Before our shoot last week in Gran Canaria I nipped over to sunny Kent to shoot Jim Moir aka the one and only Vic Reeves,  you may already know he is an extremely talented artist, indeed Vic Reeves Big Night Out was born as a performance art piece.

Jim Moir AKA Vic Reeves shot by Martin Brent in his studio near Ashford, Kent Feb 2012

It turns out we both sell our work through Eyestorm and they asked me to capture ‘Vic Reeves- the artist’.  So we spent a very pleasant morning at Jims studio and also met his other half the lovely Nancy Sorrell and their gorgeous twin girls.   I’ll be honest we had such a good time we really didnt want to leave!  The Canvas above Jim is a recent self portrait, his studio is a hoarders dream, all kinds of ephemera and of course his amazing art.

A couple of fun commissions followed each other just before and after the Christmas break, Think Big & Reinbeer  both nice gigs involving real character models.

Church End Brewery- Reinbeer

Think Big Feb 2012

Two great shoots and one with beer thrown in.. cant be bad!  Also had me back at the post production controls too, I dont always have the time but I do like to tackle my own post whenever I can.

We had a really gorgeous shoot in November- For the client Norwegian Seafood Export Council, how would we like to go out to the far North of Norway and shoot their campaign in the Lofoten Islands…?

What a brief!  engaging the services of Oslo based Nils as our location producer and scout, my own producer from the UK Ali and assistant Matt we headed for the far, far North.

The campaign will be rolling out this year but I can show you a preview, meet Erik & Knut, the faces of Norwegian Fish!!

Meet Erik & Knutt

Panache Sports came to us for the launch of their new sports bra, amazingly complex shoot with strobe sequences making up background action detail “I guess you’ll need to shoot this in a studio and comp”?    Not a bit of it, everything shot on location, for real, OK it was very cold and I still apologise to everyone on the shoot, especially our models, at least we got to keep well wrapped.

Panache Sports

Harley Davidson came knocking too, this was another great campaign to shoot, far from the usual brief from a maker of iconic motorcylces, this didnt focus on the machines, not one in sight, instead this is all about the rider, actually the rider before they even know theyre going to be Harley owners!  This particular image has been selected by Ads of The World, Best ADs (print ad of the week)

Harley Davidson- Handpicked

Wow this is really turning into the highlights of the year, other shoots took us to Sardinia, Norway (southern) La Rochelle and a majorly exciting thing for me personally was being asked to judge on D&AD.  Wow, what can I say, what an amazing set up, I joined a great panel of judges, including Julia Fullerton Batten, Dimitri Danilov and Michael Schnable as my fellow photographers.

wow!

very very organised!looks like a lot of work

looks like a lot of work

it is a LOT of work!

We were really impressed with the organisation, the care and attention to detail,  every piece of work received the care and attention it deserved so an absolute honour to be asked and then to be asked to join the Black Pencil panel too, sadly I had to decline as it coincided with a shoot, gutted but hey maybe I’ll get asked back again one day?

curve gallery

I was very excited to get a call from Eyestorm asking if I would like to place some of my work in the Barbican Curve Gallery.

Coming up to Christmas this was a great time, we decided to exhibit he large format Snow Tree Panoramas, the largest being 2.25 meters long, a large space like the Curve would suit it well.

The Snow Trees

The images are set in  acrylic reverse,  an archival C type print is mounted on an acrylic base, an optical gel applied and clear acrylic front applied, compressed to laminate the print the end result is stunning, If you always wanted to see images presented on a wall and wished there was no frame, this is as near as you’ll ever get.

As well as The Snow Trees I also placed a Tree Divers print.  The show really was interesting and a great success,  some lovely work and a great show to participate in.  The Snow Trees then went onto the London Art Fair, again gaining a lot of attention.

If youre interested in purchasing my art then please take a look at Eyestorms website.

Ben Foden

The PDN annual has become one of the most respected competitions internationally, the rosta of names that have appeared over the years gives a clue that its credentials are first class.

Having picked up the Advertising Photographer Of The Year title at last years World Photography Awards in Cannes to now be jetting off to PDNs bash at the Tribeca Skyline Studios in New York City really is a privilege and I guess I have to thank the judges for their good taste (well I would say that wouldn’t I?).

The images were taken as part of a shoot for Wolf Blass and the RFU, they were taken down at Twickenham where fortunately there was room to build a temporary studio, the lads, all exceptionally busy from not only England but also club commitments, are always in demand so we were very lucky to have them for a few hours.

Initially working on the ‘ready for action’ poses, the lads clearly needing little prompting to look pretty tough we got what we needed in no time, Dylan had us in stitches,  terrifying on the field but turns out to be quite the joker off.

Dylan Hartley

I wanted to try to get something a little deeper, more of a glimpse at the man inside, the lads were up for it so a lighting change and we were reset. I got them into pose then asked them to think about something deeply personal, I then waited for ‘the moment’  it isn’t really possible to define what this is but you instinctively react when it occurs and the shot is in the bag, I shot remarkably few frames, maybe only 5 or 6 of each player but I knew when I had the shot.

The style was inspired by a combination of the old school sporting hero wills cigarette cards from the 40′s and the preferred style of portrait of the former Soviet bloc.

The key to the success of these images rests with the players though and I’m extremely grateful to them for being such fantastic subjects, so Ben, Toby and Dylan, thanks a million, these three are über talented, keep your eyes open you’ll  be seeing and hearing a lot about them over the next few seasons.

Tigers V Saints

Staying with the rugby theme after shooting the England players I was asked to look at a gorgeous project over at Leicester Tigers.

They were looking for something a little different to the usual sports coverage,  images that still delivered the excitement and passion of the game  but without the detachment of being shot on huge telephoto lenses, really they were looking for a similar effect to my trench project which meant short manual focus lenses up close to the action!

Fantastic but how do you get close to the action when the matches being played are very real, very international and being covered by Sky TV?  the answer I found was being allowed to roam up and down the touchline, dodging advertising, Sky cameramen and other photographers whose angle of view I was desperately trying to avoid.

Having played rugby I had a fair idea where the action was heading and was in the enviable position of frequently being only a matter of feet from the action, sometimes too close!  the passion and 100% effort these guys throw into the game is indisputable when you can literally hear the crunch of flesh and bone, mercifully these guys are well trained and prepared for ‘battle’ and I witnessed no serious injury except to pride on occasion.

Part of the shoot gave me the amazing opportunity to spend a little time with Alex and Manu Tuilagi,  the more time I spent at Welford Road I realised just how much respect there is for the history and tradition of the club, so much so the players insist on keeping the locker rooms as they have always been.

Save for a lick of paint every season,  the benches, edges worn by countess boots, the mirror (one only!)  they are as they always have been and it was here I wanted to shoot the brothers.  The brothers have indisputable presence, theyre big men!  I really wouldnt like to be tackled by them at full tilt but what genuinely pleasant and patient guys they were.

Even when we asked Manu to get dirty, even though they were about to head off for some rare and deserved r&r he got stuck well in, I’ll be adding a couple more action shots to their gallery soon but in the meantime check their portraits out here for Alex and here for Manu.

A real pleasure to work with you gents!

crunch! Leicester V Australia

Toby Flood

Pop back in about a week to hear about my recent shoots with Englands finest ,  The Fresh Creative Awards which premiered this month in Manchester and my shoots with Mr  Gethin Jones who proved to be an extremely pleasant chap to work with.

In the meantime have a look at the movie we created for The Fresh Awards.

We’re just packing up for a nice shoot on the Cotes D’Azur  so Au Revoir for now.

The short listed work was… Dirty Mouth The event was held at Jasmine Studios, good crowd and I was pleased to see plenty of friendly faces including George Logan who deservedly picked up a win for his brilliant Red Road series and also an old friend and near neighbour  Nigel Harniman who also picked up a win for his amazing CGI Mars Ice cream ‘van’ created for AMV.

SUN (Shot Up North) was originally the AOPs Awards programme for the North, it was taken on by Ed Horwich a number of years ago and he’s built it into a cracking showcase of talent from the regions.  Some of you will know Ed  for the work he did on Martin Parrs Last Resort, he was a fellow board member at AOP with me so it was great to see him again and help out with the judging.  Fellow judges this year included amongst others photographer David Stewart and Wayne Ford, design director at Haymarket, blogger and Twitterer extraordinaire, you really should check out his blog if youre at all interested in photography and the arts.

The judging went really well, we all had our favorites of course but the debates wer reasoned and everyone had their say, to be honest it was one of the best panels ive ever been part of, I just hope that the next time my work is considered it receives the same amout f respect our panel afforded the entered work.

Anyway it was a tough process but we chose a winner and awarded several merits, it was good to see that despite the reduced output of many photographers over the recession creativity hasnt been overly dented, so well done to our winners and I look forward to meeting them at the show in October this year.

Along with some lovely shoots its been a busy run,  Ive just shot all the creative for the Fresh Advertising Awards, stills and movie and a nice little shoot for Holland & Barret with Gethin Jones which I’ll be blogging about soon.

Heres a taster for the Fresh creative, see the other 6 here

Watch this space!

With an entire week of superb events, seminars and of course the world famous photography Awards the vast majority of people got themselves there by whatever means possible, for us it meant an epic 950 mile road trip with just 24 hours to do it in.

A good job too because during an awesome event I picked up a win in the Advertising category and gained the title Advertising Photographer of The year. The legendary photojournalist  Scott Thode, also editor of VII (previously Fortune mag)  presented my award during an amazingly impressive show at the Palais,  followed up by dinner at The Majestic where much Champagne flowed.

One big stage!

I really have to thank the judges this year, they were Nadav Kander, Chloe Limpkin, Scott Thode and Mark Sealy,  having judged awards myself its no easy task so I congratulate them on a job well done.  It was a thrill just to meet Scott, I was always a big admirer of his HIV AIDS awareness work, Looking For The Light shot over many years in and around Greenwich Village, he has created so many incredible images that I can only inadequately describe as soul stirring. If you only ever see one of his photo essays then make it Venus Rising, click the link and you’ll see why (choose the quicktime version!)

I had the pleasure of Chloes company at the aftershow dinner and I was also sat next to fellow Brit David Handley who picked up the win for fashion, if theres anything that could make winning this award any better then surely it has to be the many wonderful people we met.

Cannes needs no introduction it certainly lived up to its reputation as being the cultural home of awards, its was the perfect setting and was pretty well packed out despite the best efforts of volcano Eyjafjallajökull.

The images were shot for COI, not as an anti smoking campaign but as a warning of the dangers of buying under the counter ciggies, most people assume that these are smuggled in from Calais etc and youre just avoiding the duty,  however to our horror it turns out that the vast majority of these ciggies are counterfeit! The client was keen that  the ad was truthful so all the ‘ingredients’ used have been found in confiscated hauls of these things.  We’re talking rat faeces, rat, maggots, beetles, dirt.. well pretty much anything you can sweep off the floor.  The best bit (or worst) everything we used was real and 98% of the ‘items’ were in our models mouths at some point, I hasten to add everything was clinically clean!

You can see the winning images on martinbrent.com and of course on the WPO site too.

Its only 978 miles by road so lets get on with it - updates will be forthcoming!

See the latest here: “Volcano ash cloud prompts fresh flight doubts”

For a long time I’ve been pondering the best way to show you my work, the old landscape, people, places thing just didn’t fit anymore as I get asked to shoot people, portraits, location and pure landscape based work. I also needed a way to display my personal projects plus also moving image, an area I’ve been interested in for a long time and am now bringing online as a new service.

I hope you like the new site, any comments then please share them.

Thank you.

Martin Brent.

Visit the official Sony World Photography Awards website.