July 2014. Client: Art on the Underground

Art on the Underground commissioned the British artist Richard Wentworth to create new work as part of Transport for London’s centenary commemorations of the First World War and asked me to produce the press images to release to publications interested in publishing the story (Here is what Creative review used). Did you see the poster? And did you have a mirror on you?

I photographed the poster in Southwark Station between trains arriving as we didn’t have the time or inclination to run after all the passing public and convince them to fill in model-release forms (there are many examples of these forms, here’s another – I always end up adapting the words to the particular job I’m on, as the one size doesn’t fit all).

The trains were two minutes apart at that time of day and also, it takes a little while for people to clear the platform, so the shoot window was about 30 seconds. This is actually not a bad way of working as it forces you to use the waiting time to stand and think how the shot could be better. I find it’s possible, when other people are involved, to get caught up with getting the job finished instead of taking time during the shoot to stand and think. A lot of photography is instinctual (I take the picture and work out the reason why later on at my leisure). Once you have done the test shots, the instinctual shots, the obvious shots and you have the brief fulfilling images in the camera it is then time to enjoy yourself and over deliver for the client (and yourself)… time permitting.