So apparently I am one of RANGEFINDERS 30 RISING STARS OF WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY, 2016

Yeah.  So that happened.  And it turns out being voted one of the top 30 wedding photographers in the world feels kind of nice.

In fact if you want to know how I’m feeling right now put on Aretha Franklin’s classic gospel album, Amazing Grace.  That’s how I’m feeling.  I’m playing it right now.  On vinyl.  Because even though I can’t grow a beard–and believe me I’ve tried.. the best I can do is a scrabbly, hispid goatee, like a teenage Frank Zappa.  Actually no, scratch that.  I’d lay good money on a teenage Frank Zappa being able to grow a better beard than me–But so even though I can’t grow a beard I do have a hipsterish love of vinyl.  Damn that’s some good rich sound right there.  Youth: you will not know what I’m talking about. So just imagine someone got your phone, tipped out the Spotify and Deezer content out into a hot vat of shellac, poured it out, pressed it flat, waited for it to harden and dry, put it on a turntable and asked you to play just a fraction of those songs using an expensive needle to conduct the sound.  And that’s vinyl.  Good, right?  Anyway, very little of that is about my being chosen as one of Rangefinders 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photography for 2016.  I kind of scraped in under the wire for ‘rising stars.’  The cut-off is five years and I’ve been doing this professionally now for exactly that.  And quite frankly, looking back on it all now it’s been crazy.  I’ve shot–and continue to shoot–everything from East End pub weddings to weddings in St Tropez where a couple of the guests are the Prince and Princess of Monaco.  I’ve shot in Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Iceland and even Hong Kong.  Also East End pubs.  And I draw no distinction between any of them.  It’s all sanctioned social documentary, people watching, portraits on the fly.  I was a writer before this, and back then I would have killed for this kind of access.  Now it’s simply what I do, week to week.  It’s also how I’ve come to photography and learned about its history and its artists.  I would like to think some of that learning shows up in the photos.  Huge influences are William Eggleston, Larry Fink, Tony Ray Jones and Martin Parr.  But really, the list is endless.  Now of course, the right and organised thing to do would be to now show you photos from all five years, charting my career trajectory.  However I’m just not that organised.  Half my hard drives are in storage, some of the older ones are up in the attic somewhere.  So there then are a few of my more recent photos–mostly the last couple of years, with a handful of others I had the good sense to upload to Flickr in one of my rare moments of clarity.  Mostly these are the photos I submitted to Rangefinder.  Have a look.  See if you think the judges got it right or if they’re quite clearly off their meds…

Also, a huge thank you to Carrie Schwab who nominated me for this award!

Rangefinder 30, 2016