A life on the road

~ The world is my studio and I love shooting in a wide variety of interesting locations. My life is all the more exciting for it as I meet interesting people and see amazing places on the way. The Covid 19 Lockdowns have been hard for me, but now at the time of writing, the world is slowly opening up once again.

The scouting process starts with scouring Google Earth for potential locations and then involves putting pins in Google maps. The next step is to go and do reconnaissance or a recce. Once I’ve checked out the potential shoot spots I assess the hazards and safety issues that might occur when shooting with a model.

I love abandoned places. The textures and simplicity of places like these make wonderful portrait shoot spots. This collection of portraits were shot in the USA, Spain and Italy. As the economy of these countries improves more and more of these locations are being renovated and becoming lost. I like to shoot while I have the chance as time is running out for a lot of these places.

I avoid grafitti and tagging. The further I travel away from urban sprawl the cleaner the locations seem to be. A 4×4 vehicle is a must as the tracks leading to these shoot zones are often overgrown. This collection of pictures were shot in France, Italy, Spain and England.

These photographs were taken in Cuba, Singapore, Italy, Cambodia and England.

Some locations are just too colourful or saturated with one heavy colour tone throughout. In those situations I set my camera to black and white to simplify the image and to help my composition at the shooting stage. The locations here are in Fuerteventura, Spain, Cambodia and England.

The faded industrial zones of Europe provide some fabulous places to shoot portraits and fashion. This collection is made up of shots taken in an abandoned coal mine, a factory and a ship repair yard in Belgium, a dissused sugar factory in Italy, and other locations in Poland and England.

Abandoned monestaries, chapels, casinos and convents are superb shoot spots and quite easy to find. I just have to do a spot of research to find them. The pictures in this panel were taken in Italy, Switzerland, Cambodia, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and England. Local knowledge helps too.

No matter what country I’m in I’ll try to seek out the best places to shoot. Sometimes my requirements are extensive, especially if I’m running a workshop. I’ll need washroom facilities, catering, and a safe environment for us to shoot in. The locations in this set are in Norway, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England.

The grandest of houses and palaces are exciting places to shoot in. Extra care must be taken during the rig and shoot. I use rubber feet instead of spikes on my tripod and I work from battery power to avoid tapping into electrical supplies that might be historical. The locations here are in Switzerland, Italy and England.

Styling is important too. Especially when I want to match the look with the location.

If you have or know of a fabulous location or several decent locations close to each other leave a comment below asking me to contact you, or message me here. I’ll be in touch and let’s see how we can collaborate. I have a location budget that I can tap into to help secure the best spots.

Join me on a portrait shoot adventure this summer and discover the places that make location portraiture exciting. Workshop and adventure Information is here.