• End of an era


    Luke and Mandy
    Luke helped to set the lighting for a shot before the bride and groom came over, and Mandy felt the urge to join him!

    The era in question is the Era of Luke. I am a great believer in offering work experience placements to students who have an interest in photography. For the last two weeks I have had the pleasure of the company of Luke, a fifteen year old student from Welling in South East London, and his placement comes to an end today.

    Luke has been all over the place with me – building sites in Birmingham; the Houses of Parliament; industrial estates in kent; weddings in Sussex; and portrait shoots in Surrey. He has met MPs and astronauts, mothers and babies, contractors and suppliers, and through it all he has been enthusiastic and eager to learn, and as this image from a wedding shows, he knows how to win friends and influence people.

    Good luck with your future, Luke, and make sure you keep in touch.


  • Making sure you look at the whole picture.


    Kevin Argue, a photographer and friend in Toronto, Canada, brought this amusing story to my attention. It just goes to show that cutting staff may save money, but at what expense?

    The annual Kinsmen Santa Clausย  parade in Peterborough, Ontario is a regular if unremarkable event with over 80 floats and various marching bands. This year, a seasoned staffer from the Peterborough Examiner was on hand to photograph the parade, and produced amongst many shots one of the float from a local Catholic High School. This particular float was replete with hot tub and students. As said float approached the photographer, one of the students wearing brightly coloured sports top and checked boxer shorts jumped high with his arms in the air, sending sprays of water in all directions. It made for a lively image, and a definite candiate for publication. And published it was, on the front page, on the Canadian wires, and in a Toronto commuter morning paper. Unfortunately the high school concerned were not best pleased:

    The newspaper prior to be pulled.
    The image also ran in the Toronto Metro

    Some very red faced people in the newsroom explained that staffing cuts had been to blame for the fact that “Peterborough Pete’s” penis had not been spotted by the photographer or any of the editors on duty, but they tried to pull all the copies from the news stand as soon as it was brought to their attention.

    Hmmm. Personally I think it is highly unlikely that a “seasoned” photographer would have missed this when editing his images. Perhaps he was trying to make a point about how bad the staffing issues are in Canada. I know that Kevin would be the first to agree with him if that were the case.

    Anyway, thanks Kevin for the pointer. And the moral of the story is: always check your copy, whether written or image, before putting it to bed.


  1. I worked for them part time in 2000(July) until 2001(May) and it was a really nice team to be involved…

  2. Hello Michael, this was an enlightening article, thankyou for posting it. I was trying to find the original on the…

  3. A lovely photo Michael. A pair of old shoes can really convey so much character canโ€™t they. Probably why Van…