November News

Hello everyone, hope you are all keeping well.  Here is my newsletter looking back six months up to April and starts with a shoot for ‘VIP’, the Pets at Home magazine.  I photographed Michelle Turnbull over in Blackpool for a feature about her business ‘The Barking Bakery’ where she makes healthy amazing looking treats for dogs.  Michelle sent me home laden with her baking which brought a new meaning to the term doggy bag 🙂

Over to York next to photograph Vicky at Compello gym for Fit and Well magazine. Vicky has lost loads of weight doing a cross fit regime. I was amazed at the weights Vicky could lift and felt rather feeble struggling to move the ‘props’ around the room!

This was a great shoot, quite different from my usual commissions – in fact my first ever ‘lads mag’ photo shoot for FHM magazine.  It was at a nightclub called Funktion in Hull on a freezing January night.  It was packed, deafening, really dark and way past my bed time!  But I got to meet and photograph DJ Danny Howard from Radio 1 and Phillip George (‘wish you were mine’). Brilliant fun. The video for ‘Wish You Were Mine’ is super cute (in a cool way of course!).

A corporate style photography shoot for Asda life magazine over in Ashton under Lyne, covering one of their staff meetings. It’s a lovely change to take a step back and watch and wait for the right moment instead of directing all the action.

One of my shots of Gaynor Faye found a new use and was on the cover of Saturday Magazine. I didn’t shoot this with a cover in mind but fortunately it works well – thanks Chilli media.

I finally managed to impress my son when I came home saying I’d met Mr Bloom from CBeebies – he was sooo excited!  I covered the event ‘CBeebies dancing into Leeds’ for the BBC.  Presenter Alex Winters was doing a fabulous job reading ‘Bear Hunt’ to a huge group of enthralled children – I now find myself trying to read it in a really dramatic way to my own children (night after night after night…)

I didn’t have to venture far for this Huddersfield job for Elder Studios, a software engineering company.  Rebecca the office manager did a sterling job getting everyone to wear a nice light bright shirt.  It makes such a difference having a decent set of corporate head shots for a website – I think these guys look really smart.

TV Extra magazine used my portrait of Emmerdale actress Isabel Hodgins:

My portrait of comedian Peter Kay appeared on the front cover of TV and Satellite magazine and another on the inside spread of TV Times. It was all in aid of promoting his new show called ‘Car Share’ on BBC1. I have to admit it’s a little while since I did this shoot with Peter but I remember what a bizarre but fun shoot it was.  I arrived at a hotel somewhere near Lincoln, with the journalist, to meet Peter and his agent but after waiting around for ages with no sign of them we started to worry.  Eventually I got reception to phone his room – only to discover he was still asleep!  Half an hour later he was downstairs looking freshly showered (still dripping) and apologising.  Then the interview.  Peter was so chatty I don’t think the journalist knew what hit him – or could get a word in!  It was the funniest interview I’ve ever had to sit through. Three hours after we arrived I finally got started with my photoshoot!

Bye for now. Claire x