24 Portraits taken during 2010

I thought I would start the year with a look back at last year, 2010 with a series of slide shows covering commissioned portraiture, photography of places and events and finally private work and street photography. I have selected images that I like particularly and not necessarily those selected by the clients as part of their final order of images.

So here is a slideshow of 24 Portraits including this self portrait taken when setting up the lighting for a photo shoot.

A visit to The London Water Tower on Shooters Hill regarding The Thinking Hotel

On Tuesday 22nd, I headed off East with Maria Ana Botelho Neves founder of The Thinking Hotel project and Sarah Farrugia to meet Catherine Shovlin, owner of The London Water Tower to see it for ourselves and decide whether it might suit a planned prototyping workshop for the Thinking Hotel.

It turns out to be an amazing vertical house created by an Australian couple with around £3 million of building works with wonderful ground floor reception areas and a "secret garden" ideal for chatting in groups, five bedrooms each on a different level and a super top floor bar with surrounding balcony 130ft up with breathtaking views of London in all directions.

As we walked around it, climbed up and down it, stopping for a chat on the top deck, then a coffee in the garden, I snapped away with my Leica M8 and 15mm F4 Voigtlander lens and you can see the results in this slideshow.

Due to its very vertical nature, the space is only suited to certain types of workshops and events, but is absolutely fabulous for a super get away from it all break with family or a group of friends.

Definitely a place to tell people about who are looking for a unique experience in London.

Speedy service - The Wheatsheaf Pub Garden

Yesterday, at 9am I got a phone call from the manager of a local pub, the Wheatsheaf, stating that I had been recommended by Bruce, the master butcher at the Parson's Nose , as a photographer who could take some interesting images of the pub's garden that were now needed, for promoting it, now that summer or at least spring appears to have started! Speed was of the essence!

I popped in to meet Ali, to agree a brief and was able to quote him my fee on the spot. Hands were shaken, and half an hour later, I came with my photo gear and took a variety of shots with a wide angle and a fisheye lens, to capture it all. The sun was shining and there were strong shadows, so taking and processing the pictures took some care.

By 3pm I had downloaded the pictures onto my computer and using Adobe Lightroom 2 and PhotoShop CS4 created a slideshow of my selection of processed images that best matched the brief, which I uploaded onto the web and fired off an e-mail with the link to Ali.

At 8pm I had a response from Ali who had selected 8 pictures which he needed as 300dpi tiff files at A3 size which were to be handed over to ProntaPrint on the Fulham Road for inclusion in a large poster to be put on a stand outside the pub shortly. This morning at 10 I delivered the DVD with 800mb of high definition images and left with the cheque.

Eyefully good for all concerned!

Authors@Google: Joe McNally - Photographer

Photographer Joe McNally visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book "The Moment It Clicks." McNally is an internationally acclaimed photographer, whose career has spanned 30 years.



I really like this talk, its full of humour, plus lots of tips on the craft of the photography business. Literally how to make a living in this game whilst keeping your sanity.

Some Lisbon scenes @ Christmas with my Leica M8

A family portrait shoot

This was an interesting commission for me, as the main purpose was to take a portrait, that will be used as the basis for an oil painting, but was also an occasion to take some family portraits, singly and together.

Three pictures - one afternoon

I took these pictures the same afternoon as those in Trafalgar Square. The first is a lady in the entrance of The Photographer's Gallery in Newport Street. I loved the overall shape and the interaction with the ladies outside.


The next was in Trafalgar Square, and is a notice outlining all the rules and regulation that apply, typically done in a way that no one actually sees them! apart from some wit whose comment is a non-sequitur, or maybe I am not on the right wavelength!?


Finally on a wall leading to a private mews in Knightsbridge a shadow of a hedge on a white wall.

Isn't the sheer disconnectedness of these images all taken within a few hours what makes photography so addictive?

Dazed Digital The Hvana Project

Dazed Magazine have just launched a re-vamped collaborative website called DazedDigital which includes RISE, a section for promoting creative talent in photography, illustration and now also music and fashion to which I have submitted work as a member of Dazed's creative community.


Dazed use the Rise community to commission work for the magazine and for exhibitions in the Dazed gallery.

Another section of the site is the PROJECTS area through which they run creative projects. For the launch of the site they have teamed up with luxury streetwear brand HVANA (which was co-founded by renowned DJ/producer Howie B) who are giving members the chance to create a limited edition t-shirt. The projects will change throughout the year so it is well worth your keeping an eye on, as it's designed to further help support and promote creative talent.

I have had a go, using one of my street photography images which I show below:

I thinks its rather cool! What do YOU think?