, pregnancy, abortion, miscarriages, and trauma to highlight a few light examples. The experience could be best described as “group therapy with music and access to alcohol.”

Ulster Hall, Belfast

We travelled to more than a dozen cities beginning in Amsterdam and ending in London at the Union Chapel. We spent time on planes, trains, in cafes, walking the towns when we had time, at one point in a hospital, and on the tour bus. I photographed anything from Amanda on stage, backstage, meetups with hundreds of patrons, Shintado sessions, spontaneous street gigs, podcasts, protests, interviews and bedding down for the night on the bus.

On the “Beat the Streets” tour bus after the show

I struck a balance between being a visible participant while directing group portraits and documenting her playing from stage, to being a ghost in the background. Luckily for me, Amanda is a grounded person who advocates radical compassion, so the atmosphere though intense at times was rarely charged with anything but positivity.

Amanda in her dressing room backstage at Graz Congress, Vienna

Since leaving her record label in 2008, Amanda funds most of her projects and pays her staff with the money she receives from her 15,000 patrons (fans) on Patreon. Patreon is a subscription model platform where patrons pay a fee each month to support work, gain insight into an artist’s process, access content and special events.

Aftershow in the Union Chapel, London

Amanda would often sign books, posters, albums, listen to and hug her fans for hours after the three-hour show. She also frequently would arrive in a city and announce a last-minute free ‘ninja’ gig in a location she disclosed on Patreon. My day usually began around 10 am and ended at 2 am after eating Thai takeaway at midnight on the back of the bus sending out edits for her Instagram and Patreon feeds.

On stage in at the Congress Graz, Vienna

I worked hard, but it was a dream job. How often is it that one gets carte blanch to photograph someone open to being looked at? Scrutinised even.

Amanda in the lift in Braga, Portugal

Thanks to Amanda’s encouragement, I began using Patreon to partly fund my work in August 2019. I currently have 130 patrons and growing.

Gabrielle’s Patreon: www.patreon.com/gmotophotos

Amanda’s Patreon: www.patreon.com/amandapalmer

The commissioned articles beginning with part one here on Medium

Isle of Wight Italian Motorcycle Owners Club Rally 1982 by Patrick Eden

Back in the '80s when I was a nipper I had lots of mates who were bikers. At the time Italian motorcycles became very popular; Moto Guzzi, Ducati, Bennelli, and Mv Agusta's started appearing everywhere.

The owners' club on the Island prospered and in 1982 they had their first ever rally. It was named “The Mallyshag Rally” after the local “Caulkhead” (Isle of Wight native) word for caterpillar (I have no idea why this was chosen). I was the bloke "with a nice camera” so friends asked me to come along and take pictures. The timetable followed the traditional biker rally fun theme; drinking, bands, talking about skimming cylinder heads and tweaking carbs. Drinking. Team sports, tug o' war, relay races with tractor tyres and other heavy objects and of course the ubiquitous wet T-shirt/underwear competition for both girls and boys. Oh and some drinking.

This is a favourite shot of the tug o' war, much mud and falling over, and experts with beers shouting advice and other humorous asides. Monthly bike mags like Superbike and Motorcycle Monthly were happy to use these, and they paid pretty well too.

Lambing in Derbyshire by Eileen Langsley

Although I have stuck fairly rigidly to only shooting sport for the last 40 years or so I have developed a keen interest in farm photography due to local friends and contacts who own and run Derbyshire farms. It has been a real privilege to be welcomed (and trusted) throughout the year and I have published a souvenir book for them and provide calendar pictures for them each year end.

Last year I was pretty desperate for some snow scenes but we’d had just light falls and I could only find one field with any snow drifts that could work with sheep in the image as well as a Derbyshire landscape background and weather fronts looking ominous. I was about to set off heaving the gear across the field and wondering how I could avoid disturbing the sheep and having them rush off away from me when the farmer handed me the keys to the Kubota and whistled up his sheepdog Poppy; he then opened the gate and left me to get on with it. Well, it was the best fun I’ve had in years and the brilliant Poppy knew just what I wanted from her. What a great team we made (I could really have used her at a few medal ceremony crushes I’ve worked in!) and the sheep obligingly moved to the largest snow patch. I didn’t really want any kind of posed image and was happy to shoot them while moving. Before long the heavens opened and Poppy (no doubt perplexed as to what that had all been about) and I headed back.

My work on the farms has strengthened enormously the huge respect I have for the farming community, how hard they work, how much they care about the welfare of their animals and the constant problems they face. I can’t wait for the next photo session with them.

1000 Reindeer - 1000 Miles, by Bryan Alexander

This is an image from a shoot I did twenty years ago. I had stumbled across an idea for a story while I was at an indigenous peoples’ conference in Moscow. A Siberian friend of mine told me about an ambitious project, to move 1000 reindeer 1000 miles from the north of Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula to the Khanty Mansiysk region. The main objective of this project was to help re-establish reindeer herding among native communities in an area where it had been decimated by the oil and gas industry.

Moving reindeer from one area to another in Siberia wasn’t new, but previously it had been done using planes and large MI-6 helicopters. Reindeer are very susceptible to stress, and moving them in aircraft had resulted in a high mortality rate. The plan this time was to drive the reindeer at their own pace with accompanying herders travelling by reindeer sled. It was an epic journey that would take six months complete.

I felt it would make an interesting man and nature story, but I needed to get it assigned. When I got back to the UK I called the editor of International Wildlife magazine in the US. I had a good working relationship with him, so I was able to pitch the story idea to him over the phone. Fortunately, he liked it and after we exchanged of a couple of faxes, he commissioned me to photograph and write the story. That, as it turned out was the easy part. The logistics of joining up with the herders in such a remote part of Siberia with limited transport was to prove much more challenging.

The reindeer drive was to be carried out by two separate groups of herders. The first group would drive the reindeer south from the Yamal. They would then rendezvous with a second group from Khanty Mansiysk who would travel up from the south and continue driving the reindeer to their area. For me, the most practical plan was to join the second group. That, I estimated, would give me about one month travelling with the herders, enough time to get the images I needed.

I flew to Russia in late January 2000 and travelled to the herders’ village in Khanty Mansiysk. We left two days later, a group of ten of us; six men and four women, travelling together in a line of reindeer sleds heading northwest. Our route took us across open tundra and through snow covered forests that looked like they were straight out of a Swedish fairy tale. Travelling by reindeer sled was also a wonderfully quiet and peaceful way to experience this northern landscape. The only sounds were the reindeer's hooves on the snow and the tinkling of bells on their harness.

Because I was travelling by reindeer sled, it was important to keep my gear as light as possible. I brought along two Canon F-1 bodies, a 24-70mm zoom, a 70-200mm zoom, a 24mm f1.4 wide angle lens, a small flash unit and 90 rolls of Fuji Provia film. Each camera was powered by a single zinc and air battery. They were a fairly new type of battery at the time, but I had used them on a shoot the previous winter in temperatures as low as -58°C and they had performed well. I did not bring a motor drive or power winder with me as film becomes very brittle at extremely low temperatures and rapid winding tends to break it easily. You then end up with small pieces of film like broken potato crisps inside your camera.

Every evening we made camp with all ten of us sleeping inside a single tepee-style tent. Space was at a premium, so apart from my sleeping bag and a change of footwear, I kept all my gear outside on one of the sleds. I kept my camera bag there too, placing it in a black bin liner every night to protect it from any blown snow. Keeping it outside avoided the problem of condensation which one gets from taking cameras from extreme cold into a warm environment.

We met the other group of herders and the reindeer at the rendezvous on the 14th February and after counting the animals we took over the herd and began the journey south to Khanty Mansiysk. Our travel developed a rhythm, we would drive the herd one day, rest them the next day, before moving on again the following day. Only the occasional day of bad weather altered that. While we were on the move, the herders kept a close eye on the reindeer and were constantly rounding up stragglers. We were fortunate not to lose any.

We were lucky with the weather. Apart from a couple of stormy days, it remained fine, with temperatures in the -25°C to -35°C range. Our destination was a corral about 25 miles from the village of Numto. We arrived there at the beginning of March to find a lot of people had gathered and the process of dividing up and distributing the reindeer began. The long reindeer drive was over.

From time to time over the years I had wondered whether this reindeer project had been a success. In February 2020, twenty years after the reindeer drive, I returned to Khanty Mansiysk for a reunion with some of the herders that I had travelled with. All of them sounded very positive. They told me that the tundra reindeer had adapted well to their new forest habitat and hadn’t run off back to the Yamal. They had all been paid with reindeer for the work they did moving the herd. Vassilly, the leader of our group told me he had only owned about a dozen reindeer before the journey. The 30 reindeer received for his work helped him increase the size of his herd up to the 150 animals he has now. That in turn enabled him to provide a better life for both him and his family.

The Three Kings, by Phil Crean

According to tradition, on the 5th January the Three Kings visit all towns and villages in Spain. This image was made in Adeje, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands in 2018.

In Adeje the Three Kings arrive at the municipal football field where they are greeted by the mayor and other dignitaries who present them with a magic key which can open all the doors in the municipality - this allows them to go into the houses overnight to leave presents for the children, no Santa popping down the chimney here! This is the traditional Spanish Christmas when the "Reyes" bring the gifts to the children, which fits in with the very Catholic view of Christmas prevalent in Spain, and coincides with the story of the arrival of the Three Wise Men, (Kings), to Bethlehem bearing gifts for the new born Jesus Christ.

Parents bring their children to this spectacle to see the pageant and meet the Kings and the kids often present them with letters detailing their requests for presents. The Kings make a big show of walking around the crowd to meet and greet the children and this photo sums up for me the amazement and wonderful magic in the face of the young girl child who is just barely old enough to understand what is happening. I was so pleased to have captured her reaction to being confronted with one of the royal characters, with her mother looking on. The 6th of January is the final day of Christmas and all the children can be seen out and about with their new toys.

The assignment was a self-generated job as I have a good working relationship with the Adeje Town Hall and was able to get access to the event. Technically it was not a great challenge, Canon 5D MKIII 24-70mm f2.8 lens. Shooting at 1600ISO, 1/200 @ f6.3, bit of fill flash. The main thing was being in the right place at the right time, as is so much of this type of photography! The pictures were sent into Alamy Live News who distributed them to the UK and other press, and although this image wasn't published anywhere, others from the day were, and a couple have become repeat sellers as stock. Due to the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic restrictions the event is highly unlikely to go ahead this coming January, as with so many events and traditions.

City Of Djinns, by Simon de Trey-White

The ruins of the 13th century fortress-city of Firoz Shah Kotla in New Delhi, India, is thronged weekly with thousands of supplicants seeking favour from supernatural beings of smokeless fire, djinns. These magical entities also known as jinn, jann or genies spring from Islamic mythology as well as pre-Islamic Arabian mythology. They are mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic texts and inhabit an unseen world called Djinnestan. Believers, mostly Muslim but from other faiths too, circumnavigate the ruins clutching dozens of photocopied requests, flower petals, incense, and candles. They visit the numerous niches and alcoves in the catacombs said to be occupied by different djinns and greet and salute the invisible occupants with offerings. A copy of their requests, often with detailed contact information, photographs and even police reports to bolster the case is left with the ‘Baba’ before moving on to the next where the procedure is repeated - like making applications at different departments of a bureaucracy.

Anand Vivek Taneja in his book “Jinnealogy” makes a compelling case for linking the historical and ongoing effects of the Partition of India in 1947 and the later Emergency with the current traditions at Firoz Shah Kotla. ‘Partition was not just a singular event... but rather the inauguration of a structure of dispossession, displacement, and amnesia. The “Long Partition” (Vazira Zamindar 2007) continued to affect the Muslims of Delhi long after the events of 1947, being entrenched in the laws and policies of the postcolonial state, systematically eroding Muslim rights of property and citizenship’. Although jinn veneration has been associated with Firoz Shah Kotla for almost a century, Taneja says: ‘We can think of the dargah of the jinn-saints making possible the reformation of community in the aftermath of violence. It was only in 1977, a few months after the end of the Emergency, that we have the first record of people starting to come to Firoz Shah Kotla in large numbers. This seems significant, given how destructive the Emergency was for the Old City and how many poor and working class people were displaced from the Old City to resettlement colonies across the river’.

Though the age and gender of the supplicants at Firoz Shah Kotla varies, there’s a marked prevalence of women, especially younger women as they usually have the most difficult time coping within the rigid social structure of many Indian families. Some of these women subconsciously believe themselves to be possessed by spirits. Being ‘possessed’ is an outlet and gives them the freedom to abuse their husbands and mothers-in-law and even show all kinds of forbidden desires. Their relatives often bring them to visit the djinns and the Pirs (Sufi Masters) who frequent the place, seeking exorcism. The possessed women can be found banging their heads, growling, murmuring indistinct words and rolling around on the floor. While they might otherwise behave normally, this behavior which occurs only in holy places is said to indicate that the spirit inside them is struggling as it wrestles with the power of the saint.

This was one of the personal projects I photographed in-between assignments while freelancing in Delhi between 2009 and 2016. I visited the site numerous times for well over a year, usually in the late afternoon and early evening when activity was at its peak. Most of the niches people visit are in the catacombs and filled with dense incense smoke. I found I had to use a high grade anti-pollution face mask and goggles to help protect my lungs and stop my eyes from streaming. Geographical magazine published this image in their April 2016 edition. To see more from this story go here or for a wider edit see here.

Radislav, from 'Homeless in COVID May - August 2020' by Iain McLean

At the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic, like most people, I found it difficult to make sense of the situation I found myself in. So, with all work gone for the foreseeable future, it felt like a good time to plan out an idea I wanted to pursue.

I had been interested in volunteering for a charity but commercial work and side projects had always taken priority. However, I was fortunate enough to qualify for the Small Business Grant Fund, and that gave me the opportunity to volunteer. I contacted a few charities with a view to recording their response to COVID, and fortunately for me the homeless charity Simon Community Scotland came back with a positive reaction.

I initially did some volunteering in their warehouse, sorting clothes and helping load and unload food deliveries, all the while taking casual portraits and recording the events. We also visited a hotel in Glasgow where the charity were housing up to 80 people without accommodation. I was then given more access; to travel to other services to meet and photograph both staff and clients. It quickly became apparent that the project would have two threads; one focussing on people experiencing homelessness in Glasgow and the surrounding area who had been placed in the hotel and other accommodation; and the other recording the staff, volunteers and day to day activities. I had not worked with people experiencing homelessness before but it was a profound and moving experience. My expectations were probably the same as most people's; namely that I'd be meeting down-at-heel people with substance abuse and/or mental health problems but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

For the portraits I was referred to the work of Stefan Ruiz and his ‘Cholombianos’ project where the model was photographed against a white background. This was perfect as I wanted to remove them from any location or from any pose that would reinforce the stereotype of someone experiencing homelessness, so the plain backdrop was an ideal way to imply a ‘blank canvas’. The portraits were taken in colour with each model contributing to the way they presented themselves, and we made sure everyone received copies of the portraits by way of thanks. The aim was to present the person as being empowered but I also wanted them to look human and dignified. Hands were symbolic of the COVID crisis, with a lot of focus placed on the cleanliness of hands due to the spread of the virus through touch. Hands were also a metaphor for hope and friendliness, reaching out to show the viewer an item of value in their possession or to display a message of hope – something that helped get them through. Some people had absolutely nothing, so drew a message or image on their hand of something they missed or loved, a cherished memory.

Visiting the hotel and services over four months was very demanding. Hearing the stories from everyone was eye opening - sometimes hopeless but more often hopeful. Seeing people with literally nothing was perhaps the saddest part, something I had never thought of and couldn’t really imagine how I would react to. Personally, I am lucky enough to have a few safety nets, but those without really don’t have far to fall when circumstances change for the worst. It’s been a memorable experience meeting all of the people who gave their time and described their lives during our portrait sessions and also meeting all of the superb SCS staff and volunteers.

We hope that the 52 portraits can be used to challenge the common misconception of what a person experiencing homelessness looks like. I’m so glad they had faith in me and hope we have produced a valuable document of extraordinary days.

This diptych shows Radislav from Poland with his hand showing the landscape around his home which he missed. I bumped into him recently in Glasgow and he has now managed to find a job and accommodation.

This project was produced with the help of Simon Community Scotland and more of the work can be seen here: Homeless in Covid

The Bank of England from the series 'Lost Capital' by Simon Norfolk

This project, created during the height of the COVID-19 'lockdown' in the spring of this year, was trying to make the best of rubbish circumstances. My Instagram has a large following, so Hasselblad loaned me an X1D to use for different project. All the pictures are hand-held; only the Hasselblad could do this. Mrs Norfolk broke her ankle at the beginning of lockdown so I was able to shoot this project whilst she slept and still be back in time for breakfast, and I’m a demon on a bike so I could do the work without public transport. And most importantly I live in central London so I could shoot it in my allotted hour if I was quick.

The Bank of England was extensively rebuilt in the 1800s by my favourite architect Sir John Soane, today only his perimeter wall remains. Inebriated on the ruined dreams of the Classical world that were the education of all young men (and a few women) of wealth, he secretly carried out a fantasy sabotage of his own work. Meditating on the wonders of ancient Rome and Athens whilst working as a highly sought after architect, it was not enough for Soane to simply quote these ancient buildings in his commissions, although he did that too. Wondering how his buildings would look when they were as old as Rome is now, he privately instructed the artist Joseph Gandy to paint his own buildings as 2000-year-old, crumbled ruins inhabited by pigeons and weeds instead of bankers. Rather brilliantly the paintings also worked as axonometric cutaways that described his efficient use of the interior spaces. The only other architect I know who has so pre-envisioned his own work as ruins in Albert Speer.

In Gustave Doré’s 1873 engraving of ‘The New Zealander’ a lonely traveller, in centuries to come, sits by an overgrown River Thames. Across the water are the lifeless ruins of a future London, the crumbling dome of St Paul’s as decayed as the Roman Colosseum is today. New Zealand was imagined by Doré as so remote that it would escape the West’s imminent collapse and our Kiwi ponders the ruins of an earlier, collapsed civilisation just as an English noble might have done on his ‘grand tour’ in Rome. One of the things I love about the Grand Romantics was they had the courage to imagine a new society but also the humility to see beyond that, to how the world would be when even their paradise had come and gone. The meme of The New Zealander has had a long life. There is a direct line from him to the dystopian cities of JG Ballard and Cormac McCarthy, to a thousand zombie movies and he’s behind all those computer games that feature the lonely avenger scouring the streets of a post-apocalyptic city.

Constantin-François Volney, who travelled in Egypt and Syria in 1784, wrote in his book ‘Ruins, or a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires, "What are become of so many productions of the hand of man? Where are those ramparts of Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis? … Alas! I have beheld nothing but solitude and desertion! Who can assure me that the present desolation will not one day be the lot of our own country? Who knows but that hereafter some traveller like myself will sit down upon the banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuyder Zee, solitary amid silent ruins, and weep a people [extinct], and their greatness changed into an empty name?" The Romantics thought our society would collapse from the emptiness of its values or the inequalities in our economies. Even the imaginations of Shelley or Byron couldn’t factor in a virus from a pangolin in the wet market of a provincial Chinese city.

In photographing Coronavirus London I was astonished that by removing from the streets the daily dross of life (cars, trucks, people) suddenly the architecture shone forth. Buildings look like the architect's plans of them; unblotted, sharp. I’m reminded of the painting of Giorgio de Chirico, their linear clarity and brilliantly lit dreamscapes. I never noticed how London is a grand Imperial chessboard with all the architectural pieces laid out awaiting the cavalcade. I thought of city as ‘Lost’ because a) this London was lost beneath the cacophony, b) I often got lost down side-streets I thought I knew intimately and c) the virus has left us all a little lost, at sixes and sevens.

I felt much like I did when I was in a bombed Afghanistan at the beginning of my career searching a shattered battlefield absent of soldiers; a stage without actors and me, the New Zealander, scratching for clues. Empty London is a Momento Mori or a Vanitas painting; it shows that this microscopic virus has made proud fools of us all. It has shown us to be ultimately powerless and our investments misguided and empty. All our dreams and schemes and the protections that insulate us from the world were found to be as tough as wet cardboard. Even the most comfortable of us is scrambling round the internet for toilet roll and PPE. Omnia vanitas.

The only people I meet on my dawn trips are the bronze statues of the grandees of the British Empire (‘Good morning, Your Grace’) who stand slightly disappointed, looking down on the mess we’ve made of their inheritance. They resemble Easter Island’s Moai left guarding the sacred groves of a religion no-one follows. Everyone’s gone to the Rapture.

London looked magnificent whilst looking as if it has been hit by a neutron bomb. I never imagined the Apocalypse would be so quiet that one would hear in Piccadilly the song of a blackbird.

Food Collection by Mark Harvey

This image is a collage of the donated food that I have picked up from Sheffield greengrocers Beanies, which was then delivered to two local Sheffield charities – The Archer Project and The Food Hall Project – throughout the UK lockdown.

Initially I set out to document the process, but looking at the images together, I felt that it represents not only a diary of what I did during the crisis, but draws attention to food poverty and what can be done with food that can't be sold.

I am a professional photographer, whose normal work is corporate portraits and conferences; understandably my work mostly stopped when the UK went into lockdown. It gave me the chance to use that time to produce social media content for a local charity supporting vulnerable people and has helped raise over £50K in donations.

For the past five years I have been volunteering for The Archer Project, a Sheffield charity that supports those at risk of homelessness or who are experiencing homelessness. I’ve been running photography sessions for people who use their facilities, as well as providing images for the charity to use for their marketing. I also have connections with The Food Hall Project, a volunteer-powered community space and kitchen, which offers pay-as-you-feel dining.

Having been a customer with Beanies for at least 30 years, I’ve got to know the staff there really well and they know about my involvement with both charities. At the beginning of lockdown they asked if The Archer Project and The Food Hall would be interested in receiving their unsellable stock. I offered to pick up the excess food from Beanies and deliver it to the two charities. In doing so, it meant that the Archer Project and The Food Hall were able to provide professionally-cooked meals or include packs of fresh fruit and vegetables for those in need.

From my work with the charities, I learnt about the effect that the lockdown was having on vulnerable people in the city. Many hadn't eaten for days at the start of the lockdown and later on some hadn't had a hot meal for weeks as more people started to come into the city centre. At the start of the pandemic the only two places open to get food was Archer and the FoodHall, as all the other organisations that provided hot food had closed.

Both charities have been supplying roughly 200 free, tasty and nutritious cooked meals per day to vulnerable people, including people living on the street, those experiencing sanctions on their benefits, or families struggling to pay their bills.

Photographs from the COVID-19 Lockdown by EPUK Members

Trainer Jimmy Moffatt cools 'The Steward' in the winners' enclosure at Cartmel Racecourse by Milton Haworth

It was a blazing hot August day, I had been commissioned to do a photo-essay on Britain’s favourite small racing venue Cartmel Racecourse. My clients were the the course owners Holker Estate Group who gave me carte blanche to produce whatever images I liked. They were to be used for brochures and posters for the following year, some advertising and social media. I thought I would also generate some welcome free publicity for the owners of the course by giving the local paper a set of images.

I had previously spent some time at local trainer Jimmy Moffatt’s place a couple of miles from the course, I had got to know the trainer and some of the grooms and stable girls, one of whom, Charlotte Jones was to ride in a couple of the races. Charlotte had already won a couple of races at Cartmel and so I was really hoping she would come up trumps again. Alas, it was not to be; but the local stable had a winner and a third place.

During this particular race I had covered the hurdles on the back straight and had decided to get down to the parade ring for the presentation of prizes and, (usually) some of Cartmel’s most famous product, 'Sticky Toffee Pudding'. Just as I arrived at the winners' enclosure I spotted Jimmy Moffatt with a bucket of water, I quickly stepped back a couple of paces and shot this image, I thought that would make a great ‘weather” picture as it was one of the year's hottest days.

I sent the images out that afternoon and was delighted to get a couple of hits in national papers and the local paper carried an 8-picture double page spread the following Monday. Of course my clients were delighted with the publicity and, as a result, I have done a great deal of work for them since.

The picture was shot at 1/250 at f8 with a Fuji Xt-2 with a 16-55mm f2.8 lens.

English National Ballet at Unity Arts Festival, by Stuart Saunders

I was asked to cover the Unity Arts Festival at London City Island. My client was the developer for the island, and part of their scheme included construction of the new English National Ballet building. Myself and a group of festival attendees were given permission to attend a demonstration by a couple of the dancers as part of the weekend's festival.

To be honest it all made for really dull pictures; ballet dancers and choreographers answering questions etc, not very photogenic but shot as part of the festival coverage. The room however had great potential, surrounded by an opaque white cladding that flooded the studio with natural light and the words English National Ballet plastered to the outside of the building (albeit written backwards on the inside). At the end of the 'demo' the dancers were milling about, so I simply asked if one of them would strike a pose for me in front of the backwards signage. I managed a few frames before the PR looking after the dancers put a stop to what was going on. But I got the shot I needed, and my client asked if they could flip it so that the words were legible.

The photograph got a fair bit of coverage for my client, English National Ballet and the arts festival… Job Jobbed.

Rob Brown, Deputy Manager of Campanile Hotel, Leicester, from 'English Journey' by John Angerson

Since its publication 85 years ago, English Journey by J. B. Priestley has become a benchmark for writers, social historians and photographers. George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier and much of the work of photographer Bill Brandt bears its influence; it was even mooted that it played a part in the policymaking decisions of the labour government in 1945.

This contemporary photographic journey embraces the spirit of Priestley’s English Journey, by using the subtitle of the book: ‘Being a rambling but truthful account of what one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England.’ As my journey took shape, another global economic downturn similar to that of the 1930s has taken hold. ‘Americanisation’ and homogenisation seem to penetrate almost every town and city.

The England I discovered is manufacturing less and has become highly reliant on technology. Celebrity culture and its media stronghold is fast becoming a national obsession. The perceived threat of global terrorism means new laws have been created, curtailing the freedom to photograph in public places, and PR departments are increasingly stringent as to how their organisations are portrayed.

However, the open-hearted spirit of people I have encountered while wandering across England has made me believe, as J. B. Priestley did, that we work as individuals towards a common goal of cooperation never forgetting that we are all dependent on one another.

While I was checking out of the Campanile Hotel in Leicester during my journey around England, I noticed Rob Brown’s powerful pose at the reception desk. I cautiously asked if I could take his picture. He agreed, he stayed in the same pose and position throughout the process of me setting up my cumbersome 5x4 camera. I took one frame, thanked him and proceeded to pack my kit away. He said nothing, he just continued with his day and proceeded to check-out the next customer.

'Until You Spread Your Wings, You Will Have No Idea How Far You Can Fly' by Nicola Morley

All over the world, children dream of what they would like to be when they grow up. The children from Saakshar School in Delhi’s slums are just the same. In a collaborative workshop, the children were asked to closed their eyes and imagine if they could have any job in the world, what would it be? How would they look, stand, feel? Carefully, they drew on paper what was in their mind’s eye. Assisted by their teachers, they created an outfit from a range of dressing up clothes. To make a record, using saris as a backdrop, I photographed the children. Each child was given a printed picture of themselves, dressed for work.

Of course it is unlikely that any of Saakshar’s pupils will travel into space, but that is not the point. Saakshar’s ethos of "Having No Idea How Far You Can Fly" enables the children to dream. And why not?

Rosy and Herb 36/100 Years by Jenny Lewis

I photographed Rosy for '100 Years', a series I have been working on for the last few years for a new book; one hundred portraits from my community. The series covers every age from 1-100, celebrating and investigating the different perspectives we travel through, ages we have forgotten what it feels like to inhabit, and ages we have yet to reach. I met Rosy when I photographed her in 2016 for my 'Hackney Studios' series and she became the cover of that book.

Three years later and life couldn’t be more different for her. She had wanted me to photograph her in the style of my 'One Day Young' series but at seven months pregnant she was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer. The next day she was given an emergency c-section to get the baby out of the way of the tumour so they could operate. She was in hospital for a few weeks recovering from the trauma, with a premature baby in an incubator by her side.

I took this portrait in her home a day before her chemo treatment began. Both of us wanted to capture this moment… it felt brittle, as anything could happen, but it was important to celebrate her achievement; the triumph of becoming a mother; and to stay strong for her son.

Rosy had 60% of her liver cut out in the summer after the first round of chemo and has just completed her second round… she was given the all clear at the beginning of Jan 2020 and will be scanned every three months to make sure the cancer is still in remission.

Rarely has a portrait meant quite so much to me, so it was a thrill to have it picked for The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in 2019 and to be able to visit it at the National Portrait Gallery in London with Rosy and her family.

Another image from the series; "Blanche 8/100 Years" has been selected for this year's International Photography Exhibition IPE162 at The Royal Photographic Society which opens February 15th in Bristol.

The Taylor Wessing exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery is showing until February 16th 2020. 

Newspapers in the snow, by Charlie Best

Although I live in London, for the last ten years or so I’ve also been an intermittent resident of Berlin and in 2012 my wife and I spent Christmas and New Year there.

It snowed quite heavily over Christmas, and leaving the flat a couple of days later to go and get some groceries I noticed this pile of newspapers at the end of the street. Being a lazy photographer I didn’t have a camera with me, but it had just started to rain and I knew if I waited, the snow would be gone in a few minutes, so I ran back up to get my D3X and shot a handful of frames.

An hour later it was just a soggy pile of papers. I love the monochrome feel with the single touch of colour where one of the corners has been turned up, but not by me! I have large print of this on one wall at home and, unusually for anything I’ve taken, I still like it.

Christmas at York Minster, by Duncan Lomax

I’m lucky enough to photograph all sorts of events and services for York Minster, from the installation of a new Dean and the consecration of the first female bishop, to stonemasons at work and visitors. However, one of my favourite jobs has to be the Advent service, both as a spectacle to watch and as a challenging photography assignment.

The cathedral is dark at the best of times, but the advent service starts in complete darkness. The choir enter with a single candle, which is used to light the candles of the 2000-strong congregation. It’s an amazing sight – the flame is passed from person-to-person until every member of the congregation is holding a lit candle (whilst I’m worrying about my ISO, the Minster Police are keeping a keen eye out for fire hazards).

My role is to capture the atmosphere of the event, photographing choristers, congregation and canons (clergy, not cameras), but at all times respecting the service, staying out of sight, and being discreet (long lens, silent shutter). That’s not as straight-forward as it sounds – I meet with the clergy beforehand to go through the order of service, that way I know who is going to be where and when, so I can plan shots in advance and avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time (“Duncan - you can go wherever you need to but do NOT walk in front of the choir” is part of my brief.)

As a result, I find myself shooting from all corners of the Minster, but usually taking the longest route to get from A to B to avoid being seen, disturbing the congregation or getting in the way. I’ve shot from the tower, the floor, the pulpit and the archbishop’s seat (the cathedra from where cathedral gets its name) I’ve done this particular shot before – usually taken from the organ loft, which means that at a strategic moment, I have to run up a narrow, behind the scenes set of stairs, past the organist’s shoes and other belongings, trying not to let doors slam behind me, or clank my cameras against anything on the way, partly because I don’t want to be heard, but mostly because what’s around me is hundreds of years old and worth a lot more in monetary and emotional terms than my well-worn Canons (cameras not clergy).

The organ loft gives a great view of the Minster’s nave, but annoyingly for us photographer-types, it’s off centre. This shot however, is from 2018 and whilst pretty much everyone else in the Minster was disappointed that there was a huge wall of scaffolding up as part of an organ restoration project, I was rejoicing as it meant for the first time I could get a camera positioned centrally. What I couldn’t do however, was be with the camera. In the hush of a service, the last thing anyone wants to hear is me shuffling about on creaky scaffolding boards, so this shot was done remotely. Having done the similar, off-centre shots in previous years, I was able to work out my exposure – long enough to capture enough light to show the building, and also to show the light streaks from the choir’s candles as they moved around the cathedral. I triggered a number of shots from ground level as the choir moved, with the intention of overlaying them into one montage, as I had done previously, but this is actually a single shot which I preferred.

To see more shots from this shoot, see here: Ravage Productions

Fishing the Minch, by David Gordon

In the late seventies I persuaded my south London secondary school art teacher to let me out of school once a week to wander around art galleries.

One Wednesday I visited the Half Moon Photography Workshop which was under construction in Bethnal Green. I was made welcome in what was pretty much a derelict shop with offices where Camerawork magazine was produced and a photography resource centre being planned.

Explaining my interest in photography I was encouraged to find a ‘project’, given a box of paper and told to come back with some contact sheets. Returning with pictures of the Woolwich Ferry I’d show them and listen to advice from the staff and any photographer passing through.

Eventually my photography improved and I was confident enough to start a new subject.

I returned to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, a town where I’d grown up watching the comings and goings of fishing boats. I knew the skipper of one boat, the Fiery Cross, went aboard and photographed the crew at work as they fished The Minch – the stretch of water between the north west coast of Scotland and the Western Isles.

I photographed all aspects of the fishing and Harris Tweed industries as well as daily life and went back the following spring to spend another week on the Fiery Cross. By summer I was spending more time in Lewis than London and I took a job as an assistant with the local photographer, where we photographed anything from babies to oil rigs. All the time I continued to take my own pictures of daily life in the islands.

Eventually, deciding the life of a wedding photographer wasn’t for me, I returned to London where I visited the HMPW again. The place was still a building site, hidden behind hoardings but someone had an idea that while the gallery was still being built, they could have an exhibition outside and my pictures from the Hebrides were suggested.

A selection of my fishing pictures were stuck up with wallpaper paste. The country’s first fly posted photo exhibition - we decided at the time. I printed two sets of pictures expecting them to be vandalised, but they were never touched.

Years later people were telling me I should ‘do something’ with these now archive pictures. A co-incidental phone call from a PhD student researching photo organisations from the 1970s was the catalyst and I set about re-editing, re-discovering the work and finding previously overlooked pictures. Finally the photographs are being shown again. Expanding on the original fly posting show, they are this time indoors at the museum in Stornoway.

I find many of my pictures have an immediacy but after a few years start to look stale. Then they become dated and of little interest. But after more time has passed - as society noticeably changes - they start to become interesting again. I hope today’s young digital photographers are taking the same care to look after their computer files as I was able to do with my negatives. Hopefully in another forty years their pictures will also be a portal back to lost past and not just lost forever.

“Fishing The Minch” an exhibition of photographs from the Isle of Lewis between 1978 and 1980, is showing at Museum nan Eilean, Stornoway, until 21st December 2019.

HMS Belfast, from 'The River Within' by Annette Price

'The River Within' is a photographic exploration of the Thames from source to sea from a kayak. Many people look at the Thames every day, but few see it in the way that I do, being so close to the water, I feel almost a part of it. To me, the Thames is a breathing, almost living entity, with its strong tides and constantly changing, silty waters. The kayak allows me into otherwise inaccessible places such as up tributaries, between houseboats and underneath pontoons.

With each picture taken from this small boat, we gain a unique and intimate perspective of the Thames, from ancient and contemporary London, boats and buildings to riverbed art and misty sunrises. The familiar Thames is reframed seen from so close to the water.

Kayaking photography must be planned to work with the ever-changing tides, weird currents and waves created by wind blowing against the tide and wash from passing boats. Juggling these ever-changing elements delivers constantly renewing opportunities to reveal hidden gems, as we look outwards from the River Within.

In 2017, I began work on 'The River Within' by photographing the very start of the Thames, where it is just a ditch in the Cotswolds and I had to work on foot until the water was deep enough for a kayak. I have reached London and will continue to photograph The Thames downriver until it flows into the North Sea on the East coast. The final paddling trip will be to photograph the Thanet Wind Farms, which are seven miles offshore in the outer reaches of the Thames Estuary.

I currently have an exhibition at the Riverside Gallery in Richmond called 'The River Within - London', which is on until the 16th of November 2019. The photographs feature London as seen from the perspective of a kayak, and are part of the longer-term project - from source to sea.

So, come and visit the exhibition and share a journey through London by kayak at The Riverside Gallery, Old Town Hall, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond TW9 1TP.

Admission is free. Gallery opening hours: Monday 9.30 am - 7 pm Tuesday 9.30 am - 6 pm Wednesday 9.30 am - 7 pm Thursday 9.30 am - 6 pm Friday 9.30 am - 6 pm Saturday 9.30 am - 4 pm Closed Sundays and Bank Holidays

Even if you know the river, you may find something new to surprise you.

The River Within is part of Totally Thames, presented by the Thames Festival Trust.

Marwari horse and owner, Rajasthan, India, December 2013 by Michael J Amphlett

About India, Sir Don McCullin wrote in a caption at his recent exhibition at Tate Britain, London: "...One finds one's camera held up to the eye for most of the time. It is, in my opinion, the most visually exciting place in the world."

After seven visits to various parts of the Indian subcontinent, I can only agree with his words: wherever you go, city, town or rural village, there is inevitably something to focus on and make satisfylng images, whether as one-offs or as a themed story.

Yet, the whole country is a paradox and a conundrum to our western sensitiblities and despite India's economic and social rise in recent decades there is equally inevitably the very reverse in the fortunes of many of its peoples, from persecuted tribals still living in the remaining forests, to those who choose to make the Rajasthan desert their home.

The picture I've chosen to showcase was made in 2013 on a personal trip to an animal fair in southern Rajasthan. It shows a typical early morning scene at the fair as the sun rises over the canopy to the left with a dusty, smoky atmosphere (from the animal dung fires!). We were just about the only westerners at the fair and the locals were friendly but mostly amazed that we showed so much interest in them, their animals, and way of life.

The gentleman pictured is holding is prized Marwari horse (note the naturally bent ears), and was insistent on me making the best of the opportunity to photograph him with his prized animal. It's always difficult to take in the astonishing variety of visual stimuli and to assimilate just precisely what is happening around you, but this situation occurred pretty much spontaneously as I expressed an interest in the horse and owner, and this allowed me to make three or four usable frames.

I'd like to believe the image shows the incredibly atmospheric nature of such places and the indigenous people who, despite many hardships, just get on with their lives and always manage a smile and handshake and, sometimes, even a smattering of English.

For me, the image brings alive not only the memory but incredible dignity and pride these people retain in circumstances that most of us would not care to imagine (but I make no claims to being a hardened photographer). For some reason, India has always appealed yet I didn't get there until 1998. Since that time, much has changed, particularly in cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, yet in the rural areas little seems to change despite tirades by the Indian government to rein in peoples such as the Rabari (or Reika) [camel and sheep herders], and their like.

At 69, I'm still able to make these visits and will do for as long as I can; the rewards are many and great, but I do worry that these rural lives will change, or worse, unwelcome change will be forced upon them. We cannot expect such situations to last forever, and they do not exist for our own satisfaction, and the archetypal image of the 'noble savage'. But, for the moment at least, we are fortunate enough to be allowed to observe and document such people and their extraordinary and ever colourful lives.

The showcase image (and all similar work) is part of a purely personal portfolio. The image featured in a portrait exhibition at the Cornerstone Arts Centre in Didcot, south Oxfordshire.

(Nikon DS3, ISO 6400, Nikkor 16-35mm f4 at 21mm)

The Brickyard, by James Ball

This image is part of a series shot at the 99th Indy 500 back in 2014 as a promotion piece for a creative studio called INK, where I am a part-time Art Director. It was a last minute decision to attend and with no official photo-access pass I would only be able to shoot ‘fan side’ and not track-side.

The overwhelming Americana was evident and inescapable, there was little in the way of brief, except for ‘come back with something cool’ and so I decided to focus on the people and try and get some candid shots mixed with race action.

As part of my process involves quite heavy post-processing I tended to shoot with what I call a ‘photoshop-eye’. I’m looking at things thinking, ‘I’ll chop that out, remove that’ etc. Many people were happy to pose, it was clear with a big camera people wanted to be photographed - so that made life easy. The overwhelming presence of stars and stripes was irresistible. With such a loose brief I was trying a lot of different things, styles, objects, details, people, but essentially in the edit, I settled on a short narrative-driven piece.

It was an excruciatingly hot day and I wanted that to translate in the work. I experimented with different filters and grades and paired down the look to what I started to determine as ‘sunkist’. A simplification of the palette into yellows, blues and reds, where the highlights are retained and there is a warmish hue to the sky. A bit of a crunch to finish and the project seems to visually tie itself together under that grade. From the point of finding ‘the look’ it was easy to edit in other shots, knowing they were going to follow that formula.

The project was featured on the ‘Photography Served’ section of Behance.

The Barbican in 1975, by David Hoffman

When I took the Barbican pictures in 1975 I was in my 20s and really angry. I was angry at a lot of things. Angry at the inexorable march of the City building out eastwards, rolling over the houses that my friends and I were living in, demolishing the pubs we drank at, erasing the little old shops & cafés we used. Angry at the council 'decanting' my neighbours to Nowhereland, taking over and bulldozing any housing that the City didn't swallow to build places that we couldn't live in.

I was angry at all sorts of shit. Angry at the way the police stopped and searched us whenever we poked our heads out onto the street. The world around us felt structured to reduce us to an insignificant irrelevance. Designed to isolate us, to exclude us, to oppose us, to sideline the social causes – equality, racial integration, decent employment, affordable housing and effective health care – that we cared about.

A massive, imposing structure seemingly dropped from the sky, the Barbican typified a wider uncaring and absolute power over our environment. Its great weight, the unassailable concreteness of it, the way that it resembled a walled city with whole areas locked and gated against outsiders – all these came together to say “You are no part of this”. It was the very opposite of welcoming; reeking of wealth, only navigable by those who knew the secrets of its confusing mazes and owned the right keys.

Built to separate rich from poor, to make the wealthy wealthier, the Barbican obliterated a space previously filled with shops and housing and pubs and libraries. An organic ecosystem supporting people on low incomes, people who worked in the area, whose families had grown up there for generations was expunged.

The Barbican represented something profoundly anti-human. Its very structure boasted of its conquest. A hundred times taller than a human, its coldly invulnerable mass presenting only walls and barriers smugly impervious to human interaction, the estate seemed designed to emphasise the unimportance of our individual lives.

So I found the Barbican interesting as a symbol of all this. I didn't find it attractive, but I didn't want to make it look evil. I felt it would be more effective to show its nature as objectively as I could. I used a tripod to slow me down and make each view a considered one. (I was young and took myself very seriously.)

I think I only had one lens for my Nikon FTn – a 50mm f1.4 - but I was able to borrow a 20mm sometimes and I liked that for the way it showed the space. It was all shot on Tri-X, developed and printed in my Whitechapel squat. I suppose something slower would have been a more usual choice but I had a dodgy supplier of cheap Tri-X at the time and now I like the grain.

I've just published a Café Royal book on the Barbican, coinciding with this Summer's 50th anniversary of the first tenants moving in. I'm working on two other books; one will be another in the Café Royal series, part of a boxed set coordinated by London Metropolitan University, looking at protest in the East End in the last century; and I have just started on another, much larger, book covering my time in the '70s and '80s squatting in Whitechapel, which is planned for autumn 2019.

Longer term I'm planning a more analytical book on protest, using text from myself and others complemented by a series of video slideshows.

Car Boot Sales by Jan Malmstrom

For five years I covered car boot sales in Sweden. In the beginning, I just wanted to document these events as they unfold but very soon realising that this could be a much deeper project and I started to approach the whole thing as if it was a paid assignment. Over the years I visited more than seventy car boot sales and took more than 3000 photos. In the end, it became a book.

The reason? I liked the spontaneous and natural relationship between seller and buyer and that was the magnetic force that initially pulled me – the investigatory photographer – to the car boot sale. There is a special atmosphere at these car boot sales when the summer is warm and people from near and far are arriving, opening up the boots of their cars and with busy energy starting to display their goods, thinking: what will I sell today? Who will I meet? While the buyers filled with anticipation are wondering: what will I find today? Will it be the bargain of the century?

I very soon started to become a familiar face, especially amongst the sellers, who showed up on a regular basis. I started to interact with both them and the buyers and after a while got to know the rhythm of things. From the regular sellers, I learnt a lot. What to sell, how much to charge, when to say no to a persistent buyer who wanted to drop the price too much. But I also picked up a few tips and trick from regular buyers. The importance of arriving early, to stay focused, to wait to make an offer until you have chosen a lot of things from the table.

There is obviously a darker side to this as well. Many parents were very hesitant when they saw me pointing the camera towards their children. Quite often they came up and starting to intervene and interrogate what the hell I was doing. It is horrible that we have come to this stage that parents are afraid their kid will end up on a dubious website. I very quickly changed tack asking the parents for permission before even aiming the camera to any child. I also found that having a stack of small prints in my photo bag was useful to show explain to them what the project was all about.

Many times I also had a heated argument with older people who didn't want their photo taken. Most of them usually calmed down after some explanation. For some, I learnt that is was no point to stand there and start to explain the law to them. I just had to go about it in another way.

I usually went along with a wideangle plus a standard lens. An 85mm was in the bag as well if needed.

Malmstrom's book Car Boot Sale is available from Amazon.

'Henge to Henge' by Gabrielle Motola

I’ve been a self-confessed motorcycle addict even longer than I have been addicted to image-making. So I decided it was time to combine the two passions and create a new body of work in the process. This image, from the Faroe Islands, is part of the resulting project, "Henge to Henge", a solo motorcycle journey from Stonehenge, England to the remote Arctic Henge in Iceland.

Between the years 2013 and 2016 I had flown back and forth between England and Iceland more than twenty times making “An Equal Difference", a book of photographs and text exploring Icelandic society. I wanted to experience the transition between lands and cultures in real time, and with a passport (while it lasted) that would see me through each border crossing without stopping. On September 11th 2017, I packed my bags with plenty of warm layers, two micro four-thirds cameras, some lenses, and headed from London to Iceland on a 250cc Kawasaki.

After crossing the channel at Folkestone into France, I rode through Europe, to the top of Denmark. At Hirtshals, I boarded a 56-hour passenger ferry to Iceland, which stopped off in the Faroe Islands before reaching its final destination. The Faroes archipelago of 18 islands is connected by a network of roads, sea tunnels, ferries and bridges and has a native population of around 50,000. In good weather, it is a motorcyclist’s paradise. However, when the British occupied these islands during the Second World War, they nicknamed them "The Land of Maybe”.

Sure enough, the next day I rode an hour to the neighbouring island of Vágar in near zero visibility, with frighteningly strong winds. The winding mountain roads which carved a hold along rocky cliffs (without railings) were breathtaking but terrifying on my light motorbike. The sights were breathtaking, the gusts of wind even more so and I did very little photographing en route.

Photographing by foot is far more convenient than by motorcycle, and much safer given the unpredictable late September Faroese weather. After arriving at my hotel, I took a stroll into town along the winding path down to the bay, which gave views of the fjords and the roads carved along their base. A modest house just across from the airport sat nestled in shrubs. If you visit this spot, you will not find it looking as it does here. The image, made with a full spectrum converted OMD EM5 camera, a 590nm infrared filter, and digitally manipulated, serves the imagination more than fact or document.

With colour infrared imaging, I am attempting to abstract notions of reality in the way that black and white photography does. In the colour correction phase, I often bring back elements of the image to its visible or "traditional" colour point, introducing the familiar alongside the unfamiliar. The process calls to mind a passage by G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy: “Fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”

Camera Obscura Selfie, by David White

This is the second ever camera obscura selfie. The first one is not so pretty; it’s just me on a chair, grinning. This picture was taken via the iPad in my hand, through a 5m x 3m portable camera obscura. This mk1 obscura used a 2800mm lens to project an image onto a 8'x6' screen inside. The image was focused by moving the screen, which is made from a translucent, flexible rear projection screen. A Canon DSLR, controlled by my iPad and a Canon app, photographed the screen inside the obscura. In this picture I am seeing how far the wi-fi generated by the Canon DSLR will stretch. I took this picture about three years ago.

This was the first time I had tested the practicalities of the beast. It all went into my van, but it weighed too much, was way too unwieldy, and was a pain to put up and take down alone. Or with help for that matter. Plus when the wind got up it became a total liability, and it nearly had me in the local creek once. It also looked a bit unattractive...basically a huge white lightproof tent. People really enjoyed entering the obscura however, and my students seemed amazed by what was going on inside, which I found surprising and joyful at the same time. They took great relish in photographing themselves and their friends with it. I learned some clear lessons with regards to what I needed to do for the Mark 2 version however.

This obscura used a lens, rather than a pinhole, so as to allow an image bright enough to be photographed from inside. The image thrown onto the screen is brilliant enough to allow the use of a mobile phone, which is important. Whatever camera you use allows you to capture the unique fingerprint which the obscura delivers. It took a long time to find a lens which covered a large enough circle and which had a wide enough angle of view, and which was fast/bright enough. In the end I found the 2800mm lens, and another 4000mm lens on ebay USA. The latter lens is fantastic but made it virtually impossible to fit inside the 5m long obscura when focused. When the obscura is used as a selfie camera, the photographer is also the copyright holder, so they own the image and can share it and distribute it however they like, which I think is lovely and helps deliver an important lesson.

After proving that my concept worked, I made another obscura. Instead of using scaffold poles and welding the focus frame, as I had done initially, I started with a fold up gazebo frame and some aluminium sections. The mk2 obscura is 2m x 2m, and uses an 800mm lens, which was hand ground for me by an ultra large format specialist in the states. He made me the lens for $400, which is incredible. The lens covers a 1.5m circle and has an angle of view equivalent to a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera. It has a square screen which is a nod to Instagram.

The principle of the Mk2 obscura is exactly the same, in that you can go in the camera, focus it by sliding the screen, take a picture of the screen, confuse yourself as to why everything is upside down and back to front etc. The only real difference is the smaller size and increased portability, and the fact that I hung the screen so that you can also tilt and shift the image. I can put it up in 15 minutes, and it fits in the boot of my car. Presently it is folded up above my desk. I decided to make it look more attractive also, so to that end I photographed many camera parts, from Box Brownies to iPhones, and created panels in Photoshop. I had the panels printed on fabric, and I drape the obscura in those. It actually looks like a huge camera now, and is much more inviting.

I built the obscura as a tool for others to use, for learning and teaching, and it has been used recently by all the new photography students at Falmouth University to photograph themselves during freshers' week. It has also been used in the studio, for portraits, for fun - and just last month, Martin Parr took his own selfie using the obscura. I am showing it to some primary school kids soon; I can’t wait, I think they will get very excited by it, especially if their teacher appears to them upside down. It is a wonderful thing, and it is delicious to see and hear people get so excited by what is happening inside. It was only after I had been playing with it for a while that I realised you could argue that a camera obscura selfie bookends photography.

Photographing in South Sudan for Oxfam, by John Ferguson

In 2012 working with Oxfam and in conjunction with the Daily Mirror newspaper and the Independent Magazine I returned to Southern Sudan. This was my second trip to the country, one year on from my first visit to cover the celebrations of the world's newest country South Sudan and it’s Liberation from Northern Sudan.

The country was still embroiled in a renewed civil war with the North and a myriad of other problems, one which included a major refugee crisis in the Blue Nile region of upper delta state near the border with Northern Sudan, where this image was taken.

Oxfam’s team in South Sudan was providing clean water, public health and sanitation in and around camps of refugees and internally displaced people.

While wondering around the Jamam refugee camp, I came across 12 year old Amir Nassar who was selling food snacks nearby from his little makeshift store. I only just noticed him out of the corner of my eye, whilst I was taking other pictures. It was his oversized jacket that caught my attention, I approached Amir who was happy to pose for my pictures and talk to my translator. This image ended up on the cover of the Independent Magazine and also featured on a nationwide poster campaign for Oxfam.

'Let Glasgow Flourish' by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

I’ve always marveled at the thought that walking down the street any one person you see has a multitude of experiences and stories to tell, you take that one person and the stories you could tease out of them, and multiply that by everyone in the street and then the city, the country. So many stories, so many nuanced versions of life all informed by different upbringings and experiences.

And so it is with political views, a multitude of nuanced political views abound, and this has never been more obvious than in the streets of Glasgow, and Scotland, over these past few years.

After a decade of photographing in Japan I moved home to Glasgow in 2012, knowing the referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was going to be gearing up as we approached the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum date. I wanted to be back in the country to see it all, to experience it, and of course to vote.

I attended the rallies and marches of both sides, pro-Union and pro-Independence, trying to understand both sides of the argument, photographing it all, primarily for myself and distribution by my stock agency, photographing what we were told at the time was a ‘once in a generation’ referendum. For me, trying to describe in pictures the colour, energy and anticipation of what would come before us was the greatest challenge, but also the most rewarding part of the experience. It felt as if anyone in Scotland could have been there, on those marches. For both sides it was a peoples’ crusade: the divisions cut across race, class, gender and location.

Now four years on and not much has been settled; we’re still walking on daily-shifting sands of political information. A second Independence referendum continues to be a debated issue, and called for regularly by pro-independence campaigners, such as in this photograph from Bannockburn, when approximately 10,000 people marched, one rally in a regular series which took part across the country.

That independence referendum is still on a hand of cards yet to be played and for the time being kept close to the SNP’s chest. The political game of cards has seen many other hands played: the chaos of Brexit; Scotland welcoming refugees (as it always has) seeking asylum and the extreme minority Scottish Defence League staging rallies to espouse their hatred against them; at Faslane peace protestors continue to link arms and sing against Trident missiles which are still the true monster in the Scottish loch; and anti-Trump demonstrations taking place when the American President insults the people of Scotland, as elsewhere, with his below par versions of truth, except that Scotland is home to two of his golf courses.

There hasn't been a shortage of political theatre in the streets to watch, to listen to, and to photograph. Some views you can understand, some you wince at when you hear them spoken, but the one thing we can be proud of and take from it all, pro- or anti-, is that the people of Scotland are awake.

This picture and others from Jeremy’s series ‘Let Glasgow Flourish’, will be exhibited in the Document Scotland show ‘A Contested Land’ at the Martin Parr Foundation from 16th January until 16th March. After that the show will travel to Perth, Dunoon and Inverness throughout 2019.

The Changing Arctic by Bryan Alexander

These two photographs are of Albina Rocheva, a young native Nenets woman from a Siberian reindeer herding family. The photo of her aged 13 (left), with her pet reindeer calf, I took in 2000 when I stayed with her family at their remote camp on the tundra in the northwest of the Siberian Arctic. The second photo (right), I took in 2017, of her aged 30, in the TV studio where she now works.

Albina might well have followed other members of her family and become a reindeer herder, but instead she went to university and graduated with a degree in civil management. While she was studying at university, she became interested in film making and took a film directing course. Today, she works as a presenter for one of the regional TV companies, where she hosts a weekly program that focuses on issues of the region’s native peoples.

These photographs are from a project that I am currently working on about changes in the cultures of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples. In recent years I have been revisiting some of the Arctic’s native communities that I have photographed in during the past 48 years.

Like many specialised areas of photography, working in the Arctic presents its own set of problems. The cold is the most obvious one, particularly in the winter months. Finding the right equipment that will function well for prolonged periods of time at sub-zero temperatures is challenging, particularly with today’s battery hungry DSLRs. In the days of film and mechanical cameras that functioned on mercury cell batteries, things were relatively straight forward. I once worked outside for an entire day with an old Canon F-1 which was powered by a zinc/air battery, and the temperature never got above -51°Celsius. Generally speaking batteries and extreme cold don’t get on well together. Nowadays, on winter shoots I travel with a bag full of spare camera batteries. They tend not to last long in extreme cold and when I am in remote camps, I usually don’t have access to electricity to recharge them. Most of the time nowadays I use Canon 5D Mk III which generally seem to work pretty down to about -40°Celsius, when they tend to seize up.

Living and travelling with Arctic peoples like the Inuit, Chukchi and Nenets requires that I travel light. I don’t want to weigh their sleds down with heavy gear. Also, their tents and other traditional dwellings tend to be small and sometimes crowded. I try and respect their space as much as possible and leave most of my gear, including my cameras, outside when I am not using them. This also reduces the problem of condensation which you get when you take a very cold camera into a warm tent. There are all kinds of waterproof bags for protecting gear on the market, but I usually keep my camera bag and other gear in large thick black plastic rubbish bags which are inexpensive and work well.

My British Archive, The Way We Were 1968-1983 by Homer Sykes

On Saturday 17 August 1974 I decided that I would go to Southend-on-Sea in Essex and continue a project I was working on about British society, it was there that I found this middle-aged couple with their Austin Cambridge A50 and own deck chairs enjoying a sleepy afternoon in the sun.

I had been out of college for just a couple of years and was very busy making my living working on assignment for the Telegraph Weekend Magazine, New Society, Management Today and a host of other weekly publications, but always I wanted to shoot pictures for myself.

I have been documenting Britain for fifty years, it’s where I grew up, it’s the country I know and love. The Way We Were is not supposed to be a chronicle and comprehensive visual account of the social history of this period, but it is a personal view of ‘life’ that I encountered.

In 1968 I took my first serious photographs. I was a first year photography student at the London College of Printing and Graphic Arts – the LCP. I had moved to London, I was surprised and excited by what I saw. I became aware of a social reality and the political landscape, and I decided to document those aspects that interested me. It was the tail end of the swinging Sixties, the turbulent Seventies were awaiting. My photographs became narrative led as I began to understand the many contradictions that permeate British life; ‘the have and have nots’, the ‘top hat, cloth cap’ characteristics of society that were still very present at the time. I was intrigued by the way people inter-related or didn’t, what they wore - their dress code that marked them out as belonging to a certain class or aspiring to belong to an alternative tribe. I was a flâneur, I hung around on street corners, and made friends with strangers and tried to get myself invited back into their homes, clubs and work places to make more intimate photographs that revealed their lives.

I covered numerous weekend demonstrations, through out this period that pitted one political class, one section of society against another and the government. But always I attempted to get behind the more obvious news image; I was looking for other moments, spontaneous juxtapositions that gave depth and understanding to the demonstrator’s predicaments.

This was the midpoint in Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s 1966 Labour parties term in government. Over the next fifteen years the country was led by Edward Heath, Wilson once more and James Callaghan. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher, a Tory, became Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, she was to usher in another, entirely different era; Thatcherism.

90% of these photographs are taken on a Leica M2 or M3, Tri X film at 400 ASA developed and contacted by Grove Hardy. This was Bert Hardy and Gerry Grove’s darkroom in Waterloo. When Picture Post closed Bert became an advertising photographer and Gerry who printed for Bert at PP set up on their own. In nearly 50 years not a single contact sheet has faded, turned brown or yellow and the negs are exactly as they were when I collected them.

In early December Homer's new book My British Archive, The Way We Were 1968-1983 will be published by Dewi Lewis Publishing. Copies are available here. Please email Homer for details.

Catherine West MP, by Vicki Couchman for '209 Women'

For the ‘209 Women’ project, I was assigned Catherine West, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green. She is the closest female MP to where I live, and from reading her biography, she sounded pretty interesting. As well as speaking five languages including Mandarin, Catherine is a strong supporter of the campaign to remain in the EU and voted against triggering Article 50.

The first time I met Catherine was at a local park where she meets her constituents and incidentally we bumped into Jeremy Corbyn who was exercising there at the same time. This was totally coincidental and when I pointed out that Jezza was in eyesight, we went over to him for a quick chat and a selfie, which seemed appropriate.

After that first meeting, it was tricky to pin down Catherine with her busy parliamentary and personal schedules. I had originally arranged to take her portrait at Hampstead Ponds (in 2017 she established the All-Party Parliamentary Group on swimming), but instead I was invited to meet her at Wood Green Shopping Centre at a LGBTQ meeting where she would be making a speech along with David Lammy MP from neighbouring Tottenham.

I had managed to borrow a medium-format Hasselblad digital camera from the Pro Centre over the weekend so although the location wasn't ideal I had to make it work. I scouted the area to find a suitable spot to take Catherine's photo, as the immediate spaces around the event venue were busy and far too hectic for a portrait. I’m pretty used to thinking on the spot in my daily work and making something from nothing, but I had hoped to be a little more prepared - I would have to take Catherine away from the arranged meeting spot to get anything decent.

After her official speech Catherine obliged and we went on a tour of Wood Green Shopping Centre’s finest car park - thankfully the top floors were not being used so we had no trouble with traffic. The car park, with its spiral exit, is a recognisable building in the heart of Wood Green, so it did have potential for our portrait. The strong sunlight gave an added dimension and graphic element to the image and the shadow cast across her body kept Catherine out of any direct sunlight on her face. It was pretty windy as well, she folded her arms to stop the wind ballooning her dress.

I used a Hasselblad H5D-50, 80mm lens and a Profoto B1 to bounce a little flash off the white paintwork to lift the shadows.

The SS Thistlegorm, by Simon Brown

This single image shows the lower deck cargo as carried on the SS Thistlegorm, a defensively armed merchant ship that was bombed and sunk in Egypt’s Red Sea during the Second World War.

Derived from over 5000 individual images and shot over two dives this ortho photo shows the the densely packed cargo of lorries, fuel tankers and motorbikes as loaded into the ship. The image itself is derived from a technique called photogrammetry – the process of shooting hundreds or thousands of overlapping photographs before using special software to create a scaled and representative 3D model of the subject.

Working inside the wreck and 25m underwater is not without its risks and to shoot the 24,000 images to create a model of the shipwreck and its cargo photographer Simon Brown spent over 13 hours diving the site, with a further 64 days of computer processing time devoted to aligning the images, building the 3D models and textures and creating the derived images such as this one. The master image of the lower deck is scaled at 1mm per pixel and packs an amazing amount of detail into the single image. The SS Thistlegorm is one of the world's most popular dive sites.

This image is to be included in a forthcoming book that Simon has collaborated on, drawing together new research, 3D models and 360 degree videos to present the wreck in a totally new way – the book is due for publication on October the 6th, coinciding with the anniversary of the sinking of the ship. From that date the book should be available from iTunes book store here. More models of the ship can be seen here.

Gecko Feet by Tim Gander

I was asked to produce a set of images as an introduction to the exhibition “Chemistry of Bronze” held at the Black Swan Arts gallery in Frome, Somerset from May to July this year.

The open brief had just one caveat, that the process of lost wax bronze casting would be amply illustrated in the exhibition and I should avoid repeating this.

So I visited the foundry Art of a Fine Nature in Shepton Mallet, where bronzes for the exhibition were being made, and what caught my imagination was the fragments of the ceramic casings and spills of bronze which are a waste by-product of the casting process.

Swept into a skip, normally the waste would end up in landfill, but I spent a couple of hours sifting through the rubble and dust, pulling out pieces I found interesting until I had about 40 of various shapes, sizes and impressions.

I took them home and photographed them against black, presenting them as fragments of fossils or artefacts of great antiquity.

The gecko feet were the first fragments I was shown during my initial visit and they sparked the idea to return to find and photograph more of the beautiful pieces and elevate them from trash to art. The hardest part was finding the feet after they’d been tossed back into the skip at the end of my first visit.

Beautifully printed on photorag paper the prints made a real impact on visitors to the exhibition and are available to purchase as c-type prints. You can see the full set here.

Woman at car boot sale with dogs, Wiggenhall St Germans, Norfolk - by Si Barber

Si Barber is a freelance photographer based in Norfolk.

Albion Rovers, by Iain McLean

Over the past 17 years (on and off) I have been photographing the fans and environment around Scottish League 1 football club Albion Rovers. The last five years in particular have been very fruitful and I have just finished an edit of images from 2013 to April 2018.

The photography is a self-initiated social documentary project about the people who volunteer for the club, as well as the faithful fans, all of whom work together to keep this small community club going. Albion Rovers are based in the Scottish working class town of Coatbridge which is about eight miles east of Glasgow. The town, like many in the area, has its roots in the Industrial Revolution with the main industries being iron works and coal mining, and the legacies of these are still visible in the area. With average gates of around 400, and most locals heading west to support either Celtic or Rangers, the club is frequently in peril but somehow always seem to manage to pull through, although over recent decades there have been various attempts to sell the stadium and ground share with local rivals Airdrie.

In these days of grotesque £500,000+ wages this project can serve as a reminder of grass roots football, its lack of funding and struggle to survive but still doing so with humility and fun. The photographs, I feel, capture the spirit of those involved in running a small club. The stadium will be 100 years old next year and hopefully some of my work will be exhibited in the ground as part of the celebrations.

This picture is one of my personal favourites. It was taken during the League 2 Championship Winners trophy presentation at the game against Arbroath in April 2015 and shows a timeless scene of two wee lads watching the game from outside the ground using missing brickwork as footholds. The project started by shooting on HP5 film which was developed and printed in my shed and the mono theme has remained in order to maintain continuity as well as a nod to the black and white past.

There is a photojournal - 'More Than Just A Football Club' - available in my website shop, and a small gallery of recent pictures here: Albion Rovers series

Malmo Train Station - by Karl Blackwell

It wasn’t very long ago that the world demanded travel guides to accompany them on their travels, and Lonely Planet, Time Out, Rough Guide etc all had juicy budgets for their photography. This was when the vast bulk of my work involved shooting for such clients, on the hoof, in a quite manic manner, effectively hunting for images from dawn till dusk, inside and outside - images that you HAD to find for a very loose brief, but didn’t know if you could find. It was quite exciting.

Since the advent of the smart phone and hence the effective death of the conventional travel guide, most of my photography assignments have involved the careful planning and placing of myriad lights, tripods and so on in specific places at a specific time of the day, and then, when the marketing director seems happy, squeezing the shutter.  So it’s quite refreshing to have a photograph or a shot come to you, the way it used to. I was on holiday with my partner and three-year-old daughter in Copenhagen recently and we’d opted to spend the last half-day just over the bridge in Malmö, Sweden. I had a small kit with me (since we were on holiday!) - just the one body and a handful of decent lenses.

None of Malmö’s sites or monuments particularly grabbed me on this grey day, with the sun nowhere to be seen.  So there we were at Malmö train station just before dusk, about to board the train back to Copenhagen airport for our flight home at the end of the holiday. I noticed some interesting possibilities within the train station itself. There was an instant contrast between the chaos in the colour, lights and patterns in the foreground, and the symmetry in the arches and pillars along the platforms in the background, with random silhouettes of passengers moving up and down these platforms. The huge glass doors in front of me were continually sliding open and closed revealing an ever changing mishmash of reflections… and then the one missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle presented itself ; a train began to slowly enter the station, and as it drew closer its headlights illuminated the tracks and the dark train-front came to life with the reflections of the magazines from the newsagents behind me, giving the picture a collage/decoupage effect.  It became instantly the most satisfying photograph that I’d taken on the entire holiday.

US Presidential Candidate Al Haig bows out of the race for the White House, New Hampshire, February 1988. By Brian Harris

​​The New Hampshire US Presidential Primaries take place every four years and the election results are considered to be the most important indicator of who the next US President is likely to be.

I was covering my first US Presidential campaign in 1988 for The Independent newspaper and as it was an open election without a sitting President there were about a dozen hopefuls from both sides of the political divide. The likes of Republican candidates Bob Dole and Pat Robinson, George HW Bush and Alexander Haig were going head-to -head with Democrats Michael Dukakis and Richard Gephardt, Jessie Jackson and Al Gore as well as many other also-rans. Thirty years ago, you would just phone a candidate's office based in either Concorde or Manchester and get their running order for the day, show up and cover the event. Normally there would be a couple of breakfast meetings from both camps, maybe a mid-morning visit or two to the local fire or police station followed by a lunchtime business meeting with some street work and flesh-pressing in the early afternoon. The big rallies were in the evening and made for TV evening news.

One afternoon after standing in the snow for some hours the Republican Candidate Alexander Haig came up to me and introduced himself…he had found out I was the ‘limey’ photographer and as a bit of an anglophile he was interested in what I was doing and how I found American politics compered to that in the UK. He was very friendly, arm around the shoulder kinda stuff, and he invited me to an evening private house meeting where he said I would get a good story.

The meeting was way out in the ‘boonies’ of snowy New Hampshire, very quiet and intimate, glasses of sherry and canapes…all terribly civilised. I was one of very few press in attendance.

The room went quiet and Haig spoke, quietly and with some emotion as he announced that he was standing down from the White House race and would be supporting George HW Bush instead…and with that he turned on his heels to collect his coat from the lobby with me in close attendance…and that is when I made this one frame, a dejected man having his coat put on for him, bowing out of his one and only grab for White House glory…but what makes the picture for me is his wife is in the background drink in hand seemingly oblivious to what had happened.

Al Haig was the White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Nixon and Ford and Secretary of State under President Regan, and was also Supreme Allied Commander Europe after his military career came to an end. After the attempted assassination of President Regan in 1981, Haig asserted "I am in control here"; except of course he wasn't. All in all, quite a tour de force and potentially a President in the making for real.

For those interested in real-life West Wing shenanigans here is a Wikipedia summary of what happened after Reagan was shot: Following the March 30 assassination attempt on Reagan, Haig asserted before reporters "I am in control here" as a result of Reagan's hospitalization, indicating that, while President Reagan had not "transfer[red] the helm", Haig was in fact directing White House crisis management until Vice President Bush arrived in Washington to assume that role. "Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State in that order, and should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice President, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course." (Alexander Haig, autobiographical profile in Time magazine, April 2, 1984[29]) Haig was incorrect: The US Constitution, including both the presidential line of succession and the 25th Amendment, dictates what happens when a president is incapacitated. The Speaker of the House (at the time, Tip O'Neill, Democrat) and the President pro tempore of the Senate (at the time, Strom Thurmond, Republican), precede the Secretary of State in the line of succession. Haig later clarified: "I wasn't talking about transition. I was talking about the executive branch, who is running the government. That was the question asked. It was not, 'Who is in line should the President die?'" (Alexander Haig, interview with 60 Minutes II April 23, 2001)

I write about my time covering American politics and much more in my book "...and then the Prime Minister hit me"

Winter Paralympics: PyeongChang 2018 - by Soody Ahmad

Assignment: PyeongChang 2018 - Winter Paralympics.
Client: ParalympicsGB

I had been in discussions with ParalympicsGB for a little while, relating to a personal project about disabled sports. During one of the conversations I mentioned that I would be in S. Korea during the Winter Paralympics with my wife, who is from that country. I was informed that they did not have any photographers representing them so this kicked off a dialogue about what could be covered and how things could operate if I were to work for them. Press passes were obtained and a contract agreed. I was to be working alongside another UK-based freelancer, who had experience of working at winter events, something I didn't have. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a couple of events at the Winter Olympics a few weeks beforehand and get a feel of the environment as well as consider the logistics of getting between venues to cover different events. Having a background in project management allowed me to work with the other photographer and arrange what we needed to cover for ParalympicsGB as well as covering a couple of other smaller commissions for the games that we both had.

My main focus was on Alpine Skiing and Curling, where GB had the best chances of medals. These were located at the two extremes of the Paralympics locations so involved lots of driving around. Sat in-between was the Nordic Skiing location. For those not completely familiar with Nordic Skiing, it covers 2 disciplines; Biathlon and Cross-Country. Nordic Skiing was not something that had ever held a big attraction for me, but watching GB's one athlete competing completely changed my perspective. Scott Meenagh was a soldier who whilst on tour in Afghanistan had his lower legs blown off. Only two years after taking up the sport, Scott was competing in his first Winter Paralympics, GB's first representative in twenty years. Watching Scott giving his all against some very seasoned athletes was quite inspiring. Maybe those of us that take photos are not supposed to get emotionally involved, but it was impossible for me as a competitive sportsperson not to cheer him on whilst I took photos of him on the course, after meeting him at a training session a day before the opening ceremony. I was only able to cover two of his six events, and he only had one day off. On both days his efforts saw him collapse over the finishing line.

The shot that is showcased is from the 12.5Km Biathlon event. It involves five laps of an undulating course which gave me a chance to capture images at a few different locations including where he was shooting at five discs on five occasions. For this shot I was standing in the TV gantry just beyond the finish line, surrounded by lots of other photographers with 400mm+ lenses. As Scott came to the line, I had been taking photos using a 200-400 zoom but switched to a wider lens as I wanted to capture the loneliness of it all.

Canon 1Dx. 70mm F2.8 1/8000th.

Vanessa Redgrave and Tariq Ali protest against the Vietnam War, 1968, by John Walmsley

March 17th 2018 will be the 50th anniversary of the anti-Vietnam war demonstration to Grosvenor Square led by Vanessa Redgrave & Tariq Ali. This photograph captures both of them at the head of the protest, with Redgrave holdling the letter later delivered to the US Ambassador. 

In my final year at Guildford School of Art I heard about this big demonstration, borrowed the Department’s 35mm camera, hitched to London and walked at the head from Trafalgar Square to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.  This photo was taken somewhere in Charing Cross Road while the march was halted for a few moments.  It’s been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery twice and is in their Permanent Collection.  It and many others are available as high quality postcards, and this month, Café Royal Books are publishing a book of my photographs of the protest.

Throughout my career I’ve mostly supplied photos to book publishers and government departments.  But the work I’m most proud of are the self-started projects: A.S. Neill and Summerhill School, Dunquin in Co. Kerry, the sit-in at Guildford school of Art, life at the Architectural Association School of Architecture where I was a part-time lecturer for seven years and a big project on repertory theatre (not yet published).
 
Last year I exhibited at the Bluecoat, Liverpool and the Architectural Association, London.  This year there will be two exhibitions in Guildford featuring the sit-in photos.  One at the Museum as part of a number of shows in the south marking the history of democratic protest in the 800 years since the Magna Carta and the other at the Guildford House Gallery with work produced by people who were students or staff at the time of the sit-in with information on how it affected them and their future careers/life.  Plus an exhibition at Liverpool John Moore’s University, details to be confirmed, but probably including my photos of the Liverpool Free School from the 70s.

The Uffington White Horse by Jonathan Webb

Jonathan Webb is a specialist aerial photographer working in Great Britain and Germany. He has published a dozen books on aerial photography and is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society.

New Year's Day in Hastings, by Chris Parker

The Old Town of Hastings is a chocolate-box kind of place to photograph so I was up early to capture the predicted snowfall on New Year's Day 2010. I’ve always admired the unique black net huts situated by the fishing beach at Rock-a-Nore and they provided the perfect background to capture this brief snow flurry.

I guess you could say this was taken as part of my long-term personal project to photograph Hastings throughout the seasons although the Hasting tourism department has regularly commissioned my work when budget allocations allow (increasingly unlikely these days).

When I first began shooting this project, the two wooden fishing boats featured were very much part of the thriving fishing fleet but the ludicrous fishing quotas for small vessels has forced many a fisherman to scrap their boats and become part of the fishing heritage tourist scene. Help may be at hand for the future following the successful MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certification of its plaice, making them the first British fishermen catching certified sustainable plaice in Britain.

Technically, it was pretty straightforward – The metadata records 1/160 at F8 ISO 200.
My camera was mounted on an old Benbo tripod and a large lens hood took care of any stray snowflakes on the lens.

The Sugar Plum Fairy at Chatsworth House, by Paul David Drabble

This image was shot for Chatsworth House. I was contacted by their in-house PR & marketing department in October 2016. They explained that the house is dressed to a different Christmas theme every year and in 2016 it was to be the Nutcracker. The house would be decorated in keeping with the classic Christmas Nutcracker tale and to help bring it all to life there would dancers portraying some of the lead characters like The Sugar Plum Fairy, Clara, The Prince and others.

The press launch was on the 4th of November before opening to the public opening the following day. As Chatsworth pulls in over 100,000 Visitors during the Christmas season I was somewhat excited and a little surprised that the opportunity had come my way to shoot the opening for them.

On the day things didn't quite go to plan for me. Everything seemed fine at first, but I began having problems with intermittent flash - sometimes it would fire, sometimes not, and sometimes it would just kick out a full power flash. Some rooms used as locations had lovely natural lighting, but in others there was a definite need for at least a burst of fill flash to lift the shadows. As I had only one flashgun with me the obvious step was to try my spare body but the problem persisted. I managed to work out that the flash would work pretty reliably if the camera was held to shoot a landscape format image, but it would often fail when composing an upright. At least working that out left me with a few techniques to maximise my success rate - keep the flash gun on one body and shoot mainly landscape with it, and when shooting uprights use available light, try to stick with shorter faster lenses and get closer, push the ISO up, shoot on continuous high speed, to increase the chance of catching a pause in any movement if the shutter speeds are too low to actually freeze it, and shoot in RAW which might help if I needed to try to rescue an image in post.

This shot is one of the earlier ones from the photocall, showing the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Painted Hall against the backdrop of one of the giant Chatsworth House Christmas trees. It was hand-held at the 80mm end of a Nikon 80-200. ISO1600 f4.5 1/40 sec. The ballerina went through three or four different poses for the photographers, holding each pose for a few seconds, a number of times. This was one of those poses. Was I lucky or did I maximise my chances of success with experience and techniques? I like to think the latter but you could argue I should also have been carnying a spare speed-light.

Frestonia, 1981. Putting the front door back after a police raid based on mistaken identity. By Tony Sleep

Tony Sleep lived in Frestonia 1974-82, where he was a Minister of State for, he thinks, the Arts. He spent the last 40 years, mostly working on commission for magazines, housing groups and charities. He is one of the moderators, and a member of EPUK since 1999.

Photographing Polar Bears in Canada, by Stuart Forster

Stuart Forster is a freelance photographer based in the north-east of England. In addition to taking on editorial assignments he photographs food and travel. His work has been published in national newspapers, plus publications such as National Geographic Traveller and The Grocer. He regularly posts travel stories on his blog, Go Eat Do.

The Refugee Crisis, by Antonio Olmos

In September 2015 I was sent by the Guardian to cover the refugee crisis in the Balkans. I started by going to Budapest where thousands of refugees were stranded around the Main Train Station after the Hungarian government closed the borders.

I was sitting in London kinda depressed I wasn’t covering the biggest story of the day when the phone call came. And when I arrived I wasn’t prepared for the scale of the numbers of people involved. I am an immigrant twice over. As a teenager I went to the United States and then I came to the UK where I have lived over 20 years. So I am very sympathetic to the plight of refugees regardless of why they chose to make the journey. The vast majority where Syrians fleeing the civil war in their own country but they were joined by many Afghans and Iraqis. Occasionally we even saw Africans who somehow avoided the Mediterranean route. After a week the Hungarians eventually decided that Budapest couldn’t handle so many people stranded so they opened the border. Patrick Kingsley and I then moved south to document the flow into Hungary from Serbia. The Hungarians decided to build a fence and we watched as thousands made their way along abandoned railway tracks before they were prevented from crossing.

As the refugees moved north we moved south, covering the migrant trail from Serbia all the way down to the Greek border with Macedonia. The sheer numbers of people on the move was truly biblical. I felt unable to make an image that grasped the scale of what I was witnessing. The image you are seeing was taken on my last day after a month of non-stop reporting. I was photographing thousands of people waiting for a train to take them out of the Greek-Macedonian crossing at Gevgelija. It had rained heavily the whole day and everyone was drenched including myself. I could see that no matter how hard I tried to keep my cameras dry I was losing the battle and they kept turning off and failing when they were on. I saw a little Syrian boy crying from the misery he and his family were enduring as they tried to get to Germany. My cameras went dead soon after I made the image. And soon after that some Macedonian police tried to arrest me and confiscate my gear. They wanted to see the images I had made and of course I couldn’t get the cameras to work to show them. Finally I gave them empty Compact Flash cards to satisfy them. They believed I was making their country look bad. Back in the hotel my cameras came back on. They still work to this day. I was done regardless and soon headed to catch a plane back to London. I am still extremely grateful I had the opportunity to document the crisis. I really hated leaving and going back to London.

Salcombe, South Devon by Justin Foulkes

Previously an art director working predominantly in the travel sector, Justin Foulkes decided he could no longer keep a lid on his passion for photography and in 2007 embarked on a life as a freelance travel photographer.

Cricket, and Making Stock Imagery Work, by Stephen Shepherd

Stephen Shepherd has been based in Gloucestershire since 2002 moving there from London after nine years at The Daily Telegraph. He now works for corporate and marketing clients in the South West as well as in education and for design groups. He still undertakes commissions for the national press including The Guardian & Observer, The Times and the TES.

Photographing the National Front, by David Hoffman

David Hoffman specialises in social issues photography.

Motivated by documenting what's become increasingly overt state constraint on our lives, I've spent some 40 years documenting a range of social issues from policing and racial and social conflict to homelessness drugs, poverty and exclusion. Protest, and the violence that sometimes accompanies it, is the theme that stitches my work together.

Editorial photography is an increasingly beleaguered profession. The erosion of press freedom, ever more intrusive policing and the undermining of copyright have created a perfect storm of obstacles. As a founding member of EPUK and Photo-Forum London, I'm now working on a very different front line. Engaging with regulatory bodies, collecting societies, the NUJ, the British Photographic Council and other UK photographic organisations as well as with commercial services protecting copyright, is the best way I can see to achieve a supportive ecology for professional photography and build a sustainable future for editorial photography.

'Dance' - Beltane and Paganism, by Simon Crofts

Simon Crofts is a freelance photographer living in Edinburgh who photographs in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union. He studied law at Oxford. He moved to Moscow at the time of its transformation from socialism into wild capitalism, and later became a photographer and lived in Poland for six years, where he met his wife, fellow photographer Sylwia Kowalczyk.

Shooting for Cloth Magazine, by Amanda Thomas

Amanda Thomas is a fashion and portrait photographer working in both London and Bristol. She loves working with sustainable fashion brands and individuals, using creative photography to elevate an emotional connection with style and purpose. Having begun shooting in 1998, she recently celebrated 18 years in the industry. Her work is a hybrid of fine art and editorial styles as she likes to curate an idea and build on it so its fits in with the person and brief. Thomas recently worked with The Princes Trust, giving a talk about her work and the industry, along with a workshop about portraiture. It was sponsored by Huawei in connection with The Saatchi Gallery and their new exhibition ‘Selfie to Self Expression' which has recently launched.

Melak, Piraeus, Athens from the ongoing series ‘Hate Hurts’ by photojournalist Cinzia D’Ambrosi

Cinzia D'Ambrosi is an Italian photojournalist and documentary photographer based in London. Her photo stories have exposed issues of marginalization, poverty and economic oppression in China, the Balkans and Western Europe. Her work has been widely published, including by Amnesty International, Huffington Post, Vice, the New Internationalist, Witness, the BBC and commissioned by Save the Children, Shelter, West London Zone and 4in10 to name a few. Her work has received recognition from the Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese, Arts Council, nominated by the publisher Dewi Lewis and in the permanent collection of the Hellenic Centre for Photography in Athens, Greece. Her current and ongoing photo project ‘Hate Hurts’ brings to light stories from refugees and victims of hate crimes. If you would like to know more, or to support or endorse this project in any way, please email dambrosi.cinzia@gmail.com. To see more of Hate Hurts click here.

The Bell Foundry by Rob Scott, from Crafted in Britain: Britain’s Surviving Traditional Industries

After graduating from York University Rob Scott took a job as a research biochemist at Bristol University but soon realised that he was more interested in exploring the world than spending a life in laboratories. While planning his departure for travelling, he found a bag of old camera gear that his brother had bought from Oxfam for £50. It contained a Nikon SP rangefinder along with 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 135mm lenses. By happy chance, it was a true photojournalist's bag of kit, and in exceptional condition.

Although he hadn't taken a picture since he was six years old, he was instantly addicted and within months left the country with the camera and photography at the centre of his plans. Two years later, after being hospitalised for typhoid in the Himalayas and dengue fever in Singapore, and having had all the camera gear stolen in the jungles of Sumatra and replaced by insurance in Sydney, he arrived in the town of Kununara in the wild Kimberley region of north-western Australia. He picked up work for an Australian freesheet, and after achieving his first front page, of a competitor being gored by a bull in a rodeo, he decided to return to Britain. For the next decade he freelanced in London, Bristol and around the country, covering political issues such as the miners' strike and the anti-apartheid movement, as well as carrying out magazine portrait work, particularly for the music press.

In the early 1990s, after a year working on environmental stories in South America, he became chief photographer and manger of one of the largest editorial photo studios in the country, carrying out commissioned work for more than a hundred specialist magazines. Rob returned to freelancing in 2010 and has been working on 'Crafted in Britain: Britain’s Surviving Traditional Industries', along with other commissioned work since then.

Fireworks for Admiral Nelson, by Patrick Eden

Patrick Eden has been a full time photographer since 1985. Sailing features highly in his portfolio due to his location in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, his birthplace. Patrick has also worked in India, the Caribbean and the US shooting a wide variety of assignments from editorial, sport and travel to advertising and aerial.

A small print run book of his early black and white documentary work on the Isle of Wight was published in 2015, with an accompanying exhibition.

Northern Lights over the mountains surrounding Reinefjord, Lofoten Islands, Norway (March 2012) by Rudolf Abraham

Rudolf Abraham is a freelance travel and documentary photographer and writer specialising in central and southeast Europe. He is the author of ten books and his work is published widely in magazines.

360 degrees of Leckhampton Hill in autumnal virtual reality, by Stephen Shepherd

Stephen Shepherd started working as a national press photographer at the features picture desk of The Daily Telegraph, shooting the usual weekend supplement imagery, such as portraits and features. For over nine years he worked there on a freelance basis as well as shooting for a variety of business publications, consumer magazines and corporate clients.  He then moved to Glouchestershire and has been based there for the past ten years while continuing to work in London for few days a month.

His current portfolio includes VR work, library shoots, commissioned work in education, press and in industry, and his clients include The Times Educational Supplement, Guardian & Observer, The Times, and The Express, in addition to corporate clients.

Conversations with my mother, by Jessa Fairbrother

After a degree in English, studying at drama school and then working as a journalist and lecturer in photography, Jessa Fairbrother completed an MA in Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster in 2010. She used this as a springboard to concentrate on yearning and performance meeting each other in photography.

These varied experiences informed her move towards an increasingly interdisciplinary approach to making work. She has gradually shifted from appearing within the image as its main subject to additionally embellishing the photograph’s surface after the event. The familiar and personal are her starting points, while recurring behaviours shaped by memory, role-play and visual consumption make repeated appearances in long term projects.

Publications include Spot magazine, Telephoto, Eyemazing, .Cent magazine and Blown. Awards include a travel bursary from a-n The Artist Information Company, UK (2016), the Genesis Imaging Award, Format Festival, UK (2013) and honourable mentions from PX3, Paris (2014) and Flash Forward, Canada (2009).

In 2004 her long term project on memorial benches in Pembrokeshire was supported by a grant from the Arts Council of Wales. Her work is held in the libraries of both the V&A Museum, London and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the permanent collection of the NHS, and numerous private collections. Jessa’s work is currently on show in Handmade III at Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna. Conversations with my mother is a limited edition artist book available to view online here. The dummy was recently on display as part of the First/Dummy Books table from Photobook Bristol at Gazebook Festival, Sicily. In 2016 she was awarded a bursary by a-n The Artist Information Company to enable her to travel to New York where she has been invited to speak about Conversations with my mother this month.

Life goes on... The Promenade Des Anglais, Nice - by Andy Hall

Andy Hall is a London-based freelance photographer with over 25 years of experience. His wide-ranging commissions has seen his work appear in numerous newspapers and magazines including the Observer, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Times, Newsweek, GQ, Red Bulletin magazine and Der Speigel.

 

The cashier in the Indian Coffee House in Nagpur, India by Stuart Freedman, from The Palaces of Memory - Tales from the Indian Coffee House

Stuart Freedman is a photographer and writer based between London and New Delhi. A member of Panos Pictures he has, over the last two decades, covered stories from Albania to Zambia. His work has appeared in, amongst others, Life, Geo, Time, The Sunday Times magazine, Der Spiegel, Condé Nast Traveller and Smithsonian. He has been exhibited widely and his work has received recognition from Amnesty International, POYi, World Sports Photo, The AOP, The RPS, UNICEF and the World Press Masterclass.

His new book, The Palaces of Memory - Tales from the Indian Coffee House (introduction by Amit Chaudhuri) was a finalist for best photography book 2016 at POYi and is available from Dewi Lewis or signed, directly from the author by emailing mail@stuartfreedman.com.
 

Dunquin, Co Kerry, Ireland 1967, by John Walmsley

John Walmsley studied photography at Guildford School of Art between 1965-68.  His final year project on A.S. Neill and his democratic school, Summerhill, was published by Penguin Books in 1969. John has always been a freelance photographer, working for textbook publishers, government departments and charities amongs others. Most of what he considers his best work was self-started and self-funded, including many books with the writer Leila Berg - making the work simply because it was interesting. For several years in the 1970s John was a Fellow of the Digswell Arts Trust, living with other artists and running public photography classes whilst also being a part-time lecturer at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London during its most vibrant period. 

John's current exhibition ‘The 60s and 70s in B&W’ will be open at Guildford Museum from 2nd July to 10th September (closed Sundays) and covers the sit-in at Guildford School of Art, the Grosvenor Square anti-Vietnam war rally, the Liverpool Free School, Summerhill and much more.

To coincide with the exhibition, John is publishing a set of 26 postcards which are available from his website here: www.walmsleyblackandwhite.com

The Night Manager, by Des Willie

Des Willie has been a photographer for twenty years working in film and TV but also in development, editorial and design. He lives in London and will just about work for food.

Patricia Glennie on her hill farm, Lauder, The Scottish Borders, April 2013. From the series Drawn To The Land

 

North Sea Surf, by Duncan Elliott

Multiple Exposure Flamenco by Leo Mason

Dale Vince, by Stephen Shepherd

Stephen Shepherd started work as a press photographer at The Daily Telegraph after moving to London from Oxfordshire.

I had a finite amount of money when I moved to London and hoped to get work with the national press. The money was rapidly running out when after about four months I finally got a commission from the features desk at The Daily Telegraph. I recall I was so keen to get it right I went back on two separate days to shoot it. Something that now would take an hour or so, had six hours lavished on it. However, I must have done something right as that job kickstarted my life as a freelance photographer and for the next nine years I was more or less staff at the paper working 4 or 5 days a week shooting everything from celebrity portraits, weekend page features and Op Ed commissions to the paper's famous “Pet of the week” and “My Mantelpiece” features.

Relocating to Gloucestershire some twelve years ago, I found that I had to diversify and create markets that were not solely based around the press photography I had been used to. Having had some success working for business clients during my last few years in London I began to nurture more contacts in this area, developing a client base who require creative reportage style photography for their marketing, branding, reports etc. I am now commissioned through various design groups as well as directly by clients to bring the skills I learnt as a press photographer into factories, on to construction sites, to work behind the scenes on corporate video shoots etc. My perfect commission is to work on location for a client who has the confidence to allow you free reign, to be able create a body of work that evolves through the day and to be able to develop a narrative in the work often from unexpected and unplanned scenarios or snatched opportunities.

Matthew Bourne's 25-year retrospective by Jane Hobson

Following a successful career in advertising on the strategic side of things (latterly Strategy Partner running the London office of a network agency) Jane Hobson returned to education to pursue a photography degree in 2008.  Finding herself under-stimulated by the course, she worked as an arts and entertainment photojournalist in parallel, as well as practically living with the drama and dance departments in the theatre next door. Having graduated and, drawing heavily from past business experience, she hit the ground running and continued to attend press photocalls within the performing arts. Jane is widely published in the national and international press, her client base for commissioned arts work steadily growing as a result of awareness of her published work.Her cherished clients include Sadlers Wells, National Youth Dance Company, Barbican, and Richard Alston Dance Company. Based in London and Edinburgh, she can usually be found (or not, as she tends to wear head-to-toe black so as to be unobtrusive in the auditorium) in a theatre, with occasional forays into the studio.

Christmas Eve by Patrick Eden

Anne (2013) by Ian Essendon

The Common Ridings in the Scottish Borders, photographed by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert -the Three Brethen Cairns Summit

Royal Burgh Standard Bearer Martin Rodgerson and his Burleymen attendants, arrive at the Three Brethren cairns summit, to check the boundaries of the lands, during the Common Riding festivities in Selkirk, Scotland, Friday 14th June 2013.

Robert the Fire-Proofer, from Iain McLean's St Vincent Plaza project

Boats' Bottoms by Rob Wilkinson

Once in a lifetime: eclipse of the sun on the Faroe Islands, by Michael Harvey

The tyre fire you could see from space - Mark Readman, 2014

At 8:37 am on 16h January 2014 the North Yorkshire Fire Service received a report that Britain's largest waste tyre recycling site at Sherburn was alight.

Terracing the land in Tigray - Neil Cooper, 1990

This woman is terracing land to prevent soil erosion. I photographed her in Tigray, Ethiopia while documenting a food-for-work scheme funded by a number of UK charities.

On board the Mariquita - Graham Snook, 2008

This photo of the hundred-year-old Mariquita was taken during one of the most memorable and enjoyable days I had in fourteen years at IPC. I worked for the magazine Yachting Monthly but was often seconded to other publications in IPC’s marine division, on this occasion to Yachting World.

Begoña Cao, ballerina - Nigel Hillier, 2008

This portrait of Begoña Cao, principal ballerina with the English National Ballet, was commissioned by The Independent.

Reinterment of British Soldiers, Loos, France - Brian Harris, 2014

I have been photographing WWI and WWII Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries since my first visit to Tyne Cot in Belgium on a school trip in 1969. During my time on The Times and The Independent I covered many stories involving veterans visiting the cemeteries, sadly no more. In 2006-7 I photographed the 'Remembered' project for the CWGC culminating in a wonderful book and a series of exhibitions which toured world wide.

The Burryman – Drew Farrell, 2011

This is ‘The Burryman’. The origins of his annual procession through the town of Queensferry, near Edinburgh are lost in antiquity although we do know the tradition has remained largely unaltered since the last Battle of Falkirk in 1746.

Crisis at Christmas - David Hoffman, 1977

I found many homeless and lost people at Crisis who I already knew from St Botolphs’ and that made the work easier. It was crowded, often threatening and violent, often tearful and desperate – chaotic, unregulated and unexpectedly inspirational in its atmosphere of mutual acceptance and support.

Body Art - Michael Wharley, 2012

This picture was taken on an editorial commission in 2012. One of my regular collaborators, body art and makeup specialist Chris Dennis, was being profiled in an edition of the body art-focused US publication Illusion, and he asked me to shoot the job. That meant trying to squeeze four shoots into one day, achieving very different full-body makeup looks with four separate models in a simple on-location studio, working closely with a hair stylist, Peter Dragijevic, and Chris’ team of six assistants.

Road Kill - Stephen Shepherd, 2013

This picture of a squirrel’s tail is one of a series of road kill pictures that I took after coming across the body of a Muntjac deer whilst driving in the Cotswolds.

Bahadar Khan Zada School, Pakistan - Richard Hanson, 2011

In the summer of 2010, much of central and southern Pakistan suffered devastating flooding of the Indus River due to abnormally heavy monsoon rain in the northern part of the country. A Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal was launched, and raised more than £60 million. I was commissioned by Tearfund, a DEC member NGO, to report on the situation a year later as relief supplies and rebuilding projects were well underway.

Soveria, Corsica - Peter and Georgina Bowater, 2004

The original photograph from which this Photoshopped image comes was taken back in 2004 when our commissioned work was declining and stock sales provided the main part of our income.

JP Morgan Round the Island Race - Patrick Eden, 2014

This picture was taken on 21 June during the JP Morgan Round the Island Race. An annual event on the Isle of Wight since 1931, the race now attracts up to 1,700 boats and around 16,000 sailors, who sail in an anti-clockwise direction round the island. The starts are staggered over about an hour and are dictated by the class and size of the boats.

Princess Diana, Kuwait - David Levenson, 1989

It was a balmy early evening in Kuwait in March 1989 when Princess Diana stepped off of the royal plane with Prince Charles.

Submerged Wessex helicopter - Simon Brown, 2011

After nearly 40 years of service with the RAF, this Westland Wessex now resides in the bottom of the National Diving and Activity Centre near Chepstow.

Farmer at Standerwick Livestock Market - Tim Gander, 2011

This is one of a series of photos taken as part of a personal project, Standerwick Market, which I started in 2011. At the time, work was very slow and I needed to keep shooting, challenge my skills and find something which interested me.

Weaned piglets in a pen - Peter Dean, 2011

This photograph of piglets came out of a commission from the animal feed company Danisco, a subsidiary of Dupont. Occasionally a client won’t know exactly the image they want until they see it. Typically they are looking for something different to be used exclusively for a set period of time. This was one of those occasions.

Rijeka Carnival, Croatia - Rudolf Abraham, 2012

This image was taken during the main procession of the wild and wonderful Rijeka Carnival in Croatia. Held on the last Sunday before Lent, this is one of the largest Shrovetide Carnival processions in Europe – an enormous event with up to 10,000 participants from up to 100 carnival groups, and well over 100,000 spectators.

Agnes Vincze, Illustrator - Mariann Fercsik, 2012

This is a portrait of the illustrator Agnes Vincze who originally commissioned me to photograph her nude.

Timber Wolf, Austria - Louise Murray, 2013

I waited two years for this shot. I needed snow in Austria where the Wolf Science Centre is located at a time I was available. In January it all came together perfectly. This was a self-funded project to add the winter dimension to a commissioned summer shoot that I had done the previous year for Flipside magazine. The resulting portfolio of images with my text describing research at the centre has since been syndicated globally.

Journey to Safety Refugee Project, Red Cross - Rob Johns, 2006

The small, brightly coloured, plastic object in the photograph looks innocuous enough but is in fact, a lethal military weapon. Used by the Russian army, the PFM-1, anti-infantry high-explosive mine, also known as a ‘butterfly mine,’ was scattered from helicopters and from artillery during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Flagship of the Aral Sea fishing fleet - Bjorn Holland, 2008

This is the Karakalpakstan once the flagship of the Aral Sea fishing fleet. She was named after the north-western autonomous republic of Uzbekistan.

Musical MoCap - James King-Holmes, 2011

Why showcase an image that doesn’t look like a photograph?

Viper's Bugloss in flower - Geoff Doré, 1983

On my way back south from Scotland, where I’d been working for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, I stopped off in Northumberland to visit Holy Island and Lindisfarne Castle and take some stock photographs. It was 1983 and, in response to photolibrary needs, I’d forayed into medium format and bought a Mamyia C220 which I intended using mainly for landscape photography.

Funeral of a Deputy Sheriff, Louisiana - Charlie Varley, 2012

At five-o’clock on the morning of 16 August 2012 a Deputy Sheriff working a traffic detail in LaPlace, Louisiana, was shot and seriously injured by assailants unknown.

Stockings and tights - Andre Regini, 2005

This was a one of those challenging shoots I enjoy putting together. The production was for a demanding client, an Austrian living in the UK who’s company was importing hosiery from Austria. The parent company had been sold and all their marketing collateral had been withdrawn, so the shoot was needed to replace a large range of images.

Irish Tinkers - Janine Wiedel, 1970s

These photographs come from Irish Tinkers: A Portrait of Irish Travellers in the 1970s, my newly released iBook which is a remake of the original publication which followed on from an exhibition of my work at the Photographers Gallery in 1976.

@deedeesvintage, Dalston - Travis Hodges, 2011

This image is from a project exploring social networking. I had been resisting joining Twitter and finally signed up with a promise to make something creative of the experience. I was interested in the way that friendships and networks develop through social media and decided to explore this process by photographing a series of these connections.

Almond tree in flower near Chio, Tenerife - Phil Crean, 2012

Every spring almond trees blossom on the hills near my home in Tenerife, and every year I’m drawn to photograph them. Some of the images are licensed through the stock agency Alamy and some I’ve sold as prints, but the real incentive is to savour the spring sunshine and capture what I love about the landscape of the island. It has become a small, annual, part of my documentation of places, events and traditions of Las Islas Canarias.

Black Hawk down, Mogadishu, Somalia - Theodore Liasi, 1994

I have travelled to Somalia several times over the years since 1994, the last time was in 2007 when I found the situation to be as anarchic as my very first trip. Somalia has always been a special place for me as it was the genesis of my career in photojournalism after several years working in Italy living La Dolce Vita for ABC News and Reuters.

Lost Trawlerman's Day, Hull - Sean Spencer, 2008

Every year a commemorative service is held on the docks in Hull to remember the 6,000 trawlermen from the city who have died at sea over the last one hundred years.

Winter at Avebury Henge, Wiltshire - Bob Croxford, 2003

I have been running my own self-publishing business since 1984. Nothing very special, just landscapes of the west country. I started a series of small, postcard sized books in 2001 and a couple of years later did The Landscape of Avebury.

Rag-picker Patti Das and his child - Stuart Freedman, Delhi, 2011

I have, on and off for the last few years, been making work in Delhi about those people that find themselves outside the tiny bubble of wealth that is, according to the advertising, modern India. Delhi was once a sleepy bureaucratic cousin to Mumbai but is now an island of ostentatious wealth floating on a sea of mediaeval squalor. Slum clearances are set against fairy-tale prices for real-estate and the city is viciously segregated between those that have wealth and those that produce it.

Ballet dancers, Lvov, Ukraine - Simon Crofts, 2009

Dancing the Night Away is an ongoing personal work about the Russian ballet tradition in Eastern Europe. This picture was taken during a concert of Don Quixote at the Lvov Ballet in Ukraine.

Clydeside - Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, 1993

A few years before I took this photograph a fellow student at college got a shot of the River Clyde during a ship launch. The image greatly impressed me – the view of Glasgow, the ship and thousands of pigeons taking flight because of the noise. I wanted a photograph like that.

Gardeners' hands - Paul Debois, 2008-9

‘43 Gardeners’ Hands’ is a series of portraits of some of the UK’s best known gardeners, focused on just their hands. They were inspired by the fantastic working collages from the 1920s, of botanical photographer Karl Blossfeldt. His work is almost anatomical and I wanted to produce a series of images that turned each pair of hands into a botanical specimen, reversing the effect of his work.

Masked protester attacks policeman, London - Jules Mattsson, 2011

I’ve always been interested in documenting political news, and have photographed protest movements in the UK and elsewhere since before I became professional in 2010.

Jumping model, Cape Town - Henry Arden, 2008

This image of a jumping model was produced after I decided to stay on and take some stock photographs at the end of a catalogue shoot in Cape Town. In the past magazines would have commissioned their own health and beauty pictures, but now they mostly buy from agencies like Cultúra Creative who I have been supplying for four years.

Cornelius Cardew, composer - John Walmsley, 1970

Cornelius Cardew was an avant-garde composer and performer with a day job at a publisher. We took some pictures on the publisher’s roof and then went to Cardew’s favourite cafe around the corner. It was 1970 and I simply don’t remember who commissioned the shoot.

Physiotherapy following hip operation - Helen Stone, 1990

I’ve always been interested in photography of health issues. Since I left school my only jobs not photo-related have been in health or hospitals. This was one of my first commercially viable images after I left college.

Aerial view of Cologne cathedral at night - Jonathan Webb, 2008

Shooting night photography is quite a challenge. Normally one would use a long exposure and a tripod, however from a moving flying machine this is not possible. Even a helicopter hovering in mid air has a significant amount of movement.

Demonstration against women's rights legislation, Kanchpur, Bangladesh - A.M. Ahad, 2011

When a number of Islamic political groups staged a nationwide strike in Bangladesh to protest against government approval of women’s rights legislation in April 2011, my job as a photojournalist was to produce a photograph that illustrated the division in society.

The Blue Dragon at the Barbican - Bettina Strenske, 2011

When we attended the photocall for Robert Lepage’s project “The Blue Dragon” at the Barbican Theatre in London, we were given the standard three scenes to shoot, but shooting that day was particularly tricky as Lepage used a mixture of back and front projection which meant the theatre’s lighting levels could not be adjusted for the photocall.

The Sacred Tattoos of Thailand - Dan White, 2010

In Thailand and the surrounding countries, a parallel realm of the spirits provide powerful, everyday companions to mortal man. Many see the wearing of a certain kind of tattoo as a way of tapping into the power that comes from that world.

Russian Orthodox faithful at prayer - Mike Usiskin, 2001

This image was shot while on a commission to document the White Russian community here in the UK. The White Russians, as they call themselves are those whose families fled the Communist powers in the early years of the Soviet state. However they now include many recent immigrants.

Frank Stone captures the 21st Panzer Division in Northallerton - Paul David Drabble, 2011

Professional photography has led me to take up the strange and sometimes surreal hobby of World War Two reenacting. Earlier this year a friend of mine who is a reenactor with a German Unit, the 21st Panzer Division, helped organise the Nothallerton Wartime Weekend, with money raised going to four charities.

Sir Paul Stephenson becomes Commissioner of The Metropolitan Police Force - Neil Turner, 2009

The Metropolitan Police has an in-house magazine called The Job and I was asked to shoot two sets of pictures of Sir Paul Stephenson for it when he became the new Commissioner in February 2009. The first set were portraits in his office and the second was of his address to a meeting of rank and file officers at the Methodist Central Hall in London the following morning.

Dance For All, South Africa - Lynn Hilton, 2007

This photograph of a young ballerina was taken in South Africa in 2007. It was one of several personal projects I undertook during an eight-week trip to the Western Cape.

Eric Edwards, reed cutter - Jason Bye, 1998

I chose to become a photographer after seeing a TV documentary about Brian Harris photographing Sizewell Nuclear Power Station for The Independent in the early 1990’s. I started working at weekends in the darkroom of the East Anglian Daily Times and eventually went to Stradbroke College in Sheffield for the NCTJ course in Photojournalism, under the auspices of Paul Delmar.

Tilda Swinton, Edinburgh - Geraint Lewis, 2001

The Independent commissioned me to photograph Tilda Swinton at the 2001 Edinburgh Film Festival. She was promoting the film The Deep End at one of the city hotels. I arrived early to set up and saw her being photographed for Time Out. She looked amazing in a beautiful pale blue suit with that unique look of hers, a look I was hoping to capture. When the Time Out shoot ended she went upstairs to change.

Eric Boateng, Delaware, USA - David Brabyn, 2005

This shot of Eric Boateng training alone in his school gym was taken during a two-day self-assignment following the British basketball prodigy around in his daily life.

Julie, sex worker, Bradford - Si Barber, 2010

This is one of a series of pictures of street prostitutes working in Bradford, West Yorkshire. They are intended to show what kerb-crawlers encounter before deciding to part with their cash.

Winter doe - Nick McGowan-Lowe, 2009

I’m lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland, surrounded by forests teeming with wildlife. This photograph was taken barely a mile from my village, but in a wood so isolated hardly anyone else visits it. My eight year old son is an avid bone collector, and we spend a lot of enjoyable time together in the forests and hills around our village, with him tracking the red and roe deer herds, and me with a 600mm on my shoulder.

The River - Lottie Davies

‘The River’ is from my series Memories and Nightmares, which are images inspired by stories of early childhood memories and nightmares which I’ve collected. This one, from my friend Kate, was particularly odd, and although it demanded some very specific elements I was determined to shoot it.

Former Child Soldier, Sri Lanka - David White, 2005

This photograph was taken in 2005 in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. There was a ceasefire in the Sri Lankan civil war and I had been commissioned by a glossy magazine to photograph recuperating child soldiers, children who had originally been kidnapped by the LTTE and made to fight.

Penal Colony Number One - Jeremy Nicholl, 2004

This was shot in 2004 for Der Spiegel. We were doing a story on how the Uzbek state was using the USA’s war on terror as a means to control its own population under the guise of fighting Islamic extremism. The Uzbeks gave us access to the prison to interview a supposed local Al Qaeda leader. That was of course a deadly dull picture shot during the interview, but after some persuasion they let me wander around the prison, although they kept a close eye on me.

Appleby Horse Fair - Steve Franck, 2010

I first heard about the Appleby Horse Fair when a photographer friend showed me some of her work. I was struck by the actual and metaphorical colour of the people and the fair. It dates back hundreds of years and enjoys Royal Charter status, ensuring that gypsies and travellers return to Cumbria every year to trade horses and meet up with family and friends.

Sulphur factory, Inner Mongolia - Mike Goldwater, 2007

Liang Yan Fa carries baskets of sifted coal to Yang Gui Hai to add to the fire at their make-shift sulphur factory in the middle of the Wuda coal field, Inner Mongolia.

Making Petrol Bombs, Belfast - Homer Sykes

During the 1980s I covered the ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland on assignment for both Newsweek and Time magazine.

Gymnasts - Eileen Langsley, 2002

This photograph has sold as a poster and for greeting cards with the words ‘Thanks for being there’ and ‘Thanks for your support’.

The Cider Makers - Graham Trott, 2008

In the photograph above, Frank and his friend Paul return from apple-picking, late afternoon, in the winter sunshine. It was shot from the hip, while walking backwards, with an aperture of f1.4, so I suppose it is also a bit of a lucky shot – few of the other frames worked as well. The shallow depth of field lends a certain 3D quality to the image, and the harsh shadows and deep blue sky serve to enhance the look.

Sisters of perpetual indulgence – David Hoffman, 2010

Saint Valentines day at Westminster Abbey. Sister Angel Popstitute, having lightly groped me while presenting me with a pack of condoms, lube and mints, poses with other Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Thelma wants to come in from the cold– Brian Harris, 2008

Our cat – one of two – Thelma, mewing at the window asking to be let in from the cold snowy conditions outside.

Living with Wolfie - Tamany Baker, 2007

The series documents my response to the ‘presents’ that Wolfie, my beloved cat, brings into the home. At first, I experienced some kind of horror: these dead creatures waiting for me in different parts of my house.

Greek Ampitheatre, Italy – Matthew Ashton, 2002

Jim Kerr, the lead singer of Simple Minds had moved to live in Taormina, a small town in Sicily, Italy. With his wealth he could live anywhere and I questioned him on his choice of home. Being typical Jim, he replied, “Come and discover for yourself”, and so being typical me, I did.

Pensioners strike back – Paula Geraghty, 2008

Ireland does not have a free universal health care system. A number of years ago a free universal health care also known as the Medical Card was introduced for everyone over 70 years of age.

'Glow' by the Australian Dance Company Chunky Move – Matthew Andrews, 2008

In most conventional works that use projection lighting, the dancers position and timing have to be completely fixed to the time line of the video playback.

A bombed building in the Southern city of Sderot Israel – Tal Cohen, 2008

This picture was taken last year during a day of Israeli army operation in Gaza, when rockets from Gaza landed all over the Southern cities in Israel.

Sara Maitland – Martin Hunter, 2008

Sara Maitland had written a book on silence, based on her experiences in a variety of isolated locations. This picture pretty much got where I wanted to go with the shoot – wild, romantic landscape, theatrically lit.

"Reflecting on Old Times" Isle of Anglesey – Glyn Davies, 2007

I seem to remember that as a child there were many more derelict old barns, buildings and structures than can be found these days. With the construction of ever bigger and faster roads, the pressure on this rural island of Anglesey to accommodate increasing numbers of visitors is changing the face of our past.

Bob Wiltfong, Edinburgh – Mike Pinches, 2003

Bob Wiltfong is an American comedian who was performing at the Edinburgh Fringe when I was working on a Festival paper there.

Symmetrical landscape – Robert Wilkinson, 2007

This is part of a personal project that I started called ‘Sea & Symmetry’.

Anti-capitalist protest – Terence Bunch, 2008

An anti-capitalist protester is held back by City of London police during a demonstration called to protest over the financial crisis, which dogs domestic and international financial markets during the second half of 2008.

Novice Monk - Alex Rumford, 2007

This picture was taken when I was living in Nepal, at Benchen monastery in Kathmandu. The resident Buddhist monks were performing a traditional dance, and despite their colourful and impressive costumes and masks, it was rather slow and tedious.

Party like it's 1999 – Paul Treacy, 1999

This picture was made while I was studying Photojournalism at the International Centre of Photography in New York, during the Halloween Parade in 1999.

Welcome to the twenty-first century – Gerry McCann, 2000

I was in the Philippines doing a reportage about religion and poverty in that country. I spent some time photographing people being crucified but I was much more drawn to the shanty towns where millions of ultra poor Catholics live.

Anonymous Pedestrians – Martin Cameron, 2006

I took this shot while visiting Wroclaw in Poland for the first time. It is part of a group of statues called Anonymous Pedestrians by artist Jerzy Kalina.

David Cameron goes to school – Jonathan Stokes, 2008

For Showcase I wanted to choose a picture taken during my current staff position at the Walsall Advertiser. This picture was taken during a visit by Tory leader David Cameron to a primary school in Walsall, in April 2008.

Toni & Guy 2009 collection – Amanda Thomas, 2008

This is from a recent shoot I did with the hairdressers Toni & Guy. It is part of a series of five images for their new hair collection and was taken in my studio, which is in a converted church in central Bristol.

Murderball – Graham Bool, 2008

Troy Collins of Great Britain takes a tumble from USA #4 Captain Brian Kirkland in the Wheelchair Rugby (Murderball) Bronze Medal Match on September 15th at the USTB Gymnasium, Beijing. USA won the match 35-32 points.

Einstein's brain – David White, 2007

The shots of Einstein’s brain were taken in Mike Blow’s stonemasonry workshop in Bristol, 2007. I had been told that Mike had carved an exact replica of Einstein’s brain using original medical photographs as guidance.

Serenity – Derek Simpson, 2004

In 2003 I shot some material for “France” magazine in the Drome district. My daughter was employed in Grenoble at the time and took us for lunch to St.Hilaire du Trouvet where the Coupe Icare was just finishing.

'Collateral damage' Afghanistan – Susan Schulman, 2007

I took this picture when I was following the RAF MERT services. During the period I was with them, except for two ANA soldiers, all the casualties we picked up were Afghan civilians – and of these, all women and babies.

Crisis – Conor Masterson, 2008

I shot this portrait earlier this year whilst working for the homeless charity Crisis.

Ballantynes Iron Foundry – Iain McLean, 2008

This picture was part of a commission from Renfrewshire Council in west Scotland. As part of this commission I went out to Bo’ness, near Falkirk and visited the Ian Ballantynes’ Iron Foundry where they cast specialised iron works.

Ascot – Dafydd Jones, 1982

Charles Mcdowel pushes Pop Vincent into a pond during the Martin Betts Dance at a party at Ascot.

Freight promo – Brian Cottam, 2007

I was asked to come up with a location to place some freight lorries for a multi use PR shot and decided on the Severn Bridge with its striking cables.

Pro-hunt campaign – Leon Neal, 2004

Pro-hunt campaigners dump a dead horse in the streets of Brighton.

The Warrior Monks of the Golden Horse Monastery – Jack Picone, 2005

It is two pm in the unforgiving tropical heat as the young novice monks lie quietly on their horses in a mountain stream, high up on the Thai/Burmese border, but their daily rituals begin much earlier.

Monsoon Romance – Santosh Verma, 2005

June marks the beginning of the Monsoon season in India. In 2005, Mumbai, like the rest of the country, had just endured a particularly long and harsh summer.

Interiors – Simon Stanmore, 2008

These photographs are part of an eight image, one room set commissioned by UK interiors magazine KBB with stylist Tamsin Weston, for their May 2008 issue.

Kolkata smog – Ian Homer, 2002

This was one of the occasions when all the right elements snap into view and you are at the right place and time to see it coming.

Battle on Leeside – Miki Barlok, 2007

While photographing a fashion shoot, my model mentioned that she was going to see a boxing match that evening. Thinking it would be interesting to photograph, I went with her and organised a press pass very quickly.

School life in Mannar – Michael Hughes, 2007

I was on assignment with UNICEF in Sri Lanka, working on a project titled Emergency Education, which looked at how children in conflict areas receive education and is to be exhibited in New York.

Climate Change protester locked to railing at BP headquarters – Mike Russell, 2007

2007 was the year that climate change hit the headlines, spurred on by the week long Camp for Climate Action on the edge of Heathrow airport.

Superyacht launch – Simon Crofts, 2007

This image actually wasn’t really supposed to have been taken at all. I’m always looking for extra income streams wherever I can find them.

Iraqi Boy – Paul David Drabble, 2005

This photograph was a grab shot taken in March 2005. I was in Iraq, a guest of the British Army, and was out with members of the Royal Dragoon Guards, who were using armoured Landover’s to patrol the area of Umm Qasr.

Ogof Ffynnon Ddu – Chris Howes, 2002

Most regions of the world contain caves (and the UK and Ireland are riddled with them), so that side-trips when shooting stock become a relatively easy thing to arrange.

Brain Bank – James King-Holmes, 2007

This image is from an ongoing project on the varied directions that research into Alzheimer’s Disease is taking, and shows the brain of a recently deceased person before slicing and storage in a container in the South Western Brain Bank, which acts as a resource for research into dementia.

Tony Blair and banana – Joanne O'Brien, 2007

This picture came from one of Tony Blair’s last speaking engagements as PM last year. However, it has never seen the light of day until now. I was doing a PR job for an organisation hosting a breakfast meeting where an invited audience was given the opportunity to question the PM on policy.

Boy in a swing in Managua, Nicaragua – Julio Etchart, 2004

I photographed this boy in the playground of a youth centre run by Nicaragua’s YMCA – supported by the London-based charity Y Care International – in Managua.

Ernst & Young Academy Day – Richard Baker, 2007

I’ve been collaborating with the writer Alain de Botton on his next book of essays and photography about the world of Work for which this picture of an accountants’ academy day was taken.

Demolishment of Bedford Truck factory – Martin Figura, 2004

This image is from an Arts and Business re-generation commission that I’ve been working on for four years, it’s been a long, slow project as it began with an old Bedford Truck factory before demolishment.

Millennium - David Gordon, 2000

This photograph was originally shot on assignment for Time Magazine.

Hawksbill turtle – Charles Hood, 1995

This image, photographed in the Red Sea, Egypt, was taken in the days of film, when the biggest limitation to the underwater photographer was being limited to just 36 exposures because, unlike top-side photography, you can’t change films underwater.

Jesus Army Baptism – John Angerson, 2007

A Jesus Army elder facilitates the Baptism of an Iranian asylum seeker in the River Wharf, North Yorkshire. Many persecuted Christians from across the globe have found refuge in the Jesus Army.

Oldest Bikers – Mark Bourdillon, 2007

Oldest Bikers – Mark Bourdillon, 2007
Photographer since 1978, EPUk member since 2000

Islamic body hunters – Wade Laube, 2004

Islamic body hunters – Wade Laube, 2004
Photographer since 2001, EPUk member since 2007

Winging it – Simon Price, 2006

Winging it – Simon Price, 2006
Photographer since 1988, EPUk member since 2006

The First Goal - Colin McPherson, 2007

The First Goal – Colin McPherson, 2007
Photographer since 1988, EPUK member since 2005

Robbie Williams – Lenny Warren, 2006

Robbie Williams – Lenny Warren, 2006
Photographer since 1987, EPUK member since 2006

Red Fern – Chris McNulty, 2007

Red Fern – Chris McNulty, 2007
Photographer since 2004, EPUK member since 2005

Greenlandic Arctic – Nick Cobbing, 2007

Greenlandic Arctic – Nick Cobbing, 2007
Photographer since 1998, EPUk member since 1999

Arranmore Island – John Rafferty, 2006

Arranmore Island – John Rafferty, 2006
Photographer since 2005, EPUK member since 2007

Broadzilla – Karen McBride, 2004

Broadzilla – Karen McBride, 2004
Photographer since 1999, EPUk member since 2007

Remembering a victim of AIDS, Trafalgar Square, 19 May – Tony Sleep, 1996

Remembering a victim of AIDS – Tony Sleep, 1996
Photographer since 1980, EPUk member since 1999

Fast Footwork – Richard Tatham, 2006

Fast Footwork – Richard Tatham, 2006
Photographer since 2004, EPUk member since 2006

Michael Jackson at Harrods – John Ferguson, 2006

Michael Jackson at Harrods – John Ferguson, 2006
Photographer since 1984, EPUk member since 2004

Newberry School of Beauty - Paul Debois, 1990

Newberry School of Beauty – Paul Debois, 1990
Photographer since 1979, EPUK member since 2005

Jumping Spider – Geoff Doré, 1980

Jumping Spider – Geoff Doré, 1980
Photographer since 1988, EPUk member since 2001

Restaurant Chef – Larry Herman, 2006

Restaurant Chef – Larry Herman, 2006
Photographer since 1971, EPUk member since 2004

Inner Mongolia – Tom Parker, 2005

Inner Mongolia – Tom Parker, 2005
Photographer since 2003, EPUk member since 2004

Burmese tattoo ink – Vicky Bamforth, 2005

Burmese tattoo ink – Vicky Bamforth, 2005
Photographer since 2005, EPUK member since 2006.

Stable Mistress, Deen City Farm – Jon Gee, 2007

Stable Mistress, Deen City Farm – Jon Gee, 2007
Photographer since 2006, Epuk member since 2007

Ascent of the White-tailed Eagle – Chris Gomersall, 2000

Ascent of the White-tailed Eagle – Chris Gomersall, 2000
Photographer since 1984, EPUK member since 2001

Wee Man in a Vacuum, Malcolm Cochrane - 2007

Wee Man in a Vacuum, Malcolm Cochrane – 2007
Photographer since 1995, EPUK member since 2000

Artificial uterus – Tom Wagner, 1997

Artificial uterus – Tom Wagner, 1997
Photographer since 1985, EPUK member since 2001

T in the Park – Fraser Band, 2007

T in the Park – Fraser Band, 2007
Photographer since 1997, EPUk member since 2004

BMW M3 – Neill Watson, 2007

BMW M3 – Neill Watson, 2007
Photographer since 2002, EPUK member since 2003

Igloo – Anna Watson, 2007

Igloo – Anna Watson, 2007
Photographer since 2001, EPUK member since 2004

Coniston, Lake District – Jon Sparks, 2007

Coniston, Lake District – Jon Sparks, 2007
Photographer since 1994, EPUK member since 2003

The Women – Stephen Power, 2007

The Women – Stephen Power, 2007
Photographer since 2002, EPUK member since 2006

Shaped by Fate – Adam Gasson, 2005

Shaped by Fate – Adam Gasson, 2005
Photographer since 2006, EPUk member since 2007

Tear-gas rains on firefighters – David Brabyn, 2004

Tear-gas rains on firefighters – David Brabyn, 2004
Photographer since 2004, EPUk member since 2004

Injection – Helen Stone, 1997

Injection – Helen Stone, 1997
Photographer since 1991, EPUK member since 2007

Ali al Salem, Kuwait – Ross Pierson, 1999

Ali al Salem, Kuwait – Ross Pierson, 1999
Photographer since 2005, EPUk member since 2007

Rubbish dump, Cambodia – Dan White, 2000

Rubbish dump, Cambodia – Dan White, 2000
Photographer since 1990, EPUK member since 2001

Cargolifter Airship Hangar, Germany – Will Pryce, 2006

Cargolifter Airship Hangar, Germany – Will Pryce, 2006
Photographer since 2000, EPUk member since 2006

American actor Tim Robbins – Charlie Hopkinson, 2004

American actor Tim Robbins – Charlie Hopkinson, 2004
Photographer since 1990, EPUk member since 2007

Danish ceramicist – James Winspear, 2006

Danish ceramicist – James Winspear, 2006
Photographer since 1997, EPUK member since 2006

Yeltsin at Downing Street – John Chapman, 1990

Yeltsin at Downing Street – John Chapman, 1990
Photographer since 1979, EPUK member since 2006

Bottlewomen - Clive Evans, 2005.

Bottlewomen – Clive Evans, 2005.
Photographer since 1970, EPUK member since 2004.

Will and Brian - Gavin Wright, 2002.

Will and Brian – Gavin Wright, 2002.
Photographer since 2003, EPUK member since 2006.

Wez - Ben Roberts, 2007.

Wez – Ben Roberts, 2007.
Photographer since 2006, EPUK member since 2007.

Bedford Bodies - Ian Miles, 2001

Bedford Bodies – Ian Miles, 2001
Photographer since 1988, EPUK member since 2003.

Afghan Child - Theodore Liasi, 1995.

Afghan Child – Theodore Liasi, 1995.
Photographer since 1986, EPUK member since 2007.

Tom Morello - Laurence Baker, 2005

Tom Morello – Laurence Baker, 2005
Photographer since 1993, EPUK member since 2007.

Family - Sheila Atter, 2006.

Family – Sheila Atter, 2006.
Photographer since 1965, EPUK member since 2003.

Whitechapel High Street - David Cowlard, 1999.

Whitechapel High Street – David Cowlard, 1999.
Photographer since 1996, EPUK member since 2007.

A hurdle too far - Stuart Saunders, 1998.

A hurdle too far – Stuart Saunders, 1998.
Photographer since 1997, EPUK member since 2006.

NorthernLights - Simon Brown, 2005.

NorthernLights – Simon Brown, 2005.
Photographer since 2005, EPUK member since 2006.

Darklight Rite - Sarah Lucy Brown, 2007

Darklight Rite – Sarah Lucy Brown, 2007.
Photographer since 2005, EPUK member since 2006.

A Widow of Vrindavan - Gavin Gough, 2006.

A Widow of Vrindavan – Gavin Gough, 2006.
Photographer since 2004, EPUK member since 2006.

Nablus protestor - Antonio Olmos, 2000

Nablus protestor – Antonio Olmos, 2000
Photographer since 1988, EPUK member since 1999.

Cholera - George S de Blonsky, 2005.

Cholera – George S de Blonsky, 2005.
Photographer since 1998, EPUK member since 2006.

Hand of Fatima - Vince Bevan, 1990.

Hand of Fatima – Vince Bevan, 1990
Photographer since 1984, EPUK member since 2002.

On a Shout - John Callan, 2006

On a Shout – John Callan, 2006.
Photographer since 1980, EPUK member since 1999.

Heath - Andy Scaysbrook, 1992

Heath – Andy Scaysbrook, 1992.
Photographer since 1985, EPUK member since 2006.

Paris Match - Justin Leighton, 1995.

Paris Match – Justin Leighton, 1995
Photographer since 1988, EPUK member since 2002

Keef 1981 - George Chin

Keef 1981 – George Chin
Photographer since 1979, EPUK member since 2006.

Portobello Beach - Huntley Headworth, 1999

Portobello Beach – Huntley Headworth, 1999
Photographer since 1986, EPUK member since 2005.

Dancing Fairy - Philippe Hays, 2000

Dancing Fairy – Philippe Hays, 2000
Photographer since 1994, EPUK member since 2001.

Revolution Square Santa - Jeremy Nicholl, 1995.

Revolution Square Santa – Jeremy Nicholl, 1995
Photographer since 1981, EPUK member since 1999.

Cluster Bomb Victim - Andrew McConnell, 2005

Cluster Bomb Victim – Andrew McConnell, 2005
Photographer since 2000, EPUK member since 2006

Omani Musicians - Jason Larkin, 2006.

Omani Musicians – Jason Larkin, 2006.
Photographer since 2004, EPUK member since 2006.

Amsterdam - Mykel Nicolaou, 2000.

Amsterdam – Mykel Nicolaou, 2000.
Photographer since 1993, EPUK member since 2000.

Dougy - Tim Foster, 2004.

Dougy – Tim Foster, 2004.
Photographer since 2000, EPUK member since 2006.

Vic - Neil Turner, 2006

Vic – Neil Turner, 2006.
Photographer since 1986, founder member of EPUK, 1999.

Duck Dive - Simon Brown, 2006.

Duck Dive – Simon Brown, 2006.
Photographer since 2005, EPUK member since 2006.

Mumbai Children - Brian Harris, 2006.

Mumbai Children – Brian Harris, 2006.
Photographer since 1969, EPUK member since 1999.

Sudan - Richard Hanson, 1996

Sudan – Richard Hanson, 1996.
Photographer since 1990, EPUK member since 2002.

Bob, Rod and Don - Drew Farrell, 1993.

Bob, Rod and Don – Drew Farrell, 1993.
Photographer since 1990, EPUK member since 2000.

Fans - Bettina Strenske, 2006

Fans – Bettina Strenske, 2006.
Photographer since 2005, EPUK Member since 2006.

Roddick - Malcolm Case-Green, 2005

Roddick – Malcolm Case-Green, 2005
Photographer since 1982, EPUK member since 2002.

Archbishop - Martin Beddall, 1992.

Archbishop – Martin Beddall, 1992.
Photographer since 1991, EPUK member since 2001.

Botswana - Lottie Davies, 2005.

Botswana – Lottie Davies, 2005.
Photographer since 2000, EPUK member since 2006.

Phil the Greek - Thomas Main, 2005.

Phil the Greek – Thomas Main, 2005.
Photographer since 1993, EPUK member since 2004.

Road to St Catherine's - Emma Peios, 2005

Road to St Catherine’s – Emma Peios, 2005
Photographer since 1996, EPUK member since 2003

Abuse - Carl Rose, 2003.

Street fight – Carl Rose, 2003
Photographer since 2003, EPUK member since 2005.

1700 - Kobi Israel, 2005.

1700 – Kobi Israel, 2005.
Photographer since 1996, EPUK member since 2006.

RSC - Pascal Molliere, 2006

RSC – Pascal Molliere, 2006
Photographer since 2002, EPUK member since 2005.

Dhaka - Jiri Rezac, 2005

Dhaka – Jiri Rezac, 2005.
Photographer since 1994, EPUK member since 2000.

Notting Hill - Lynn Hilton, 1995

Notting Hill – Lynn Hilton, 1995
Photographer since 1983, EPUK member since 2006.

Veteran - Stuart Griffiths, 2006

Veteran – Stuart Griffiths, 2006
Photographer since 1998, EPUK member since 2002.

Carroll - James Cheadle, 2005

Carroll – James Cheadle, 2005
Photographer since 1991, EPUK member since 2003.

Tu Bishvat - Andy Aitchison, 2005

Tu Bishvat – Andy Aitchison, 2005
Photographer since 1994, EPUK member since 2002.

Mongolian Army Crowd Control - Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, 2001

Mongolian Army Crowd Control, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, 2001
Photographer since 1989, EPUK member since 2000

Piano Man - Alan Barton, 2006.

Piano Man – Alan Barton, 2006.
Photographer since 1982, EPUK member since 2005.

Poll Tax - David Hoffman, 1990

Poll Tax – David Hoffman, 1990
Photographer since 1976, EPUK member since 1999.

Katsuaki Watanabe, Charles Best - 2005

Katsuaki Watanabe, Charles Best – 2005
Photographer since 1985, EPUK member since 2002

Wipeout- Ashley Coombes, 2001

Wipeout- Ashley Coombes, 2001
Photographer since 1993 EPUK member since 2002.

On the ball - Terry Harris, 2005

On the ball- Terry Harris, 2005
Photographer since 2005, EPUK member since 2006.

Night Riders- Seb Rogers, 2006

Night Riders- Seb Rogers, 2006
Photographer since 1996, EPUK member since 2003.

Akha - Michael Freeman, 1979

Akha – Michael Freeman, 1979
Photographer since 1973, EPUK member since 2001.

Maryhill Teenagers - Nick McGowan-Lowe , 1995

Maryhill Teenagers- Nick McGowan-Lowe , 1995
Photographer since 1996, EPUK member since 2000.

Whisky- Ralph Hodgson, 2001

Whisky- Ralph Hodgson, 2001
Photographer since 1991, EPUK member since 2000

Diving- Annette Price, 2004

Diving – Annette Price, 2004
Photographer since 1988, EPUK member since 2001

Greenland- Nick Cobbing, 2005

Greenland- Nick Cobbing, 2005
Photographer since 1994, EPUK member since 2001

Trinity- Jason Bye, 1997

Trinity- Jason Bye, 1997
Photographer since 1992. EPUK Member since 2004.

Wessex Man- Graham Trott, 1992

Wessex Man- Graham Trott, 1992
Photographer since 1974, and founding member of EPUK in 1999.

Laughing- Tim Gander, 2001

On April 7th 2001 I was on shift for the News of the World to cover a march by supporters of the BNP in the morning and, to make the day quite bizarre, a march in memory of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor in the afternoon.

Masks - Jeremy Hilder, 1984

Not the big break or chance encounter, just one of those rare moments captured and still a favourite.

Staten Island Ferry- Geraint Lewis , 1999

This picture was taken on my first trip to New York in January 1999.

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain- Edward Webb , 1998

I took this picture on the way back from a commission for a design company photographing a transport depot full of lorries in Northern Spain.

Foreland Point, North Devon - Jason Ingram , 1992

This shot was taken on one of my very first commissions straight out of college. The shot wasn’t actually part of the commission but was taken at the end of the day before heading back to my B&B.

Southampton Docks - Graham Harrison, 1985

The Telegraph Magazine had commissioned a series on provincial cities and I used to motor down to Salisbury and Southampton to catch the evening light.

Cheetah, Nambia - Andrew Harrington, 2003

I was photographing a project in Namibia that uses guarding dogs to protect livestock and so protect predators, cheetahs included.

Boat Wake, Irvine- Alan Mackie/197 aerial photography, 1999

This was a grab shot. I was chatting to a potential customer with the kite and camera rig flying overhead. As we spoke there was the noise of an eejit on a jet-ski roaring up the river and I turned the camera rig and took this photo, using the video down-link to time it so that his wake neatly matched the shape of the riverbank.

Basketball - Pete Jenkins, 1992

This was taken back in 1992 when digital imaging (for me) was very much in its infancy. It was my first satisfying image scanned into my 180C laptop, using my Nikon scanner, (no not the Coolscan, the other one).

Holy Smoke- Paul Pickard, September 10th 2005, Walsall, West Midlands

2005 was my first year trading as a freelance photographer and I had an early evening commission to photograph the West Midlands equiveant of the Blackpool lights, the Walsall Illuminations

Tim Roth, Park City, Utah - Nat Bocking, Jan 1999

Celebrity photographers can have an uneasy relationship with their subjects that swings between love and hate and vice-versa. Those with a story to sell need photographers but it’s never that simple.

Monty - Simon Barber, 2003, North Yorkshire

This is my mum and her Jack Russell Monty. Monty is a canine sociopath and is responsible for the death of at least one peacock – possibly more. I shot this one Xmas when I was playing around with a ringflash.