Rats

Today has been messed up. I had a job in Brixton at 15:45, which finished at 16:00, then walked back to the car and tried to be in Woolwich for 17:00. If you have a quick look at the map its less than 9 miles, so given that we have a 30mph speed limit it should take about 20min, maximum. I arrived just before 17:30, nearly 1.5 hours after setting off. That's the London rush hour for you.

Anyway, the reason I was rushing to get there was local tip-off saying that the rats in Woolwich town centre are the most active at this time, and I came armed with half a sandwich which I denied myself from lunch. After 45min and no sandwich left there was still no sign of these rats so I gave up, because Woolwich town centre after dark is NOT a place you want to be standing around with a massive camera kit on display.

Picture: from a successful animal shoot; this is Lyre, part of the family known as peregrine falcons, the fastest - and in my mind - the most beautiful animals on the planet.

Just a normal day at the office

Today I photographed Ashley Walters for a front page job. Formerly a So Solid Crew member, now working hard on being a respectable actor instead of a gangsta. He was indeed a very fine man, distancing himself from the bling and trying to be a real role model for young black kids today. However, fame brings weird trappings. He had just gone to work when he met us at 12.15, fashionably late, and his first job entails lunch with three people...Phillip the artist (left) who drew Ashley non-stop, Dan the journalist (right) who asked questions non-stop and Mags (me) the photographer, taking pictures non-stop. Attention-deficit anybody?

Its finally arrived!

When you work for a newspaper you sometimes end up taking pictures which might be of interest to other publications as well. These pix can either be exclusives, where you're the only one with images from an event, or they can be from jobs where a client might want some pictures, they just cant be bothered to send out a photographer of their own to do it again (or do it as good as the first time, I'd like to believe...). Well, I shot something - which will go unnamed - last March, a magazine got in touch, we agreed a price and I emailed the pictures and the invoice, they published it a few weeks later. Normal practice is to pay within one month. Not so with this company...after several emails and telephone conversations, nothing had happened. Last week I threatened to take them to court, and lo and behold, today I finally received my cheque - nearly a year after it was due! Safe to say that they will have to pay a bit more if they want anything in the future.


Picture: Today I met up with new mum Paulette. She was one of the first people to be involved in a new scheme at King's Hospital where mums donate blood from the umbilical cord to help treat people with leukaemia. The cord in question here was the one connecting Paulette and her (now) 20 week-old son Ethan, seen here. If she wants any pictures, she can have them for free!

A tree is planted...actually 100 of them

Coming soon...

I bought some new software, and have been busy learning how to create my first audio slideshow. I basically shoot the job as normal, and walk around with a portable mp3-recorder to pick up environmental sounds and snippets of conversation/interviews in order to give a more three-dimensional feel of the job. Its a lot more work than you'd first think to create one or two minutes of audio slideshow - I've had to learn some basic audio editing as well - but its quite rewarding when you're done. It's going up as soon as I've figured out how to post it on the blog.

Picture: Brixton lad Tyrone, 19, got fed up with seeing friends being killed in gang warfare and taught himself how to produce video. He has now produced a DVD documenting young people's views on where they live and what they could be doing. Photographed outside The Ritzy, Brixton.