[Finally] announcing my Actors' Headshots service

I've shot quite a few actors' headshots over the years, along with bunch of more corporate headshot work, but I've never officially offered actors' headshots as as service; those shoots have always been on an ad-hoc basis.

But headshots are right in my wheelhouse: simple portraits that have to connect with their audience whilst allowing the subject to express a range of expressions. And I love working with actors: they're such versatile subjects, and are used to taking direction.

So I've decided it's finally time to offer a headshots service specifically targeted to actors. You can read the full service page to learn more about what I'm offering, but it breaks down to three packages:

• Express session — 45 minutes, 1 final image, £74.99
• Two-hour session — 3 final images, £179.99
• Three-hour session — 5 final images, £249.99

I can't wait to start working more with local actors and actresses, and making amazing headshot portraits with them.

And the Bees Still Buzz — One Year On 🐝

It's been a year. That went quickly. A year since people, just out for a good night at a gig were killed or maimed or mentally scarred by a coward. 22 dead, all of them far too young. More than 800 injured. And let's not beat about the bush here: for those that were there, the road to recovery, mental and physical, is a long one.

View fullsize

And this city is, as it always has been, resolute in the face of the bastards and the cowards, the monsters and the maladjusts who would try to bring it to it's knees. My adopted hometown is going to fall silent today to remember the lost, and think of the wounded. And there will be tears, and sorrow, and grief. Wounds like that heal, but they leave scars.

But this is Manchester. We do things differently here. This is a city that's faced down worse in its time, and stood with its head held high every single day.

View fullsize

I'm reminded of how Japanese Honey Bees defend their hives against hornets: they form a ball around the invader and, well, cook it. Mancunians — whose symbol has, for 175 years, bee a worker bee — gang together too, but with love and kindness and understanding and a togetherness that's a wonder to behold.

I love this town. I love its people. I love the staccato of the northern voices in the streets, the rumble of the derby days and the gentle susurrus in the city's squares on a sun-drenched* summer lunchtime. I'm proud to be one of its residents, one generation removed from being an actual Manc as I am.

Anniversaries like this are awful, and sad, and hopeful, and full of love. And there's no love like Northern love. Not anywhere in the world.

Peace to you all, Manchester. Chin up, r kid.

So come at us again, and again if you must,
Time after time we'll rise from the dust,
You'll never prevail, not against us,
This is Manchester, our Manchester
And the bees still buzz
~Ryan Williams

View fullsize

---

*Sometimes just drenched. It's Manchester, after all

It's never too late to be what you might have been

I've been in a reflective mood of late. Questions like "what am I doing with my life?" and "will I ever be able to shift this last 10Kg?" and "who am I as a photographer, what is my voice?" keep popping into my mind, especially late at night, when fatigue overwhelms me. It's been a tiring month, April, for one reason or another.

It's very easy for me to fall into that way of thinking when I'm tired. The ease by which I convince myself of the futility of what I do sometimes staggers even me — it certainly staggers those around me.

So I've resolved that 2018 should be the year of relaxing and finding real joy in photography again. The simple joys: of a great composition, or great light, or the fortuitous happenstance that makes for Cartier Bresson's "Decisive Moment" (or as near as us mere mortals can reach, anyhow).

I want to shoot landscapes again. I'm not a landscape photographer, never will be, but there's something about the purity of a landscape photograph that attracts me. I have enjoyed in years gone by shooting landscapes which deliberately included people — because people are the core of my work — but just shooting landscapes for landscapes' sake would bring me great joy, too, I think.

I also want to conquer my fear of street portraiture. People around here are friendly for the most part, and more than willing to let you make a portrait of them. Who knows: if I were to carry an Instax printer with me I could even give them a copy. This is not an original idea, but it's one that I've been held back from trying for fear of failure.

So, more joy, less fear. That's the motto for the rest of the year. What's yours?

Do something, do something different

Without wanting to put a jinx on it, I think we're finally coming out of The Winter That Would Just Not End. Maybe. It's time to start doing something. Anything would do, frankly. It's also time to start making new stuff and updating promos and sending stuff out and making people aware that I'm alive.

Which is the most exhausting thing ever and something that I'm really not all that good at. In fact, putting it bluntly, I absolutely hate the self promotion aspect of photography. (If there's anyone out there who wants to become my marketing consultant in exchange for free corporate headshots and the occasional pack of Jaffa Cakes, do yell…).

Thankfully, it's also the time of year for the stuff I'm good at: shooting pictures. As the winter weather starts to turn to spring I can finally get out of the studio and start shooting on location, and refresh my portfolio a bit. Or at least, that was the plan.

I put out a call for folks to shoot with on Instagram and Twitter (my general loathing for Instagram does not extend to not using it when it's useful, it turns out). Leona replied, and we quickly set up a test shoot. We wanted to shoot entirely on location, but in the end, thanks to the Manchester weather, that didn't work out. Leona had also wanted to shoot something in her red suit, so once we'd brought the shoot into the studio I set about trying out a couple of ideas that were in my head.

The first — at the top of the page — was to shoot the red suit on a red background with some kind of over-the-top facial expression. The second, below, was to shoot the red suit on something close to a complimentary colour so that the red really popped.

Looking at my portfolio page, there's not a lot of bright colour there. I tend towards darkness and shadow, even when I'm using coloured light. I want to expand my range a bit, so pushing myself to use bright colours is a nice change. The portrait-on-colour-with-silly-expression has the potential to be a portrait series, I think — maybe I'll shoot some more of those just to get a consistent set of looks that doesn't completely clash with what's already in my portfolio. I love that red-on-red image, but it doesn't fit with the rest of my work right now.

Creating more stuff that doesn't fit in my comfort zone is one of my goals for 2018, so this shoot is a good start.

So long, Wes

Wes Martin, guy most of you never knew, a guy that I didn’t know brilliantly well, has passed away.

When first I met Wes, I knew him as a musician. He played assorted folk instruments and even put out a solo album. I met him at a meeting of the Lancaster Twitterati in perhaps 2009/10. I remember then thinking what a warm and funny character he was. 

We lost touch a bit since I moved away from Lancaster. I knew that he went through a breakup and that he’d reinvented himself as an artist. He painted scenes from the Lancaster and Lakeland countryside that were so achingly evocative that you could almost feel the crisp winter air (or — this being Lancaster — the driving summer rain). 

When he put out his solo record I emailed him and asked if he’d like to collaborate on making some images inspired by tracks he’d written. I remember him being intrigued and cautious, but also enthusiastic and, I hoped, pleased. We never got around to doing it, of course. I moved away, and life went right on stealing away the time you think you have, as it always does.

in more recent years Wes and I had corresponded on Twitter or Instagram from time to time. He always had encouraging comments to make on my evening.camera pictures. More importantly he would often give me encouragement when I posted about the voice in my head that tells me to give up, to jack it in, to stop trying to be an “artist”.

I miss Wes. I wish I’d known him better. I resent the loss of opportunity to collaborate together, and I’m sad that I’ll never get to see more of his beautiful work — and that I never got around to buying one of his paintings from him, since I love them so much. 

We only have the time we have. It’s tiny and insignificant and fragile, and we can miss out on so many things just by getting too busy, or telling ourselves that these always tomorrow.  The truth — being very zen for a minute — is that the past is just an unreliable memory, and the future is solely in our imagination. The perfect time is now, and we need to make our art and say what we need to say before we don’t have the chance any more.  

So long, Wes. Even those of us who didn’t know you well will miss you.

Wes Martin, photographed by Christian Cable