This is a lovely portrait of Michael Carroll, National Lottery winner.

This isn’t one of my favourite images but nonetheless I think it has impact and grabs your attention.

My brief for this story was to hang out with the infamous Lotto Lout Michael Carroll for a day at his home near Swatham on the Fens east of Peterborough.

This particular shot was taken at Michael’s breaker’s yard which is about 10 miles from Downham Market. I’d been shooting Michael for a few hours but in the company of a group of his friends who were constantly causing distractions, then whilst waiting for some wrecked cars to be moved at a junk yard I asked Michael if he wouldn’t mind quickly giving me “the finger”.... What was I thinking, of course he didn’t mind… in fact for the next twenty minutes nearly all my images of him involved a double barrelled Carroll salute.

Throughout the day I shot a lot of exclusive material of Michael but this was my favourite image which I think just about sums him up.

The story appeared in Loaded magazine early 2006.

James started his career in 1991 working in the Darkroom at the Bath Evening Chronicle. He then went onto work at Solent News and Pictures in Southampton for 5 years. From 1997 – 2000 he was staff at EMAP working across their portfolio of sports titles. James has been freelance now for nearly 6 years, based in his hometown of Bath and working for clients ranging from Ralph Lauren, to Lad’s Mags and The Sunday Times.

See more work by James Cheadle