Keith is a travel and commercial photographer aiming to do more travel and less commercial...!
KH:: Whilst my focus has been in two areas: travel, because I love it; and commercial, because it pays the bills the current economic situation is resulting in some changes. As well as continuing to promote my photography pro-actively, market existing stock shots I also have some specific projects underway at present – firstly, working on re-building and expanding www.londonphotos.com into a new image library with some 3-4,000 shots of London ( being done in conjunction with another photographer and friend Sam Lloyd). Secondly, I am looking to market my photodiary of throat cancer treatment (teeth extraction, MRI scans, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and operations); thirdly, as a result of my daughter being spotted by talents scouts I am working on developing modelling photography.
BLAB: What colour would your Ferrari be?
KH: Black
BLAB: Which of your images means the most to you and why?
KH: One of my daughter having her portrait drawn in Montmartre – why? I like the composition of the shot (did take quite a lot of shots to get it right, including becoming less than popular with some of the other artists with my photographic wanderings!); still think I’m lucky to have her, as when she was small she very nearly died from meningitis … need I say more…. said shot attached. More generally the ones that mean most are inevitably those that I have got right in the camera, and do not need any manipulation on the computer!BLAB: What would your dream photo opportunity be?
KH: A travel assignment for Conde Nast – I love travelling, read the magazine every month, have been to over 60 countries and am planning a year out ( this will be in about four years, as I need to reach five years clear from throat cancer which I had in late 2007) to go overland from the top of Canada to the foot of Chile….
BLAB: Which photographer's work do you most admire and why?
KH: Peter Lik – it was a visit to his Port Douglas gallery that gave me the inspiration to career change when I was made redundant (twice!)…I still think his work is absolutely awesome! At Christmas we were in Miami, and had a chance to see some more as he now has a gallery over there as well – it only confirmed my opinion of his work!
Zanzibar – on the beach where we were staying I’d noticed each day many of the women from the local village would wade out and start collecting seaweed for selling (ending up apparently in some pharmaceutical or beauty product). I decided it would be great to wade out and try to get a picture of a few of them – they were wise to this so I did have to part with a few shillings to get the shot, and use some fill-in flash to at least see some of their faces. I ended up selling this shot to a publishers for use in a guide book to Zanzibar.
S.Africa – on safari in Hluhluwe Game park the truck had stopped so we could watch the zebras, photogenic in themselves, but I was looking out for anything that would create a more interesting shot. When these two zebras started interacting I fired off a number of shots, but when I saw this knew it was the best – possibly rather close to home as it reminded me of one of those occasions when You’re late home, haven’t rung ahead, only to be greeted by a healthy ‘and where the hell have you been?’.
New York – at the top of the Empire State building at the wrong time of day, with no clouds in the sky, and crowds of people I was struggling to get any decent shots, so tried again with the fish eye lens. After a couple of attempts a tourists’ arm appeared clutching a camera – initially I was annoyed but changed my mind when I saw the result. It just provided some human element which made the shot as far as I was concerned.
KH: Peter Lik – it was a visit to his Port Douglas gallery that gave me the inspiration to career change when I was made redundant (twice!)…I still think his work is absolutely awesome! At Christmas we were in Miami, and had a chance to see some more as he now has a gallery over there as well – it only confirmed my opinion of his work!
Zanzibar – on the beach where we were staying I’d noticed each day many of the women from the local village would wade out and start collecting seaweed for selling (ending up apparently in some pharmaceutical or beauty product). I decided it would be great to wade out and try to get a picture of a few of them – they were wise to this so I did have to part with a few shillings to get the shot, and use some fill-in flash to at least see some of their faces. I ended up selling this shot to a publishers for use in a guide book to Zanzibar.
S.Africa – on safari in Hluhluwe Game park the truck had stopped so we could watch the zebras, photogenic in themselves, but I was looking out for anything that would create a more interesting shot. When these two zebras started interacting I fired off a number of shots, but when I saw this knew it was the best – possibly rather close to home as it reminded me of one of those occasions when You’re late home, haven’t rung ahead, only to be greeted by a healthy ‘and where the hell have you been?’.
New York – at the top of the Empire State building at the wrong time of day, with no clouds in the sky, and crowds of people I was struggling to get any decent shots, so tried again with the fish eye lens. After a couple of attempts a tourists’ arm appeared clutching a camera – initially I was annoyed but changed my mind when I saw the result. It just provided some human element which made the shot as far as I was concerned.
Fall 3e – On a landscape workshop to Dartmoor last December, it was nearing the end of day one and as the light worsened we headed off for a last few ‘movement’ shots at a local waterfall. Was just about to head back to the car when I saw this moss-covered tree trunk, and thought this would work well with the slightly ‘blue’ water (good old auto white balance!) – as well as the colours I like the abstract nature of the result.
Eye view – I was doing some stock work for www.londonphotos.com , and took a gamble that the evening light would be fantastic from the London Eye, and was fortunate there was no queue. I wanted to create a shot that included the evening light, the river, the lit House of Commons, and one of the pods on the Eye. – two elements that were pure chance were the person in the pod, and I wasn’t previously aware of the blue light on the Eye itself which to me gives the bottom left of this shot more impact.
Dining room – I had been commissioned to shoot the interior of a multi-million pound private house in Mayfair by the property developer. This was one of the best shots from the shoot, and was used as the front cover shot for the Central South West edition of London Property News.BLAB: Thanks for your time Keith. Good luck with turning commercial photography to travel photography. We'll keep our fingers crossed for that Conde Nast commission for you...
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