Tesco Ireland

At the end of May, an exciting email pinged into my inbox, subject - Tesco Ireland. Creative agency Rothco asked us if we'd be interested in working with them on a new print campaign for the supermarket. The emphasis was on those real moments in everyday family life. The love, the connections, the food, even the mundane. The campaign, called Family Makes Us Better, would focus on real families in Ireland and look at what 'family' means to different people. I was excited, as they really liked the way we captured the beauty in the everyday in our family shoots. The mud under fingernails, the cake crumbs around little mouths, tangled hair from the wind.

After we heard we'd be shooting the campaign, things moved quickly! All of a sudden we were on board the Jonathan Swift ferry, blue sea, blue sky, and leaving Holyhead behind. We settled ourselves in Dublin for a few days before the shoot began. We'd both been before, but hadn't fully appreciated what a beautiful city it is.

And then we started our 5 day road-trip around Ireland, meeting lovely families along the way, making new friends, great conversations, and the food, the food!! On our travels, we also experienced the full range of Irish weather.

Here are just a small selection of the photos we took, these are the ones that have been released so far.

The agency sent over a few shots of the photos in situ on billboards, buses and in store. It brought it all to life when we saw these for the first time.

It was so good to just be ourselves, and shoot in the style we do. We were curious how the agency had found out about us in the first place, and a couple of weeks ago, I found out how. A lovely photographer called Claire from Unscripted Photography had been approached. She couldn't do the dates, and from following my Instagram account, she recommended us. The power of social media in full force right there. We are so grateful to Claire, and hopefully we are going to meet her in person in the not too distant future to giver her a great big hug!

If you'd like to see the wonderful advert that is running in conjunction with the print campaign, you can see it here....

A couple of our friends have spotted the posters on recent trips to Ireland and sent photos to us. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we'll be going back over to see the campaign with our own eyes. Always nice to have an excuse to travel to Ireland!

Shooting From The Hip

I've just been having a clean up on my computer. Some people like spring cleans, I find it easier to wait until autumn for this kind of behaviour. In one of the folders, I found this selection of photos I took on our friend Leena's course a couple of years ago. When I was first starting out as a photographer over ten years ago, I was really drawn to street photography, and I enjoyed the freedom that shooting from the hip gave me. I hang the camera on my shoulder and as you might have deduced, keep the camera at hip level, and press the shutter when I see something that catches my eye. Because I'm not looking through the viewfinder, the focus can be a bit hit and miss, but there lies the fun for me. Doing the course recently, reminded me how much I'd enjoyed this in the past. Here are a few from a cold market day around Hebden Bridge.

The Unthanks - Diversions Volume 4.

Back in December last year, I travelled up to the beautiful village in Northumberland where The Unthanks have their recording studio. They'd asked me to take some publicity shots to announce their new Diversions Album to be released early 2017. The album was going to be a reworking of some of Molly Drake's beautiful songs and poems. Being a fan of her son Nick Drake's work, I had heard some work by Molly, and it seemed to be the perfect fit for The Unthanks to weave their unique sound amongst those tunes and words.

The concept behind the shots was that Rachel and Becky were to join an existing photograph of Molly in a composite, and to make the sisters look ghostly. So I took a series of shots of both Rachel and Becky individually against a plain background. I freelensed a few to give the images that dreamy, ethereal feel.

It was a beautiful winter's day outside, so we went down the lane and took a couple more, making good use of that low light!

I worked on a few edits back in the office and brought Becky & Rachel together just to see what the final choices would look like.

The final composite was put together by Steven Wainwright. It was great to see it for the first time!

It's a stunning album. I tried to explain Molly's music in words and then I found this description from Adrian (the pianist, musical director, and producer) and it's just perfect -  'Stylistically, the first thing you hear is the mannerisms of the time. The Noel Coward, Ivor Novello-esque hallmarks of the era are there in her piano playing, and a stiff, properness in the voice. But then, in stunning contrast and contradiction, her softness, her emotional intelligence, her sensual and radiant artistry, start to reach out to you. Hearing a woman, a mother, from that time, expressing her personal, melancholic, philosophical thoughts, so beautifully, with such guile and confidence, and yet kind of from behind closed doors, is as compelling a listen as I’ve ever experienced'. 

The publicity shot I worked on is on the inside sleeve of the album, and the cover of the Extras.

If you'd like to here one of the songs, take a listen to this beautiful track. It pulls me in each time I listen to it. The spoken words are by Molly's daughter Nick's sister, Gabrielle.