Zukie London

Merchant Land

Please download all images here.

One Twenty Four

WINK Ball 2016

Another year, another WINK ball! Good fun as always and thanks to Rachel for the food!!  Another great job organising this event by the girls from the Womens Institute New Konnections.

Boreham House Party

Below is a small selection of images from Saturday night.  To download images please go to the download site here: http://adobe.ly/1MYv9w3

WINK 100th Birthday Party

WINK – Womens Institute New Konnections.

The WI is 100 years old this year and to celebrate my local branch (Rayleigh, Essex) threw a party at The Rayleigh Club Golf Resort.  Just realised that sentence made it sound like i’m a member!  I’m not.  Unfortunately!

They refer to themselves as a ‘Modern WI’ so its not all jam and jerusalem, although there was a jam tasting contest.  They filled the room and I was surprised by the amount of members they have.  A great deal of effort went in from all involved making all kinds of goodies and organising prizes and entertainment which included dancers and a 60 piece choir!  I enjoyed shooting for them (again) and it looked like everyone had a great time.  Here’s to the next 100 years……..

WINK (Womens Institute New Konnections)

WINK are a WI group that set up in Rayleigh, Essex around a year ago and this party was to celebrate that anniversary.  They run as a charity so any event they organise is funded by themselves or donations, which makes it remarkable that they planned a grand event like this with three course meal, band, raffle, a rather excellent photo both 😉 and loads of guests.  The event took place at the excellent Lords Golf & Country Club in Rayleigh.

I put my booth in a little corner and shot portraits as guests arrived and rolled out the props for later in the evening.  As ever I spent the in between documenting the event and generally sneaking around getting some candid shots.

This blog contains a small selection of the work.  To see all images please visit the following link where full resolution files can be downloaded: http://adobe.ly/1MVOn2B

Rachel Connelly will have copies of the images on CD’s that she will be giving out to members at the next WI meeting.  Any questions drop me a mail.

The Lawn, Rochford – Photo shoot

An edit from the recent photo shoot organised by Katie Poole at The Lawn in Rochford.

Everything included was provided by local suppliers:

• Venue: The Lawn, Rochford
• All dresses provided by Turner & Pennell
• Makeup by Katie Poole
• Hair by Jennie Galgey
• Jewellery by PS with Love
• Flowers from Shrinking Violet
• Balloons provided by Balloon Power

Zukie Selfridges Skate

There is a skatepark in Selfridges?  Who knew?  Well, apparently lots of people because its open to the public and is free!

Zukie have been selling their wares in Selfridges and managed to get a two hour exclusive session in the park.  Below is how it went down.

Zukie @ Selfridges

The Zukie crew only went and got themselves into Selfridges!  Jamie asked me to pop up there on a Saturday morning to document the occasion and I was confronted by an army of ‘Zukie Juniors’ and a real life celeb!

What is it they say about working with children?  Try doing it in Selfridges!  I definitely thought they were going to throw us out!

ocean sports resort watamu kenya

I was lucky enough to get a week in Kenya recently.  I shot a wedding there and because mainly tourist operators fly to Mombassa it was cheaper to go for a week rather than a few days.

Anyway, the hotel that hosted the wedding asked me to shoot a couple of their apartments to update their website.  Below are a selection of the shots.

If you are stuck for holiday ideas I highly recommend Watamu in Kenya, and Ocean Sports is one of the most relaxed hotels on a very relaxed beach.  The unique thing about the place is that you can go for the paradise holiday but take a few days on Safari as well and capture the stunning beauty of Africa.

Switch Skates / Leigh Lights

Bomber from Switch Skate Store runs a skate school on Sunday mornings in Leigh.  It has grown a lot from the beginnings on the sea front and the crew and their pupils were asked to join the parade through Leigh broadway when the Christmas lights were switched on.

Zukie Drop

Another drop of T’s from the Zukie people.  We shot this above their shop in Leigh-on-Sea which presented some issues as the room was tiny, low ceiling, full of stuff and after my lights had been turned on, very hot.

This is just a small selection of their new range.

Once Upon a Cake Stand

We ordered these cakes from a friend for a friend, if that makes sense?!  Before they were taken to the party I took a few quick detail shots on the kitchen table.

Once Upon a Cake Stand offer bespoke vintage tea parties in the comfort of your own home.  I took it upon myself to sample each flavour and can confirm they are delish!

Harry’s Party

Harry booked me to do a green-screen booth for his 18th with a New York theme (below). As ever I was snapping away throughout the evening.  I was trying to remember what I did for my 18th, which means it wasn’t this good!

Leigh-on-Sea Switch Skatestore Comp

Another Switch comp with the usual faces popping up from Switch, Zukie and Bondi Beer.  The difference this year is that they added some bands which gave it a real festival vibe.  White Devil’s Cause, being our local signed band sorted a stage over the bowl which was awesome.  The rain stayed away, beers were drunk, tricks were landed (or not in George’s case!) and it felt like the whole town tipped up for the party.

Zukie product photography

Another product drop from the Zukie crew.

Weald bags

A sunny morning with Sarah from Weald Handmade and Andrea (the talent) shooting these for the web store.  Except it wasn’t sunny it was freezing and windy.  A strobe warming filter (full CTO) is all thats used to give the illusion of a summer morning!

Corporate portraits

I use a portable studio and portraits are taken on location.  Please contact for further details.

Vintage Fair Leigh-on-Sea

The Leigh-on-Sea vintage fair is coming to town again soon and it reminded me of these promotional shots I did for the organisers.  A great shoot made fun by Sarah’s insane posing and the fantastic location.

Bondi Beer

Here are a couple of product shots I did for Bondi Beer.  This is a new product to the UK and they are aiming themselves at the extreme sports market among others.  Their USP is the beer is not too fizzy and not too strong (alcohol) so is the perfect ‘session beer’.  After drinking the samples they sent me I can concur that this is indeed good beer!

Now, its surprising how much work goes into these kind of images, its mostly a retouching job as the studio is only the start.  The silver of the can is particularly difficult, you have to shoot it flat with no reflections and then add in some grey texturing to move towards the reflective feel.  I particularly liked the can and bottle shot from above.  These were done by using a focus stacking technique in photoshop (from 4 or 5 different shots) which means you can have both the top and side of the product in focus!  Clever stuff.

Switch Skates Day In The City

I have known Jamie and Mark who run Switch Skate Shop for many years.  Mainly through Skateboarding but more recently i’ve done some product work for them.  I never really got into taking pictures of skaters as when we go skating I mainly want to skate!  However, on this occasion the guys asked me to come along, skate, take some pictures and enjoy a Bondi on Barry.  With a crew of regular customers and some of their sponsored team we hit some street spots in The City before heading to the (very) secret bowl in Shoreditch.

Skate photography is an art and requires unique skills which take years of practice to master.  I had a day.  Here are the results.

Zukie Jr

More work for the Zukie crew for their new ‘Jr’ range.

Lesleys 40th

If you would like to download any images, the full resolution file is available by right clicking on the image (ctrl click for Mac) and selecting ‘Download Linked File As….’ then choose a location to save the file to such as your Desktop.  If you click on the file you can view the full resolution image but it may take some time to load depending on your internet speed.

Any problems drop me an email and i’ll be happy to mail any images by reply.

Switch Skates / Zukie

After a number of emails and admittedly not much time (over the xmas period as well) we had no permission to shoot at Southend Airport.  I thought we were heading for Leigh marshes to shoot the military jacket by the WW2 pilbox.  ‘Bomber’ (of Switch Skates and Zukie Clothing) had other plans and bought me and Andy (the talent) breakfast at the cafe on the airport while he sweet talked  the manager at the flying school.  I think he may have bought a few helicopter lessons and offered permanent discounts in his store!

The Vulcan Bomber is pretty famous round these parts and although there is a restoration society the guy from the flying school advised that it will never fly again, although they do fire up the engines occasionaly which are pretty loud!

Despite his hangover Andy did a great job of, well, looking hungover!  Jamie was his usual  excited self and special thanks to The Flight Centre.  I’ve already asked for a helicopter lesson for my birthday.

Photo Booth

The photo booth is less a booth and more a mini studio I set up in a noisy corner.  Its an additional service I offer to my wedding clients which can be catered to parties and any event.  I’ve played around with a couple of variations but find it fun to keep it small and make guests squeeze into a tight space, it adds to the boothishness!

Below is a selection of pics from a recent wedding I shot.  I should note that the animal masks were property of the bride and groom.  Quite why they had a box of masks at their wedding…… you will need to ask Sian & John.  I might just add some to my box of ‘booth things’ though.

Please contact for further info.

Zukie Store

Zukie are a new clothing company that I have worked with before.  They make skateboards and teeshirts in between partying hard!  I have been skateboarding since i was about 12 (although my knees told me recently that they think its time a reconsidered) so I embraced the chance to work with them.  The guys that run the brand are just trying to create something a little different and have fun while they are doing it.  They love to involve the local community in what they are doing and are regularly holding skate competitions for kids and giving away skateboards and tee’s.  They started out supplying independent skate shops but have now opened their own place in Greenwich.  I went down and shot this while the Olympics was on and there was a great vibe around the town.

I shot this at about 8pm and they should have been shut for hours but the local kids kept coming in and they continued to serve until I was finished at around 9:30!  By the end of the shoot there were about 15 kids with skateboards just floating around trying to get in on the action!  I should thank Jamie for supplying beer which I rather unprofessionally drank, and Christian the store manager, who works there every day yet still managed to get us lost on the way home?