Red Dress in the Woods? a shoot with New York Model, Yenta
Yenta arrived with a quiet confidence. No fuss, no overthinking. Within minutes it was clear she understood exactly what space we were trying to create. A trained ballerina, she didn’t wait for instruction—she moved, shaped, extended. The kind of movement that doesn’t feel posed, just discovered. That made all the difference.
Changing direction …
What’s easy to forget is just how unlikely it all was. Nell didn’t come from a traditional circus background — she’d been a writer and editor before deciding, somewhat improbably, to create a touring circus of her own. The sort of idea that sounds romantic at the start and quickly becomes something else entirely once reality sets in.
When I later met her, and photographed her, what stood out was the consistency. No gap between the person and the work. Just clarity, and a determination to keep it going.
Back to Where It Started
Careers rarely follow straight lines. Mine certainly hasn’t.
This photograph was taken on a cold morning not far from home. Frost still lay across the fields and the sun was just beginning to break through the trees. The kind of quiet moment that rewards being out early with a camera. Nothing dramatic about it — just light, patience, and being in the right place when the day begins.
It felt like an appropriate image to accompany a huge professional shift I’ve been making.
The Modern Village Square
Small businesses often get talked about in economic terms — turnover, growth, resilience. But the real success of many of them can’t be measured on a spreadsheet.
It’s measured in people.
This café was photographed as part of a feature on successful small businesses — the kind that quietly become part of the fabric of their community. At first glance it’s a coffee shop: good coffee, pastries on the counter, a welcoming place to start the day.
But spend a little time here and you realise it’s doing something bigger.
A Girl and Her Horse
The Girl and Her Horse
There is often a story behind a photograph.
Sometimes the story is obvious. Sometimes it is quietly embedded in the frame — understood only by the people who were there, or by those who know what they are looking at.
This image carries one of those quieter stories.
London Furniture Showroom Photoshoot: A Calm Confidence in Form
During this London furniture showroom photoshoot, portraits are embedded within the environment rather than extracted from it. Product images avoid the neutrality of catalogue photography, instead showing how pieces relate to one another and to the room they occupy. Details are observed quietly, allowing the work to reveal itself without interruption.
A Portrait That Listens… Before It Speaks
A strong photograph doesn’t explain itself. It asks questions first, then offers just enough detail to invite the viewer closer. Who is this man? What happens in this quiet, enclosed space? The clues are there — the microphone, the glow of a screen, the ease of someone who belongs — but the answers remain deliberately incomplete. The image gives a glimpse, not a conclusion, and leaves the story open for the viewer to finish.
A Local Historian in Context: An Environmental Portrait
This is Will.
He’s a local historian, but this portrait isn’t really about history in the academic sense. It’s about continuity.
Will stands in the town he knows intimately, not posed against it but comfortably within it. The buildings behind him aren’t decorative backdrops; they’re part of his daily landscape, places whose stories he carries and retells.
Shopfronts change, signs fade, businesses come and go — but the street itself remains, and so does the memory of what it has been.
A Portrait That Wakes Gently
Some portraits announce themselves immediately. This one doesn’t. It wakes slowly.
At first glance, it appears straightforward: a man standing quietly beneath brick arches, winter coat buttoned, scarf wrapped carefully, hands relaxed at his sides. There’s no obvious gesture, no theatrical pose, no attempt to dominate the frame. He isn’t performing for the camera so much as meeting it on his own terms.
Show, don’t tell
This is one of those photographs that does exactly what I want an image to do: it asks questions.
Who is this man?
Why is he here, in this particular room?
What’s the story behind the cabinet of china, the clock, the chair, the accumulation of objects that feel anything but random?
Revd Fr Anthony Searle
I was genuinely delighted with this photograph of Revd Fr Anthony Searle, the Team Rector of All Saints Church, High Wycombe. It was taken for a magazine article in 2024, and it’s one of those frames where everything quietly came together.
Confidence, Not Posing
This photograph is a good reminder of why I find portrait photography so rewarding.
When we started, the subject was — by her own admission — not entirely comfortable in front of the camera. Not resistant, not awkward, just gently guarded. That familiar combination of politeness and self-consciousness that so many people bring with them: I’m not photogenic, I don’t really know what to do, just tell me where to stand.
I see that a lot. And I’ve come to enjoy it.