Peter Dench

In Conversation With Jocelyn Bain Hogg

2012-01-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

Jocelyn Bain Hogg (JBH) is sweating. He reaches for a small bottle of Trumper's extract of lime and depresses a cooling mist. A polka-dot Paul Smith handkerchief is flourished from the pocket of his Adam of London suit to dab the beads from his lofty brow. I sip my can of Heineken. It's touching 28C in Le Couvent des Minimes, where we both have an exhibition as part of the 23rd Visa pour l'Image (VPL) festival of photojournalism held annually in Perpignan, France. I'm representing England; JBH, Wales and Scotland. (He has never felt English, ever, and admits to sniffling with pride watching the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.) Together we are flying the exhibitor’s flag for Britain. Waiting to be interviewed for French TV, pleasantries are exchanged in the way that British men do. Our respective journeys to this privileged position has been very different.

The Family
©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

Solely his mother brought up JBH, an only child, after his adopted father died when he was a baby. The young JBH applied himself early to the theatrical, playing Robin Hood aged seven, and later winning the prestigious House Colours for his portrayal of Phyllis the Maid in the George Bernard Shaw farce, Passion, Poison and Pretrification, performed at the equally prestigious Lancing College (that he describes as a bear-pit). A youth of reciting Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot unravelled before unearthing his fathers old Rolleiflex persuaded JBH to turn his back on successful applications to the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and the University of Oxford. Like many photographers before him, the Siren sounds of the click of the shutter and turn of the film winder had lured him to a lifetime behind the lens.

Five years his junior, while JBH, aged 18, was having his work published in Harpers and Queen and on the cover of the British Journal of Photography, I was still throwing chewed soggy paper to the ceiling of Mr Speedy's math class. Magnum Photos Agency photographer David Hurn, had already insulted JBH; a right of passage that would take me another 23 years. He advised JBH put his pretty pictures in a box and show them to his girlfriend. Perhaps Hurn played a hand in JBH’s unsuccessful application to Magnum. The criticism seems unabated. In 2010, at an exhibition of JBH’s project, Muse, at Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff, Hurn greeted him with the words, “Love the shirt, hate the show.”

MUSE
©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

I first became aware of JBH attending my first VPL festival in 2002. I had a screening of my project, Drinking of England. On arrival, the talk of the town was still about the stately Brit who had entertained the crowds the previous year with photographs from his book, The Firm. First published in 2001, the work documented the criminal underworld, from exile in Tenerife to the broad spectrum of activity in the UK. Images of topless girls, gripped guns, grabbed buttocks, knuckle-duster neck chains and 6-inch cigars introduce us to the fierce world of the celebrity thug. The book has since become a cult classic. The question everyone asked was: How could this man, take these types of photographs?

The interim decade have seen our paths cross many times. We have briefly shared a commercial agent, exhibited at the same gallery, reciprocated nods across the dance floor at parties, bowed our heads at the funeral of Princess Diana and traded advice over email. Occasionally, I've been victorious competing on commissions; JBH has crushed my ambition for others. After a decade of friendly competition, a few weeks before the VPL festival we meet for a drink, to declare a truce and say, “Well done us, we are still doing it” and agree to form a coalition. I can't help thinking I've been allocated the Nick Clegg role.

Back in Le Couvent des Minimes, the television crew questions JBH; "Are you a gangster?" No. "Are you an expert on British crime?" No. “Did you constantly find yourself in danger?” No. "How does someone like you get to take these types of photographs?" The questions are understandable and the rumours are delicious. One recounts a man owed money, tired of waiting to be paid, presented the debtor with a copy of The Firm, indicating that he knew the author. The debt was immediately honoured. Another anecdote: A woman at her wits' end after the relentless bullying of her daughter at school asks if JBH’s ‘friends’ would be able to help? The bullying ceased.

I leave the French exchange and stride into JBH's exhibition. The first thing I notice is his contributor photograph, credited to fellow VII Photo Agency snapper, Seamus Murphy. A sartorially crafted JBH sits perched on a bar looking every bit the dandy, a cigarette dangles between the fingers. My contributor photograph is a self-portrait, urgently requested by the Dorset Echo, I had hauled myself out of bed hours after returning from assignment to Kirkuk, Iraq. The result is a baggy eyed, unshaven Dench, with what looks like an enormous Mohican.

The claustrophobic sweaty room suits the content of JBH’s photographs. Big men tilt their big shaven heads for whispered conversations in Knightsbridge bars. Jewels sparkle, caught in the cut-through-the-dark ring-flash. Personalities clash, the clothes are brash, men snort coke through cash. Women touch tongues and tattoos tell tales of gangs. The images are from his new project, The Family; IT IS NOT A FOLLOW UP TO THE FIRM!

The Family

©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

The VPL press office is working us hard. In between my own dense itinerary, I try to catch up with JBH for an interview. I turn up for scheduled talks of his that he hasn't and stand alone as others are rescheduled. Journalists text me to ask if I’ve seen my British chum. We cross paths briefly in Cafe de la Poste, the unofficial festival HQ for a few grabbed words over Pastis. At one point during the week, he kicks me up the backside and I capture video footage of him calling me a w****r. The cracks in the England, Scotland-Wales coalition start to show and the sparring is welcome.

Back in London, battered but not beaten, I recoup, regroup, and head down to the home of photojournalism, the offices of Foto8 near Old Street in London. How lucky am I? The home of photojournalism, just down the road from where I live. It could have been in Nantucket; or worse, Grimsby. I'm meeting JBH at 3pm and have arrived early to look at a PDF of the The Family and chat with Foto8 director, Jon Levy. I ask the question. "How does this man take these types of photographs?" Levy explains: “It's the demeanour of JBH, he's not trying to be someone he isn’t, the bon viveur, pushy-in-a-good-way, Errol Flynn character of our day you see, is the man you get.”

JBH arrives around 4pm after a prolonged meeting with his bank manager and folds himself into a chair. The anthropologist explorer of British society explains the villains of The Family are guys who just know who they are and they don't mind being photographed; the police already know who they are. If The Family is not a follow-up to The Firm, the style certainly is. The continuation of grainy black-and-white pictures delivers the feeling of a sequel. Given the opportunity for a career in movies as a young man, JBH had opted for stills photography; his “Passport to move freely and document the world without the intervention of camera crews, set designers, bulky equipment and, above all, the necessary contrivance of film-making.” With the development of lightweight HD video cameras, would JBH now consider shooting footage? He would, but this would not have been possible shooting The Family, those silent conversations caught by the stills camera, need to remain just that.

The Family
©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

The images in The Family, introduce us to the world of villainy post Joe Pyle Snr. Pyle, from South London, was the head of a crime family who counted the Kray twins among his friends. He died of motor neurone disease in 2007. The work documents the four ‘brothers’ bequeathed the Pyle Snr. crime patch; where these scions of the Pyle family compete with international gangs and comply with others to maintain their heritage. Along with images of paying respect at the cemetery, wakes, communions, and unlicensed boxing matches, we find the protagonists relaxing at home in suburban Surrey: watching Chelsea on TV, fooling about with the kids, playing basketball in the yard. Photography is JBH’s family and books his children. Books matter, they are lasting; his legacy. They make a statement. Two more books are planned for 2012. The joke is that if The Family isn’t published before Christmas, JBH would not be celebrating it; but no one seems to be laughing. I lighten the mood and suggest that Foto8, who will publish the book, release the slogan, “Publishing books, saving lives”. But no one seems to be laughing. Back home, I check my bank balance, Christmas list, and pencil in for all my friends and relatives, 'a copy of Jocelyn Bain Hogg’s The Family'.

The Dench Diary Live: 'The Home of Photojournalism' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

Jocelyn Bain Hogg will be exhibiting The Family at White Cloth Gallery, Leeds UK, Spring 2012.

Copies of The Family is available to buy from Foto8 publishing including limited editions.

A version of this feature first appeared in issue #2 of Hungry Eye magazine, copies available to buy here.

Dench Diary : September/October 2011

2011-12-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

1st - 5th “Peter Dench!” It’s the moment I’ve dreamt of for nine-years, Jean-Francois Leroy is striding towards me. The director of the Visa pour L’Image festival of photojournalism has granted me an exhibition and I’m in Perpignan, France, to promote the work. It’s been a dizzying whirl of television, web and press interviews, I’m emotional; vulnerable. I quickly recap what this bearded messiah of the genre has done for me. In addition to the exhibition, five of my projects have featured in the evening screenings over eight years. It is time to show in one overbearing outpouring what it all means and I man up for a hug. JFL opts for the handshake. It’s too late and his hand is lodged uncomfortably between our ribcages.

“Peter Dench!” It’s the moment I’ve been dreading. Jean-Francois Leroy is again striding towards me. I consider legging it, scuff to a halt and offer my hand. He grabs my shoulders and pulls me in for a double-cheek-kiss. I manage to detour my hands around his waste and squeeze.

I am en route with all the attending festival exhibitors and some industry nobs for a celebratory lunch in the countryside. Christopher Morris, Paolo Pellegrin and Photojournalism’s Father Christmas, Gary Knight, are all in attendance. The talk is of Libya and which flak jackets offer the least chaffing. I think of Blackpool and the Speedos I shall wear. The bendy bus transporting us rolls around the roundabouts and swings through the villages. My back is to the driver. The festival is a boozy affair which I can handle. The Dench stomach, however, has a weakness for road travel. I’m directly facing former Magnum President, Jonas Bendiksen and Pellegrin. To my right is war photographer Yuri Kozyrev, Bertrand Gaudillere sits stoically still. The boyishly fresh Ed Ou bounces around. I start to dry heave. Black spots splatter the eyeballs. I am about to throw up, the bus stops, I lurch into the sunshine and manage to swallow my shame.

I ease myself from the emasculating arms of VII snapper, Marcus Bleasdale, shake him a warm goodbye and return to my seat outside Cafe de la Poste, the unofficial festival HQ, where I decide to call it a night. There is peripheral movement, the perk-up presence of Jyothy Karat sweeps me up from my seat for one last hurrah. Walking into the official end of festival party is a shameful affair. I’m advised to purchase a plastic beaker and exchange some euros for drink tokens. I wave my badge and enunciate that “I’m an exhibitor and must be directed immediately to the VIP area - and the free drinks to which I’ve become accustomed." I’m informed as only the French know how, that there will be no more free drinks. The ride is over. I’m so tired, at the party I start to hallucinate and become convinced the guests have been instructed not to let me leave and the whole evening has been arranged to reveal I’m a fraud and the exhibition a hoax. In a moment of panic, I dart unapologetically from one conversation and bolt for the exit.

18th In August, I was auctioned at the London Street Photography Festival fundraiser for £420 to Mr Proudfoot. Today I spend a pleasant afternoon walking around the Barbican taking portraits of him and his partner at some of their fondest locations.

21st I knew this day would come. Frankly, I’m surprised it took so long. After the Perpignan high, the inevitable low; and it hits hard. I’ve followed up on the stack of inch-high business cards, read the brochures and clicked all the links. The money has gone. I have no work. Copper leaves corkscrew in the Autumnal wind, I flip the lid on a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and sip out the day in my FCUKs.

23rd I’ve made a rookie mistake and allowed a window for conversation to open with my taxi driver. I don’t want to have a conversation with my taxi driver. It’s 4.30am. I especially don’t want to have a conversation with this taxi driver, who is Lithuanian and keen to practise his English. To be fair he needs to practise. I’m on my way to San Sebastian Film Festival in northern Spain where I have some photographs in the group show, Letters From Europe. Arriving at Stansted, the taxi driver explains how tough it is to earn money and his reliance on tips to feed his family - all delivered in perfect English.

On 7th September 2010 I received an email;

Dear Peter, My name is Lola Mac Dougall.

No one called Lola Mac Dougall would be contacting me unless they wanted me to send them £5000 after being robbed abroad or wanting to meet for fun, fantasy and frolics in North London. I had pressed delete, had second thoughts, retrieved the email and continued to read;

"I represent Limonkraft, a Spanish non-profit association which is devoted to culture and development, and works closely with photography. We are currently implementing a project co-financed by the European Commissions Daphne III programme. Our project deals with second-generation migrant girls from North Africa and South Asia living in Spain, France, Italy, UK, The Netherlands and Denmark. Specifically, we are documenting their social integration into their “host” countries, as well as forms of violence and discrimination to which they may be vulnerable. Given your previous photographic works, we believe the proposal may be of interest to you."

It was. Landing in Bilbao I meet Johann Rousellot, who is representing France in the show. On the bus to San Sebastian, we discuss the strategies applied to shoot our respective projects. Arriving at the exhibition hosted at the city’s Ernest Lluch Cultural Centre, is a little disappointing, it has the 'some-pictures-on-the-wall-of-a-local-library' kind of feel. The event kicks off with an hour of academic findings before a Q&A with the photographers. I throw a posture of seriousness and nod my head when I think I ought to. My beer-massaged thoughts meander across the mainly female audience. They have more facial hair than I have. I’ve never been in a room with so many women I’ve not fancied before.

“PETER, would you like to explain your strategy for the programme and your documentation of the actions to combat all types of violence against children, young people and women in the UK and all aspects of this phenomenon including violence in the family, violence in schools and other establishments, violence at work, commercial sexual exploitation, genital mutilation, health repercussions, trafficking in human beings and rehabilitation of perpetrators?”

At the exhibition after party, one of the curators asks “Was I too scared to apply the humour and irony evident in much of my work to this particular project?”

24th Getxophoto 2011 (pronounced Getcho) is a superbly innovative festival on the coast about 100km east of San Sebastian. Huge murals hang from buildings. Recycle bins are photo-wrapped. You can peep at some projects and even put you beer on others. Last year the theme was ‘Leisure’ and I had seven images from my Drinking of England project printed on around 5,000 coasters. How my work should be viewed - through the bottom of a glass. I wasn’t able to make the trip and have used this opportunity of proximity to take a look at this years theme: In Praise of the Elderly. During lunch with the festival team, we suck back crisp Txakoli, (a slightly sparkling, very dry white wine that I’m horrified to find out, has a low alcohol content), nibble regional sausage and discuss next years theme - Faith.

Does Faith exist? Yes It does. How do I know this? Because I spent a week in the town. (Well I was supposed to spend a week in the town but the only bar ran out of draft beer on day six so I left early.) Faith, approximately 130 miles north of Rapid City, South Dakota, population 548. Birthplace of Cathy Bach, aka ‘Daisy Duke’ from TV’s Dukes of Hazard and home to ‘Sue,’ the finest find of a T-Rex skeleton now on display in Chicago. During the week, I had met and photographed Gilbert Jones, the only barber for 100-miles who recalled the very real problems growing up in Faith in the “dirty 30’s,” when there was no electricity and plagues of grasshoppers frequently blacked out the sun. The local pastor-come-artist of the Faith Christian centre, Terry Botjen, was so hot-for-god he painted me a religious landscape complete with the healing power of the almighty. I photographed the balloon bursting competition, diving competition, melon eating and seed spitting competitions.

On my way back into Bilbao for the night I make a note to get my Getxophoto 2012 submission together. I would like to report of my cultural absorbing of Bilbao night life. Truth is, after the previous days early start, I’m completely wiped and spend the evening in my hotel room with a six-pack and crisp pack, watching rhythmic gymnastics on television. The only Olympic tickets I applied for (and failed to get) was for the flawless beauty of this sport. It has been a passion since upgrading from the marching majorettes and cheerleaders of my youth. The grace, coordination, agility and artistry with ball, ribbon, rope, clubs or hoop of rhythmic gymnastics to me, is God’s own proof.

25th The plan for the trip to northern Spain was to do it on a budget. The flights were paid for and per diems of 400 euros allocated by the exhibition organisers for travel about town and accommodation. My return flight is 22.10, I’m already over budget and have 11 hours to occupy after checking out of my Bilbao hotel. I visit the old town for breakfast, stroll to the bullring, pay homage at the Estadio San Mames (home to Athletic Bilbao), pause for pastries in the park and gawp at the Guggenheim. I check my watch - seven hours until departure. I hit the bars for some Pintxo (Pincho); basically, a tiny sandwich made from what is found left in the fridge - a dollop of mayonnaise, a gherkin tip, an anchovy or prawn. They are served with equally small portions of booze. I try out my Spanglish: "Grande rojo vino, grande blanco vino, grande copa de cava." 11 glasses later, I check my watch. I’m late for my plane.

29th Summer has made a roaring comeback, the mercury touches 29C. I can’t possibly work on a day like this and flip-flop over to the Villiers Terrace. After lunch of beetroot and goats cheese salad with roasted walnuts, I get to work trying to fathom my new phone. I’ve already forgotten to save crucial contacts from the SIM. Checking what’s left, I discover numbers of yesteryear: retired picture editors, defunct magazines, and film processing labs long gone. I begin the cull and stop at H for Hetherington, Tim. There are two numbers. ‘Delete all details?’

8th I have a friend who doesn’t drink. Last week my wife went to ask them advice on cutting down. When my wife returned, the friend was back on the sauce. The resulting bender was so frightening, this week I have cut down. The past three days have been irritable, tense, and uninspiring. I’ve not made one joke or had one original thought. In an effort to uncork the creative juices, I pour a bottle of Bergerie de la Bastide, Vin de Pays de Mediterranee 2010, sit down and write up this diary. Chin Chin!

A version of this feature first appeared in issue #2 of Hungry Eye magazine, home of the Dench Diary

New Brighton Revisited

2011-11-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

Martin Parr. Rarely does a day pass in my professional life when he isn’t mentioned by, or to me. Martin Parr, one of the world’s greatest living photographers and behemoth of photographic history. His third book The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton, is perhaps the most influential on my career - well, it's certainly top five. It was his first book in colour, and what a way to do it. Bam! Flicking through the pages a kaleidoscopic bulb burns straight on to the retina, it’s a saturated slap about the face.

The photographs were taken in the Liverpool suburb and working class seaside resort of New Brighton over three seasons, 1983-1985. The Last Resort was published a year later - a year in which I spent my summer behind the counter of Weymouth Joke Shop selling cans of 'Instant Shit’ and ‘Heavy Drinker’ caps to Bristolians and Brummies on holiday during factory shutdown. I first saw the book aged 18 in the library of the art college where I was studying for a National Diploma in photography. It was not a book of war photographs or famine but it was Parr’s front line and one I recognized as my youth. The book was a genuine revelation that a photographer didn’t have to fly to far-flung places to photograph suffering, horror and despair; you could just get on a bus.

I’d like to think I would have arrived at the style of photographs I take regardless of Martin Parr, but he certainly hastened the process. Professionally his presence has sometimes been a burden; though more often that not it's been a great benefit. Whatever, I accept the influence. It is 25 years since Parr self published the first edition. The images have become as familiar to me as my own family album. As homage to the work, earlier this year I packed the 1998 edition by Dewi Lewis publishing and headed to New Brighton on a Bank Holiday Weekend photographic pilgrimage to stomp in the footsteps of Parr.

I was born beside the seaside, beside the sea; any reason to return to the coast is welcome and welcome to New Brighton. Arriving on the Wirral Line the neck hair prickled. Through habit on any coastal trip, I deployed myself straight to the seafront and stared across the River Mersey at the 30+ wind turbines that turned steadily enough to huff New Brighton away. The resorts decline was protracted. The, 'I’m bigger than Blackpool Tower' (New Brighton Tower) was dismantled in 1920, the pier finally demolished in 78’. By the time Parr arrived it was on the fringes of ruin, but it still had the open air bathing pool. A documentary photographers jackpot, the then largest open-air pool in the country provides half a dozen plates in The Last Resort. I imagined Parr photographing the Miss New Brighton pageant wearing his trademark sandals and stooping in Speedos to shoot among the tiered benches designed to seat 20,000 sun seekers in addition to 4000 bathers. Bulldozers levelled the pool in the summer of 1990 after winter storms had caused irreparable damage - well damage the council didn’t want to pay for. A replacement has finally been nodded for approval. I squinted at the size - it would embarrass the more affluent garden pond.

On Marine Promenade I crouched in the exact spot where Parr photographed two children dribbling ice cream in front of a weather shelter and electric blue painted railings. Since he focused the 55mm lens on that Plaubel Makina 67 rangefinder camera, the railings have been layered brown, white and black then weather whipped back through black, white, brown, to original 'Parr blue' and, in places, to green underneath. What struck me was how close he must have been - an undeniable presence.

In Vale Park I knelt at the bandstand where Parr flashed for a fraction of a second in front of a woman poised in shiny pink leotard and skirt. On my visit the dancer was replaced by the Northwest Concert Band. As they tuned up, I tuned out and noticed the same bin from Parr’s shot on the parks periphery. The updated striped deckchairs still gently cradled the elderly and infirm. I snapped the scene as those able to stand for the national anthem did so.

There were hundreds of cars along the Prom but where were the people? Mostly in their cars, texting on mobile phones, talking on mobile phones, reading, staring but, mostly eating. They still came to New Brighton but there’s not much to do when you get there, except walk. The 15-mile Wirral Coastal Walk, dotted with Rhubarb and Custard uniformed Lifeguards, passes through New Brighton and a dog is a good excuse to use it. I photographed the dog walkers, ice cream eaters, pigeon feeders, model boat enthusiasts and the families hooking for crabs I met along the way. I photographed outside Susie’s Ice Cream Parlour and Legends Café Bar, but was prevented from shooting in the Bright Spot Arcade. It’s impossible as a photographer familiar with The Last Resort, not to see Parr parts in every shot. Alsatian dogs, dogs with tongues hanging out, crying children, elderly women in waterproof headscarves, scattered chips on the pavement. All have succeeded in history.

In the Queens Royal hotel, a procession of framed portraits of Miss New Brightons wearing one-piece swimsuits and knees-together sepia smiles, looked down over the wedding guests whose overfed buttocks gyrated to Lady Gaga - buttocks that would never find sepia-framed fame. I showed The Last Resort to as many locals as I could. Bridesmaid Claire was too young to remember much of old New Brighton and was uncomfortable with a stranger showing her a bright colour photograph of a naked boy balancing next to the litter strewn Marina Lake. She drank some more to forget. In The Olive Tree, Ray remembered working at Wilkie’s covered fairground 13 hours a day and the girls that would send him ‘Remember me?’ letters. He remembered days on the beach where day-trippers stood shoulder to shoulder. "Now everyone is just wider and wider,” he says wryly. None of the locals I showed The Last Resort to had heard of Martin Parr (I briefly considered moving to New Brighton). They talked more of Thatcher than of photographers. Some had seen the photographs before, they thought, somewhere, but not sure where.

On initial publication, The Last Resort divided photographers, critics and the public alike - still does. The defining moment of colour photography or the rape of noble and traditional practice? Some thought the content sneering and cruel; others affectionate and humanistic. There was no Flickr, Facebook or TwitPic to forewarn what was to come - it just flew into our laps like a chucked can of rainbow paint. Arriving in New Brighton I expected residents to react with outrage that these types of photographs were taken and that I’d brought them back into their consciousness, but no one minded. I’d hoped to find some of the individuals photographed. Perhaps the ice cool girl in the ice cream shop married someone like Ray and now both run a pub on Victoria Parade. No one recognized the individuals in the photographs but everyone recognized a little of themselves in them. Without exception they all felt sad. Sad what New Brighton once was and, despite attempts at regeneration, would probably never be again? The Last Resort was read as simply that - the last of a proud, great seaside tradition, where Mr Punch Swazzled, “That’s the way to do it!” Where The Beatles once headlined in 1961 at the Tower Ballroom for 5d a ticket, and where Gerry and his Pacemakers belted out their anthem across the Mersey. I always read it as the last resort - the place you would least want to go.

As I beat a retreat from New Brighton I too felt sad. There’s one thing the English seaside does well and that’s nostalgia. Leafing through the book my youth flickered across the pages in a visual echo of Smiths Crisps, Milky Way chocolate bars, Kwik Save carrier bags, factor two suntanned mums, prams and Pepsi cans, chip wrappers overflowing from wire rubbish bins and the cheap worn white shoes; so many white shoes. And this is what strikes me as the importance of documentary photography and film making. I’m not yet 40 and the images provoke thought and trigger memories of a past generation. This is why I will always be a photographer; to photograph what is real, to record the present in an attempt to preserve the past.

I email Parr my bank holiday snaps, he replies that he has returned to New Brighton a good few times and that it’s changed beyond all recognition: He says “Of course, now you could not shoot naked children the way I did then.” Unaware of what I can photograph today that I might not next year, I grab my camera and blink into the sunshine. It’s bright, but not quite technically brilliant dazzling New Brighton Martin Parr bright.

A version of this feature first appeared in issue #1 of Hungry Eye Magazine

Dench Diary : August 2011

2011-11-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

1st – 6th It’s just after 9am on a sunny summers day. The sound of pre-premiership football friendlies pollute the air. I’m sat by a swimming pool looking at a pair of shorts laid neatly on a sun lounger. A long black dress is smoothed out on the adjacent lounger. I imagine the couple that will fill them. I decide the woman will smell of coconut, the man of white musk. They will be on their first holiday as a couple, they will be in love. They will link little fingers listening to the albums of Coldplay and David Gray through shared iPod headphones. I decide I won’t say hello but smile warmly at them to acknowledge their blossoming future. Three hours later they haven’t arrived. Other sun-seekers have had to sit on the floor by the pool. I hate the selfish couple and their vacated attire. I think of photographing myself in the man’s shorts and leaving a picture on the hotel notice-board, of tossing the girls dress into the pool or placing funny shaped fruit in the garment pockets.

I am on a family holiday. I’m not cut out for the family holiday. I don’t play cards at home with the window open listening to Bill Withers’ Lovely Day being sung badly on the Karaoke, but I do on a family holiday. I don’t normally drink odd coloured alcohol from odd shaped bottles, but I do that on a family holiday too. The trip has been paid for by my mother-in-law, there’s no irony in being working class and skint, mostly it just blows. I got into photography to travel the world at others expense. On assignment, I’ve partied with Maharaja’s, dined off a silver platter with Billionaires, taken a helicopter ride up the river Thames with a Hollywood movie star and sipped Gin with the Queen gazing out across the Indian Ocean.

On the family holiday, I find myself shopping for Heinz products in the Spa Supermarket listening to Bohemian Rhapsody being played over the tannoy. I eavesdrop on customers talking excitedly about the evenings Roy Chubby Brown experience. On the way back to the hotel, Scouse Tony tries to cajole me into a restaurant pointing at the beige and orange pictures of food I could tolerate on the lunchtime menu. The week is spent in a beer-haze of playing thumb wars, Hello Kitty Top Trumps and trying to purchase the photographs of happy families you find as you exit the water park. I keep sane by shooting some stock and file ‘the family holiday’ away with other events I can’t spontaneously enjoy: birthdays, weddings, New Years Eve, the entire Christmas period, school plays, the morning, sunsets and romantic walks in the park. My favourite time in the pub is Monday Brunch-time, when most people are at work. The truth is, despite my struggles, I rather like my life. Touching down in London, it feels good to back.

8th From burning on the beaches of Spain, to burning on the streets of London. With X-Factor off the air, the riot season is in full fling with looters grabbing giant TV’s ahead of the new series of the X-Factor. Spot news is not my forte. With situations like this you have to get on board early and see it through. Grow a pair and get stuck in. Sat in the comfort of The Villiers Terrace, I do what I do best in grave situations of uncertainty and Tweet some gags:

- The fire at the furniture store will end after the bank holiday weekend.
- The Croydon formal attire shop is a blazer.
- Using a water canon will have consequenches.
- Looters of Argos made off with six small blue pens.
- Mob reported on Lavender Hill.

9th As London continues to smoulder; it’s with a sense of relief that my daughter has a planned visit to her grandparents. Terminating at Weymouth we remain on the platform to observe the arrival of a rare train. The waiting train-spotters observe my daughter for what I decide is an inappropriate length of time. No one seems concerned about London so I ask about Weymouth; It’s been four months since my last visit, what’s been happening? “A charity swim and some scaffolding have been put up round by the harbour.” The 1940’s-built Southern Railway Bulleid Pacific steam locomotive named Tangmere chuffs to a halt. I don’t take out my camera.

11th Sat in the beer garden of Camden’s Edinboro’ Castle tucking into a second bottle of afternoon blush with international thriller writer Tom Knox, a French phone number flashes on the mobile. It’s Grazia with a commission to report on post London rioting, from a woman’s perspective.

12th – 13th I meet the French journalist in Dalston for the start of our riot-tour. We visit Eltham looking for a female vigilante linked to the English Defence League prevalent in the area. Join a clean up in Tottenham where I bump into the much admired Edinburgh born snapper Muir Vidler. In Croydon, we talk to the perfectly petite police staff Francesca and Claire, stand to inhale what’s left of the Reeve’s furniture store and have a pint in the Tamworth Arms where the reception from one local isn’t as warm as the street, a bit of cricket chat smoothes things over. In between the chain-smoking and caffeine quaffing, the journalist is kind enough to find time to suggest how people should be posing for my camera. Walking Clapham High St, the horror is evident but also the hope. Boarded up shops have become temporary walls of condolence with thousands of messages of support and it’s a welcome opportunity to shoot some positive images. Also evident in Clapham is the amount of whole-food shops smashed but not looted. I think it should be known as the summer of the bad-diet-riots.

16th Head down to the Ian Parry awards supported by Canon Europe at the Getty Gallery sponsored by Nikon. Ian Parry was a photojournalist who died aged only 24 whilst on assignment for the Sunday Times during the 1989 Romanian revolution. A scholarship was set up designed to award young photojournalists with a bursary that will enable them to undertake a chosen project and raise their profile in the international photographic community. The competition is for photographers who are 24 years or under. It’s also open to ancient photographers on a full-time photographic course, ask previous winner Marcus Bleasdale. Thanks to the external network at Derby University, the first time I heard of the scholarship was after I left education at the age of 25. In a way, it’s good not to have been denied the prize and I arrive uninhibited by failure to enjoy the evening. Despite the sombre origin of the prize, it attracts industry heavyweights for an upbeat industry bender. Congratulations to 2011 recipient of the prize Rasel Chowdhury from Bangladesh for Desperate Urbanization, his landscape series documenting the pollution of Dhaka.

17th Ouch! I can’t move. Throb. The clock ticks. I’m late. Focus, heave into last nights clothes and speed towards Waterloo, every second counts. Ticket, twelve minutes to spare, easy. Where the F*** is Threshers! Major refurbishment has erased my habitual shopping point. I tweet my terror. Whistlestop at the far end by platform 1, gone @ChrisSharps. Costcutter round the corner, their fridges are unreliable @paulrussell99. Sainsbury’s opposite the station, not enough time @_JamesDavies. M&S, yes, queue, four-pack of cider and I make the 10.05 to Weymouth by a doors wheeze. At Southampton Airport Parkway the M&S finest has done the job and I doze a flashback Parry party where feathered legend Dod Miller snaps under the Bognor sun and I stroke enough DNA from the face of Simon Roberts to cultivate my own line of Lumberjack shirts.

I arrive in Weymouth just in time for the space hopper race. The town’s annual highlight, the carnival, is in under way. I’m delighted that 21-years after my initial request, a beer tent has been erected for the big day. I top-up my liver and get to work filming and photographing the Devizes Male Major Wrecks down in the ‘Muff’ to raise money for the charity, Contact a Family. The men train for two hours every Sunday evening from January to May, if you live in the Devizes area, are male and a wreck they urgently need recruits. I meet newly crowned 20-year old carnival queen Lucy Compton who has enjoyed watching the event with her family since a little girl and who will lead the motorised procession flanked by Jessica Miller, 18, who when she was chosen as a finalist “Didn’t know what to do so I just ran down the stairs” and Sarah Flann, 26, a keen amateur photographer who has just finished a hairdressing course at Weymouth College. Confusingly, there’s also a Miss Weymouth, the shimmering Shiralee Gould who will be walking the Carnival route for the charity Pets at Home. I shoot video of Shiralee, also winner of the Miss Dorset Popularity award and take some stills of her eating a Mr Whippy ice cream. Shiralee says she’d “Rather be single than to be lied to, cheated on, and disrespected.” I nod sagely.

24th My shirt is on the floor. The room is full. I think there is whooping. A woman shouts “SUCK IT IN” another squeals. I am #Lot10 at the London Street Photography Festival fundraiser auction. The audience are bidding on a personal portrait session with me at their chosen venue, the prize includes a digital photo and print package. The guide price is £250 - £300. I am petrified. £100’s have been spent so far and most guide prices breached. I can see my Ketel One Vodka cocktail. I want my Ketel One Vodka cocktail. Over the festival period, I have come to rely on the Ketel One Vodka cocktail. I throw some moves and am relieved when the bidding hits £420. Someone calls for my shoes and socks to be removed. I can see where this is going and shake my head. The gavel falls. I look forward to spending the afternoon with Mr Proudfoot and his pertner.

27th Apprehensively pack for the Visa pour l’image festival of photojournalism in Perpignan. It is to date, potentially the greatest opportunity of my career. I have a 40+ print exhibition and am scheduled to give a Canon sponsored seminar, two television interviews, and a number of guided tours to my exhibit. The place can be brutal. I like a drink, photojournalists like a drink and there will be thousands. Positions two and three in my all time top ten of inebriation are attributed to the festival. Previously, I’ve had five screenings in eight years; I was there for three of them and only made it to one. I can’t even think about the country that occupies position number one. Many years later, viewing it on a map still has me retching and reaching for the floor to cuddle my knees. Each year around the anniversary of that day, I meet the man who accompanied me and we whisper our shame. For an attempt at restraint, my family are coming to Perpignan for the first few days, even my parents. This may have not been wise; the imbibing mother that bore me relishes a holiday snifter. I re-check my checklist; throw in an extra box of soluble codeine, breath in and head for the airport. It should be quite a ride.

A version of this feature first appeared in issue #1 of Hungry Eye Magazine, home of the Dench Diary

Mr Lethal Bizzle : Latest Dench Diary Video

2011-10-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

What is Dench? Over to you Tim Westwood and Mr Lethal Bizzle;

Delighted that Mr Lethal Bizzle and his friend Frimpong, have harnessed the power of Dench into a successful clothes range. The T-Shirts have sold out. Plans are for hoodies, hats, jumpers, sweatshirts and jackets. Keep checking in with www.grimedaily.com for stock updates. There is also a forthcoming Dench toy (or it could be tour), and a Dench song, let's hope it's out in time to make a push for Christmas number one. I look forward to seeing what Mr Lethal Bizzle may rhyme with Dench, I can't think of anything.

Dench, according to the Urban Dictionary is another meaning for "sick" or "nice." If something is well Dench, you can say, "It is well Judi Dench," although I think, "It is well Dame Judi," has a nicer ring to it. Or should that be a Dencher ring to it?

They come in a variety of colours, colours, colours;

. . . . news coming in, yes, yes, it's here, the Mr Lethal Bizzle freestyle DENCH rap;

Also for your viewing pleasure, the latest Dench Diary video;

#PHONAR : task 1

2011-10-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

When Jonathan Worth asked if I would have time to do Jon Levy's phonar task, gather 10 images of people who inspire me and lay them out in a spread, I immediately said. "Who are you, stop bothering me, what is phnnar, I haven't got the time."

After a bottle of Prosecco in The Villiers Terrace, I remembered. That Jonathan Worth, author of the critically acclaimed open undergraduate classes #PHONAR and #PICBOD. And my former flat-mate.

#PHONAR Task 1 by Peter Dench (mp3)

I would be delighted to share with you my choices;

Tim Hetherington - Tom Wood - Marcus Bleasdale

August Sander - Paul Reas

Richard Billingham - Maciej Dakowicz - Gerd Ludwig - Martin Parr

www.peterdench.com

I Made a Film : I Am Hosting a Workshop

2011-10-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

I MADE A FILM;

The War & Peace Show from Peter Dench on Vimeo.

I AM HOSTING A WORKSHOP

In association with the London Street Photography Festival

This is London

Dates: 12 November to 13 November 2011
Venue: Hercules Pillars, Holborn
Address: 18 Great Queen Street, Holborn, WC2 5DG
Time: 10am - 6pm, both days
Price: £270 - buy ticket

This two-day weekend workshop will help you with your approach to photographing people in public spaces.

Workshop ticket price includes pub lunch on Saturday and Sunday.

SCHEDULE

I will email a brief one week before the workshop and be available online one week after the workshop to answer any questions or concerns and deliver further feedback if required.

Saturday

10 - 1pm: Introduction

I will give a presentation of my work in of one my favourite London watering holes, individually asses the work and capabilities of each participant and set the objectives for the weekend workshop.

1pm-2pm: Lunch

Pub lunch, probably involving cheese, a pork pie, crisps and a large pickled onion.

2pm-6pm: Shoot

Photographing at some of my favorite Central London locations looking to capture the humour and irony evident in the everyday of English society. The route will take in the grandest tourist spots London has to offer: Oxford Street – Piccadilly Circus – Trafalgar Square – Whitehall – Westminster.

Sunday

10 - 11am: Review

I will review the previous afternoon's shooting session and set instructions for the morning shoot to follow.

11 - 1pm: Shoot

After an hour to reflect on the previous days photography, there will be the opportunity for a further two hours street photography before a traditional English Sunday Roast.

1pm-2pm: Lunch

2pm-6pm: Crit

Everyone will gather round to assess the work and give critical feedback.

WHO IS THE COURSE FOR?

London lovers, capable confident camera handlers, aspiring professional photographers, dedicated hobbyists, thinkers and beer drinkers (wine and hard spirit drinkers also welcome.) This workshop is suitable for beginner and intermediate photographers in posession of a Digital SLR, bridge or micro-four thirds camera.

OUTCOMES

Working closely with participants you can expect to improve your approach to photographing people in public spaces. The workshop is designed to show how to shoot with speed, confidence, respect, humour and above all, to have fun. You will become competent in creating bright clear photographs whatever the weather often using flash. I will demonstrate how to document a familiar London location in a new and exciting way, how to develop strong themes within the work, and how to build a project and edit with skill. Each participant will receive a detailed critique on the work produced.

I HAVE AN EXHIBITION;

England Uncensored, will be exhibited at the Perscopio festival of photojournalism at Vitoria-Gasteiz in northern Spain from late October to early December 2011.

Dench Diary : July 2011

2011-10-03T04:42:00.000-07:00

1^st The month is an hour old and I’m pleasantly imbibed. Sat in a booth at The Big Chill House I watch Mimi Mollica get the rounds in. Dougie Wallace flicks at the hem of a beautiful gyrating French girl. Nils Jorgensen sits as still and wry as one of his photographs. George Georgiou networks with modesty. Stephen McLaren lurches his ebullient frame niftily among the throng. David Solomons is getting chippy with a well-spoken blond woman and Nick Turpin’s pencil moustache continues to amuse. I’m at the inaugural London Street Photography Festival launch party. I lean to ask Jesse Marlow what do you suppose you call a room full of Street Photographers; Pedestrians? Unemployed? I congratulate Jesse on his award as Street Photographer of the year for his photographs including one of a jumping cat and a cardboard box that looks like a face.

2^nd Enjoy the annual weekend visit of Carters Steam Fair to my local park, in a roundabout way.

4^th My 15-year old niece Jaye arrives for a weeks ‘work’ experience just in time for liquid lunch o’clock, well she has to learn. I wash down my warm shredded duck and hoisin salad with a bottle of Pinot Grigio Blush and consider ordering another. Jaye looks nonplussed. Revising plans for an afternoon in the beer garden we head down to the Museum of London to check out the London Street Photography exhibition. On the way Jaye talks enthusiastically about the week ahead and the photographs she intends to take.

5^th Today I have become attractive to men. As I walk the top deck of the W7 bus they sit up, brush the locks from their brow and beam me a smile. Then I remember my hot panted protégé is bouncing along behind. We spend the morning striding around central London as I impart the skills required for successful street photography. I allow Jaye half an hour unfettered to shoot in Trafalgar Square. Ten minutes later I receive a text; “Where are you? A creepy man keeps following me.” We retreat for pizza and assess the work. Every shot has a black obstruction in the top right and bottom left corners from the knocked out of position lens hood.

6^th Regrouping after lenshoodgate, I aim to enthuse my leg weary intern with a visit to Photofusion Gallery for On Street Photography: A Woman’s Perspective. I always enjoy a woman’s perspective and prepare for shots of shoes and the street snapped from inside Topshop. I’m pleasantly surprised; Tiffany Jones work offers moments of cinematic drama, Anahita Avalos effortlessly captures the beauty of Mexican street life. I eject Jaye into the markets of Brixton to snap the characters and colour. She has forgotten her camera.

7^th Today Jaye and I do not go out to take photographs. Instead I expose her to the hand peppered kisses and wet cheek explorations of Mollica and Wallace respectively at their London Street Photography Festival exhibition openings.

8^th Welcome to my 800^th follower on Twitter @BexleyRoyalDeal – Royal Coupons for Bexley. I look forward to receiving my first Royal Coupon.

9^th Day one of an assignment shooting reportage on Arab London for The National, a newspaper based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. In 2008 they flew me out to the Emirates to shoot reportage on the city’s corniche, the equivalent of the British seaside promenade. The first thing I do on arrival is run across the beach for a paddle. I was immediately escorted off by security. It was a woman’s only beach.

Photographing Arab life in Abu Dhabi was often delicate and I look forward to the more open opportunities London will provide. Approaching from the south on Sloane Street is a Rickshaw with three women wearing the black abaya traditionally worn by Muslim women. I raise the camera and flash a frame, the Rickshaw stops. A woman steps out. The woman is angry. Four men herd me towards a shop front. They firmly request the photograph is deleted. I explain I am within UK law to take the picture. They explain that I have disrespected their culture. I suggest we look at the photograph and discuss its merits.

The woman dials her embassy. The men dip their chins and stare from under a unilaterally furrowed brow. “Delete the image.” I consider tickling their chins and raising my eyebrows. “You do not want trouble.” Flicking to the back of the camera I take a look. I’ve missed the shot. An overexposed rear detail of a Rickshaw can be seen exiting frame left. I announce that in respect for their culture I shall delete the image. The woman hangs up. I shake the men’s hands. The woman asks for my business card.

I’m trying out a new business card. A spoof on the adult service cards you often find in public phone booths. I politely decline her request. She suggests in future, I ask permission before taking photographs.

An hour earlier I’d grabbed a shot of an Arab woman wearing a large badge announcing, ‘It’s my birthday, spoil me.’ She firmly requested the image was deleted. I make a note to contact the UAE embassy to suggest a collaboration to highlight the dichotomy of freedom to photograph and respect for a culture residing in a foreign country.

I also make a note to shoot the s*** out of these situations before photographing on the street is further compromised.

10^th Today I ask permission from of all the Arabs I would like to photograph. Most refuse except a trio of Saudi girls wearing ‘I Love London T-Shirts.’ It makes my day and makes the publication cover.

13^th My sense of Arab has become so refined I can detect the flap of an abaya or kandora amidst the wind. Stood at Piccadilly Circus I put it to the test, close my eyes and listen. Six abayas sail past. I follow them.

They turn into m&m’s world. Four floors dedicated to the sugary treat. There’s a Routemaster bus inside the entrance, blue m&m is driving. Yellow m&m dances to Abba, pausing to pose for pictures. On the lower floor, four m&ms recreate the Beatles Abbey Road album cover. The ‘do not touch’ signs on the displays are in Arabic. I count 15 Arab women in the store. This place is an abomination to humankind, but the Arab women love it.

What else have I learnt on my Arab adventure? I have learnt the London Arab generally does enjoy riding in a pedalo, flying a kite, listening at Speakers Corner (but not the free hugs) and feeding the ducks in Hyde Park. The London Arab generally does not enjoy reading the Star newspaper, riding a Boris bike, rollerblading, having their caricature sketched in Leicester Square or boarding a busy tube train. It’s been challenging and I say good-abaya to the project for now.

19^th It’s snowing outside Shoreditch Church, a man in a Santa hat drags on a roll up, I ask ‘Looking for Eric’ star, Steve Evets to pose for a portrait. It’s my last shot of the day photographing on set of BBC sitcom ‘Rev’ for a magazine feature.

Arriving in the morning, the PR pumped from a session in the gym reveals today would be observation shots only with no portrait opportunities of the cast that my brief underlines as crucial. I slowly chew an antacid as he reinforces the restrictions.

I’m not perturbed. Walking on to set I say hello to director Peter Cattaneo. I first met Pete filming ‘Lucky Break’, his directorial follow up to Brit classic, ‘The Full Monty’. He’s happy for me to quietly gather what portraits I need.

20th Late June I missed out on a five-day job for an Australian newspaper as I didn’t have evidence I shot video. I can’t afford to turn down a five-day commission. It is time.

Equipped to shoot video I head to the ‘War and Peace Show’ in Beltring, Kent: the largest military vehicle spectacular in the world. Marching around the show arena, I film Alan wearing the uniform of Pagoda Troop SAS, Hitler Youth Aidan of Panzer Division, Chris from MACV-SOG: A unit of modern forces living history group, “an uber secret special forces team, around in Vietnam, very, very secret” and Richard wearing a Swiss Army mountain snow suit armed with a WWII Schmidt-Rubin baton rifle. Richard has had a love affair with Switzerland since he visited as a schoolboy in the 1960’s.

Exploring the extensive market stalls there’s a dubious amount of Nazi paraphernalia on sale: key rings, coasters, a Hitler teddy bear, mugs and mouse-mats. Public schoolboys in Nazi T-Shirts peruse the military motorcycles, Heinrich Himmler look-a-likes shop for a black cap.

I’m actually relieved when I bump into Stalin.

In the evening, I shower away the corner of a Kent field and button on a clean shirt. Earlier my commercial agent called. “Would you like a networking party?” I would. “Tickets are only £10.” I’m flattered that people would pay £10 meet me. Ah.

Arriving at the Frontline Club having paid to mingle feels a little desperate, the drinks are free and I figure two Gin and Tonics and I’m in credit. I get my first and survey the crowd. I don’t know anyone. I suppose that’s the point and get to work.

I chat with photographer Chiara Ceolin, photographer David Vintiner and photographer Pete Garner. Wandering how helpful this has been on a return trip to the bar I discover the Gin has run out. A drink short I join an audience with Adrian Fisk in the club bar below. Adrian lives in India and is in town to discover if he has been successful in a project pitch for funding.

Getting a Gin in for Viceroy Fisk, I show the framed photograph of an amused Tim Hetherington a headline from the Sun newspaper; ‘Builders Bum Faces Cancer Crackdown’ and regale Tim with stories of my day in the trenches filming members of the Third Reich. I think I detect a widening of his much-missed smile.

25^th Freelance Photographer + School Holidays = Daddy Day Care. Help!

The Dench Diary will appear in Hungry Eye magazine every issue and I will be posting short films of my adventures throughout the month.

Hungry Eye Magazine

2011-08-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

"Hello! I'm Peter Dench. Author of the Dench Diary, a monthly column online and in print for Hungery Eye Magazine."

After much anticipation, the HE website is now live. Much to enjoy including Hungry Eye TV and the latest Dench Diary reporting on my experience photographing the world's largest military vehicle spectacular and Arabs in London. The in print magazine is scheduled to launch the 1st October and you can sign up for subscription now.

Also enjoy my adventures in shooting (improving quality) video as I rapidly come to terms with what is required to deliver Dench Diary clips.

I'll be reporting daily to the HE website via video from this years Visa pour l'Image festival of Photojournalism.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Dench Goes to Getxophoto'' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'The Home of Photojournalism' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'The Final Day: Day 6 at Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Day Five at Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Day Four at Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Day Three at Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Day Two at Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Day One at Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Dench For Sale' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Lavender Hill' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary Live: 'Weymouth Carnival' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary: July 2011 from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

The Dench Diary On Holiday: July 2011 from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

Dench Diary : May 2011

2011-08-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

This Month I relive my brush with the LA porn industry, say farewell to good friend and fellow photographer Tim Hetherington, and pass up a weekend at the in-laws to go on a pilgrimage to New Brighton in the footsteps of Martin Parr.

4^th The PR is late. They often are. I’ve a tight two hours to complete the shoot and it’s ebbing away. Generally my experience with PRs hasn’t been great, except once. I was on assignment for the Telegraph Magazine tracking down the entourage of the deceased entertainer, Liberace. Our search had taken us to Las Vegas, then on to Los Angeles. Selfridges, department store was to display Liberace paraphernalia in their windows and was funding the trip. PR Maria Dark was our attaché. Checking out of the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, the receptionist asked if I had anything from the mini-bar? “Everything.” She looked at Maria. I looked at Maria. Maria nodded her consent. The $250+ slate was cleaned. Today’s PR turns up and loiters in shot while instructing what I can’t do and where I can’t go. I’m photographing White Water Rafting at Lee Valley Park near London for Men’s Health Magazine. I’ve done my research. Equipped with a buoyancy aid and 70-200mm zoom lens I leap gazelle-like around the course under instruction from on-sight snapper, White-water Dave. Later, the PR buys me a BLT sandwich.

9^th Dust of my 12x16 print folios and head over to White City and the offices of Olive magazine. They responded favourably to a portrait email-out and invited me in. The invite came with a warning: "We commission on an all rights basis. This is pretty much standard across the industry now…" The design team coolly surveys my work before the Creative Director announces she’d be delighted to commission me for some projects. Apparently, people have been turning up with the results of ‘test’ shoots, so witnessing commissioned prints has been a rare delight. On the way out she retells a delightful story when David Bailey refused to leave his studio to photograph Michael Winner, who refused to leave his home to go to Bailey’s studio.

10^th Late in bed Googling myself I find a link on the GQ Magazine website to my first ever foreign assignment. It was one to remember - 1999, on a Friday afternoon as I sipped some Cava in North London, Ash Gibson, art director at GQ called. Would I like to go to Los Angeles? I would. Would I like to go tomorrow? Fergus Greer, the assigned photographer was stuck in Kosovo and unable to get back in time. I said yes. Without a credit card I phoned my Dad and asked if I could borrow £500 cash. He said yes, and drove the 143 miles from my hometown of Weymouth to deliver. Arriving in LA I had a vague idea where the job was and booked into a cheap Motel. Turning on the radio after a fitful night's sleep, I discovered several people had been shot in the vicinity. The only resident not renting a room by the hour seemed to be yours truly. Still, excited by the assignment I unfolded one of two numbers to locate the writer and dialled the luxury establishment. “Hello the Beverly Wilshire, how may I help?” “Could you put me through to AA Gill please.” AA Gill, the sardonically revered and feared acid-tounged hack. He had scripted a pornographic film and was in town to direct. Striding on to the set of Hot House Tales, I introduced myself; he sat with a childlike expression of amusement, dressed in a light safari suit as an aspiring colonial dandy might sit amongst his ayahs and bearers. The next few days were surreal. The star of the show was Houston who had recently had sex with more men in one day than anyone else in history. She was supposed to climax at 500 but the turnout was 620; she kindly finished them off. Houston was a giver, well a taker. I documented Gills progress and marvelled at the professionalism of the team. On return to Blighty I showed my Dad the contact sheets; “That’s Ron Jeremy,” he pointed out, “I’m familiar with his work.” Thanks Dad. The article on the GQ magazine website has half a dozen of my images from the reportage. I don’t remember discussing or agreeing to this and am confident my 1999 contract didn’t have a web-use clause. In the hope of relieving Conde Nast Publishing of some further coinage, inquire about a fee. The article is removed from the website.

13^th 9am and I drop my daughter off at school. Three minutes past and Marcus Bleasdale is on the phone discussing where we can get a drink. Today we will need a drink; 10.30am in Richoux, a Mayfair bar and restaurant we sate our palettes with Champagne. At a few minutes past 11am, the coffin of photojournalist and friend Tim Hetherington is hoisted into view to the front of The Jesuit Church Of The Immaculate Conception. The sight is a collective thunk in the stomachs of the congregation. Atop the coffin a single candle flickers; white lilies pout a silent fanfare. American author and journalist Sebastian Junger completes the service with a personal tribute. A man of dignity and power, his presence and voice is projected and proud. On returning to his seat he slides a hand across the wooden lid and crumples into the arms of a loved one. I return my gaze to the pattern on the floor that today has become as familiar as my daughters face. During the reception held at the Dorchester hotel on Park Lane, the mood lifts. Stories are exchanged and new friendships forged. As Tim’s mother advised us to do, we begin to “dance with life” as her son had done. The dance takes us late into a night at the Frontline Club. As Bleasdale would later tweet, the day was “truly moving, special, sad, uplifting. We say goodbye to a great man. Tim.”

15^th Enter the FOTO8 Summer Show, £20 for three images. Check my finances and have £15 left; £10 will feed two children in Ethiopia for 100 days. Sorry kids. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait another 150 and enter one picture in the AOP Open Awards instead.

19^th I am photographing the actress Prunella Scales, probably best known for her role as the long-suffering wife in TV sitcom Fawlty Towers. The shoot is for a Telegraph Magazine garden special. I’ve shot some portraits and details in the rear garden and accommodated the writers’ request to photograph Prunella by the compost bin. We are now stood outside the front of the house admiring the smaller garden. It’s not just any garden; it’s a herb garden. I’ve been biting my tongue all morning but now, I think, is the time. I ask Prunella what type of herbs. “Fennel” (snigger), “Mint” (chortle), “Sage” (here it comes), “Rosemary” (say it), and “Tarragon” (AND!) And that’s it. I’m sure I detect a narrowing of Prunella’s milky blues. There is definitely no BASIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

26^th For the second year I have volunteered, yes volunteered dear reader as backstage snapper at the Miss Leeds beauty pageant grand final. Every reportage photographer should photograph a beauty pageant. Ever since I saw Tony Ray-Jones image Beauty contestants, Southport, Merseyside, 1967 it was on the shoot list. I was hoping after Miss Leeds 1, it might launch a career in event photography. There has been no direct benefit. One of the 2011 contestants has withdrawn after viewing my pictures. Before Miss Leeds I’ve a meeting with Henry and Paul at Jamie’s Italian and spring up the steps into the arms of a spritzer. Between the Pinot and Pasta it’s clear Henry and Paul have no idea what I do or who I am. I have no idea what they do or who I am. I think at one point they suggest I run a dedicated photography gallery under their mentorship and funding. I really should pay more attention. After the plus-three-hour pow-wow, I flick back through my notes. I’ve written down the phrases "the thing that exercises my mind," and "consider the USP," next to which is a doodle of my weeping face. The speech bubble simply reads, ‘Miss Leeds!’ Rushing backstage my face pings taught, an instant hairspray Botox. The tongue swells to the roof of my mouth. I look like a permanent surprise. Throw up a backdrop, lights, and peer through the haze. Nubile lovelies singe and tinge, brush and fuss. There’s enough fake tan to cast an army of Oompa-Loompas. They line up for their close up. Straight into lens please Adrianne Carter. Adrianne is sponsored by Acorn Stair Lifts, ‘Acorn can help you use your stairs again.’ Adrianne says: “I want to make people happy by making a difference, it’s a great feeling knowing I have put a smile on someone’s face.” Can you look up to the light Jade Garbett? Jade is sponsored by Exercise Express. Jade says: “I am a happy bubbly person and love to see other people happy too.” Chin down a touch Kelsey Sutcliffe. Kelsey is sponsored by Fastway Tour Bussing. Kelsey says: “I will show it doesn’t matter what size clothes you are.” Push your lips together for one please Olivia Goulden. Olivia is sponsored by Dolphin Lifts, ‘A true family business.’ She says: “Imperfections make you perfect.” (Can someone please tell me why stair lift companies sponsor beauty contestants?). Kelsey (21) from Keighley triumphs and I cut through the curses to congratulate. “Hello again, it’s Peter, from London. Congratulations.” Kelsey hopes to go to London one day. She says: “I have driven near it once on the way to Windsor.”

27^th One of the great thing about being a photographer is you can create a project to drink and photograph where you want. Frantic in bed at the MINT Hotel, I’m racing through my ideas book. This weekend is a bank holiday weekend. The current plan is a trip to the mother in laws. I ring my wife. “You know I’ve always wanted to go to New Brighton?” “No.” “Of course you do, the town that Martin Parr photographed 25-years ago for his book, The Last Resort? “Vaguely.” "Well I’m going.” I gather my kit and jump on the first TransPennine Express to Liverpool, descend the three flights and change onto the seabed smelling Wirral Line. Welcome to New Brighton.

28^th- 31^st Four nights, I booked four nights. It’s blowing a gale and slapping rain, duck in to Kevin’s Hairdressers for a trim and ask “call me Kev” where I should go for the day. “Not Birkenhead, they’ll batter-yer-head, ha-ha, I’d go to Liverpool.” Four nights! What was I thinking? Determined not to stray from New Brighton I visit the former site of the outdoor swimming pool, former site of the pier and former site of the tower. I meet local-born Ray, back in town for a friends 60^th birthday and ask what I should do. He doesn’t know. “But stay out of Birkenhead, they’ll likely give you a smack.” I embed myself in New Brighton and photograph lifeguards Gary and Matt, sea fisherperson Pat, the North West Concert Band and newlywed Claire Simon-Kind (30) with bridesmaid and sister Sarah Simon (28). Nibbling a Mint Feast I snap graffiti proclaiming "Laura Loves Dick" and imagine the happy couple canoodling in the weather shelter where their love is carved. Steve, out walking dogs Bobby and Rocky slides in alongside. We talk about the history of New Brighton and what I can enjoy on my visit to the Wirral. “You’d enjoy the fort.” I float the question. “And Birkenhead?” “I wouldn’t go there, the 20’s-30’s get a bit aggro like.” I’ve enjoyed stomping in Parr’s footsteps. On my last night I decide to get smashed. In the morning, sifting through remnant pocket clues I find a neatly folded square of paper and open. Underneath the heading "New Project" it has one word in capitals underlined, BIRKENHEAD. I check the diary for the next planned visit to the in-laws

A version of this feature first appeared in the July 2011 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

Dench Diary : April 2011

2011-07-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

This month I find myself hustling for drinks on a flight to Jamaica, treading the red carpet at the Sony World Photography Awards and brushing off my suit for a very important wedding.

2^nd I’m standing behind the bar at the Red Lion Hotel in Southall, West London. It’s not a change of career; I’m here for the one-day Cricket World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka. The match is being played in Mumbai, India. On 24 September 2007 I was in a Mumbai hotel watching the World Twenty20 Cup final between India and Pakistan being played in Johannesburg, South Africa. I was on assignment for the Telegraph Magazine documenting the launch of Vogue India. I’d just flown back from Jodhpur and a remarkable night at the golden yellow, Art Deco, Taj Umaid Bhawan Palace, home of the current Maharaja. I was originally booked to stay at a more modest venue but informed that no, I was to stay at the palace itself. En route to relocate, I passed German fashion snapper Jurgen Teller (He didn’t remember me from the two days cutting up and stacking contact sheets at his studio in 1997). I worked and partied hard under the Rajasthani night sky as the rhythmic sounds of superstar DJ Donna D’Cruz musically massaged the buttocks of the models, Bollywood stars and Fahionistas dancing in the lush 26-acre gardens. The Twenty20 final was won by India and the Mumbai streets were rammed with crazed fans delaying my arrival at the airport to within a Chapatti of departure. The 200 or so Indians wedged into the Red Lion are also going crazy after India’s triumph today. I’ve been photographing on and off in Southall for years and today was another opportunity to add to the project, where a man with a camera would be welcome. I even got to drink for free.

4^th It's 2pm. Sitting in the lobby of BBC Television Centre I keep an eye on the revolving door for Tanya. Tanya describes herself as Blonde wearing a striped red scarf. She is correct. We are to shadow Newsnight presenter Mishal Hussein for eight hours to run as a feature in Stylist Magazine. I’m looking forward to the next eight hours - a chance to strike up a rapport with Mishal, watch the buzz of a newsroom develop and shoot a concise set of images. After a few frames during a 10-minute interview and a few more during a coffee meeting, I find myself back on the wind-whipped street in the Westfield Shopping Centre. We’ve been advised nothing much will happen until around 6pm and should occupy our time. I was hoping to get fed and watered by the BBC PR so I'm unprepared. Tanya suggests a long lunch, which would be nice, but I’ve been let down on a January invoice and only have £5.80 in my pocket. I make my excuses and head into The Defectors Weld, trade in my cash for a large Tempranillo and bag of Mini-Cheddars, and sip out the hours in a corner with the newspapers. Back at the BBC I shoot for several minutes in hair and make-up and six on-set at rehearsals before the show airs live at 10.30pm, then I'm turned out to catch a late tube home.

6^thThis morning I’m booked in to for a prostate cancer check. I’ve been told this would be a simple blood test. I have been grossly misinformed.

7^th Linen trousers - check. Sun cream - check. “Oh Kingston town. The place I long to be. If I had the whole world. I would give it away. Just to see, the girls at play. Ooh, ooh, ooh.” Packing for Jamaica it’s hard not to sing-a-long with UB40’s Ali Campbell. Plug adapter - check. Bug spray - check. “There are wanders for everyone. The stars shine so bright. But they’re fading after dawn. There is magic in Kingston town.” Tomorrow I fly out on assignment to Kingston for the Telegraph magazine to shoot reportage at the premier of Fire in Babylon, a documentary of how the West Indies cricket team triumphed over its colonial masters through the achievements of one of the most gifted teams in sporting history. I look forward to receiving my share of the “…wanders for everyone” and tap a quick search for Kingston into Google. “In a holiday idyll, coffins are filled faster than they can be buried with the bodies of young men dragged from their homes and shot by police. They killed 382 Jamaicans last year alone.” (Mailonline). Ah. Combat trousers - check. Non-slip running shoes - check.

8^th Flying economy on a nine-and-a-half-hour flight needs a plan, and the plan is to drink. There’s no photography to do when I land so I initiate a strategy that starts by changing my seat online to one right at the back of the plane. The back usually has empty rows and is nearest to the bar. Upon boarding I say hello to all the stewardesses; I'm dressed reasonably smart and show that I’m reading TIME magazine. The disadvantage of sitting at the back is that you’re served last, so I stutter a soft request for a few cans before they begin service. As the two aisle trolleys back unevenly towards me I shuffle across a row to the one arriving first and back to the other to double my quota, then ask for two drinks with my dinner and anyone not drinking nearby to request a red wine in return for my pudding. Job done I assess the haul and embark on a kind of Gulliver's Travels through the mini cellar watching The King’s Speech and The Fighter. During the flight I meet Telegraph sportswriter Simon Briggs for the first time. We are both horrified to discover we’re booked to share a room. Perhaps the PR-Company organizing the trip read the Mailonline article and thought we’d be safer together. In my 13-year career I’ve only had to share a room with a writer once, and that was with one I’d worked with on many occasions and with whom I had become friends. Checking in at the hotel, after one effective tantrum from Simon, I find myself staring at the ceiling from the queen-size bed in a room of my own, and reflect that my last act of intimacy was with the index finger of my GP.

9^th The day is spent at the Kingston Cricket Club photographing West Indies legends Michael Holding and Colin Croft before attending pre-premier evening drinks where I’m seeing red - lot’s of red. Scarlet drops of pure Jamaican beauty pulse through the bodies of the Digicel promo girls. Eavesdropping on eager 'man' conversations I discover that they all appear to share the same name 'Hello I'vegotaboyfriend'. The evening passes in a throb of Caribbean colour and cocktails before heading off to Club Fiction to party alongside sprinter, Usain Bolt and former West Indies cricket captain Chris Gayle.

10^th After a morning portrait for the Daily Telegraph of Sadiki Bolt (Usain’s brother) at the Melbourne Cricket Club, I return to the hotel to work on the digital files, which are required the day I land back in the UK. There’s a knock at the door. It’s Sky Sports cameraman Dan Reston, also in Kingston reporting on the premier. Dan has befriended a couple of locals willing to take us out for the day. Hesitation, a glance at the 30C sunshine, raid of the fridge and I’m swinging my man bag into the back of our ride. First stop Hellshire - not a County inhabited solely by Daily Mail readers but a gorgeous beach where we feast on freshly-caught fried lobster and watch the locals ride horses and deal with wayward freshwater Crocodiles. Thirteen hours after leaving the hotel and a last stop at Club 38, I arrive back keen for a nightcap. Cool cut receptionist Stephanie informs, “The bar’s closed you’ll have to order room service.” Back in the room I dial, “Hello room service, Stephanie speaking.” “Four Heineken please.” “Would that conclude your order?” “Yes Stephanie, it would.”

20^th I’m in my hometown of Weymouth on an Easter break with my six-and-a-half-year-old daughter Grace. It’s a glorious day. We paddle in the sea, spend pennies in the arcade, ride on ‘Sparky’ the Donkey, row in a boat and hook for crabs. In the evening I give her a bath, wash her hair. She chooses Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss for a bedtime story. Exhausted and content, she slowly fades to sleep. At some point during the day a mortar is fired in Misrata, Libya ending the life of Photojournalist Tim Hetherington - a friend of mine as he was of many. I give Grace an extra cuddle and turn of the light. I’ll miss you Tim.

27^th A line of snappers snake past me - some are smirking. At the front of the line are two women in gym wear - one is carrying a Frisbee. It looks promising so I join the end. The line arcs to a halt in front of the magnificent fountains at Somerset House. The ladies stretch and bounce. One does a star jump then practices yoga. The snapping is frenzied. A reflector is unfolded. Assessing the scene I suspect I’m in the middle of an iRobphoto workshop. Retreat to the comfort of Tom’s Kitchen and the sun terrace, where I cleanse my palette with some Prosecco and munch through a crayfish tail, watermelon, basil and spiced peanut crumb salad. I’m at the new home of the 2011 World Photography Festival which is bustling with portfolio reviews, seminars, talks and workshops. Tonight is the Sony World Photo Awards presentation at the Odeon cinema Leicester Square. Having placed 2^nd in the advertising category 2010 and treated myself to an eyewitness trip to Cannes, I’m keen to see how successful the relocation to London has been. A ticket was promised by post for tonight. It didn’t arrive. The PR has assured me it will be available for collection at the Odeon. It is. I’m not VIP enough to qualify for the after-gala dinner at the InterContinental hotel Park Lane, honouring Bruce Davidson, but ask to attend anyway. The PR must be impressed with the man I’m standing with and presents me with a ticket for a guest who’s dropped out. “Tonight Mathew, I’m going to be producer of Radio 4’s Front Row show, Jerome Weatherald”. My congratulations to the winners; however, on such a dappled evening I decide against sitting through a ceremony where I’ve won nothing and reverse up the red carpet towards the Moon Under Water JD Wetherspoon pub. “Hey Mr Dench” I turn and pose for the pap. It’s Photography student and Dench Diary reader Chris Butchart. Chris has been drafted in to ‘fake pap’ the guests. His fee is a pass to the festival events. Settling down with a white wine spritzer I’m joined by photography double act Palmer and Pawel who have placed third in the sports category - and are also of the opinion a bit of alfresco drinking is preferable. We sip and chat while the Brent Carpet Company Ltd roll sup the red, which is still warm from the soles of world photography’s VVIPs. Arriving at the InterContinental the hungry and thirsty Jerome Weatherald scans the table plan for the 500+ guests and checks the company at his allocated number, 52. Dissatisfied, he opts instead for table 40 and wedges in for the evening between renowned photojournalist Tom Stoddart and image producer Caroline Cortizo. Also at the table are photographer Steve Pyke, his son, journalist Sean O’Hagan, Jon Jones, Monica Allende and Patrick Llewellyn from the Sunday Times, Astrid Meget form the World Photography Organisation and other luminaries. It’s been a culinary day. We elbow clack into plates of Cotswold beef, rolled sirloin with asparagus and fresh horseradish sauce, Korean spiced beef tartar and steak bitok. Looking round the table it’s a jolly, if little cramped, affair.

29^th I begin shooting a two-day assignment for the Telegraph magazine - reportage on the Royal Wedding. After an intense and surreal time shooting eclectic characters camped along the wedding route I meet Simon Roberts for drinks. Simon is also contributing to the Telegraph's Royal Wedding souvenir special. As we catch up, two girls from the suburbs join us at our table. They have been in town trying on wedding dresses and, I suspect, have had a few drinks along the way. Simon is tickled with peacock feathers. I have a mug of salted cashews tipped on my head. It’s been that kind of day. I pop a cashew into my mouth and we say cheerio.

30^th OMG!!!!!!! It’s finally here, the big day. What shall I wear!? In the dawn light I peer blearily into the mirror, remove my grimace and button my Paul Smith suit. Ding-Dong.... today this photographer is going to shine.

A version of this feature first appeared in the June 2011 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

How I Shot the Royal Wedding

2011-07-15T02:27:00.000-07:00

Central London is packed. No one moves. A man sobs, another coughs, birds flutter, silence returns. It’s just after 9am on September 6^th 1997. A giant screen in Hyde Park shows a gun carriage taking the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales on a four-mile procession to Westminster Abbey. Every minute of the journey a single bell chimes. On top of the Royal Standard draped coffin are lilies from her brother and sons, Princes William and Harry, a poignant card reads ‘Mummy.’ After the service, I joined the route of the funeral cortege that would take Diana on her final journey to the Spencer family home in Northamptonshire and waited for the shot.

I had been in London for just over a year trying to find my vocation as a photographer. I thought an iconic image of the hearse would be a valuable addition to my portfolio, to show commitment, dedication and the ability to identify important historical moments. As I waited, the price sticker on the sole of a shoe worn by a woman kneeling nearby caught the eye. I crouched to frame, there was quiet applause and the twirl of tossed long stem roses, a whoosh, and the hearse had gone along with both picture opportunities. On the long walk to find the nearest open pub (it was on Upper Street 3.5 miles away) I photographed the flags flying half-mast and considered whether breaking news photography would be my discipline.

Two years later confirmed it would not. On assignment for the Sunday Times Magazine shooting reportage on the Queen’s Royal Tour to South Africa I travelled around with the royal press pack. On one occasion we arrived at a school classroom in Alexandra Township outside Johannesburg. The pack rushed from the coach to secure a similar vantage point and waited. I was unfettered to explore with my camera. Hours later Betty arrived. The townships children were everywhere; they danced and sang to the Queen and waved her off with their little flags. A man in a suit then collected the flags and boarded the coach. A departing scuffed huffed cloud of dust erased any evidence we had been there.

It is with good cheer then, that I anticipate the more joyous occasion of the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton. A two-day reportage for the Telegraph Magazine has been in the diary since January removing the pressure to be officially involved and delivering a handsome payday. I even had to turn down German news magazine STERN when a dual-shoot compromise couldn’t be agreed. My brief for the reportage is to document the commoners that line the route; to do a ‘Dench’, reveal the gritty underbelly of life as a royal supporter and produce the antithesis to the inevitable schmaltz to be paraded across the pages of the Daily Mail and Express newspapers. Well, that’s how I interpreted the brief and it’s right up my Mall.

At 10am on the day before, I meet Jessica who will be writing detailed captions for the photographs. This could be irksome for Jessica, a respected staff member deployed to shadow a snapper. If she is, irked it doesn’t show and we strut as equals towards Buckingham Palace. I tried to convince the editor to let me do the words and pictures. I’m glad she declined. Jessica is thorough and discreet and the company is welcome. On the way I learn heavyweight photographers Zed Nelson and Simon Roberts will also be contributing adding a bit of friendly competition for page space. I repeat-remind myself to shoot verticals to try and nail a cover.

Along the route we gather micro-features from the royal nutters with Roald Dahl character names embedded on the front line of Great Britain. Americans, Christine and Olivia Wofford carry a large Yellow W and K around to photograph at picture postcard locations. Rosalind Lumb and Wendy Huffwaite peruse a book of Royal Wedding poems. Dulwich Public Schoolgirls Amelia Coe and India Marlow-Prince quaff fizz in their customised pink ‘Will & Kate Forever’ T-Shirts while across the road, tiara topped Amelia Asquith and Charlotte Dunsmore pay their respects at the memorial of the Queen Mother. Opposite Westminster Abbey a more fevered crowd lay in wait. Cynthia McAllister propels a giddy cackle at her husband Phillip whose war medals clink together. Further along, Darci Richards entertains Granny with a strum on the guitar. The mood has been jolly and the 7000 accredited press respectful. We wait for the American news channel CNN to finish their broadcast before our turn with one fanatical family. Presenter Tim Vincent waits for his with Amelia and India.

The alarm bell rejoices at 05.45am. Like before any big day, it has been a fit-full nights sleep. Jessica and I have decided to dress smart and meet in the last carriage of the 06.30 Victoria line tube train at Highbury and Islington station, a plot scene worthy of An Affair to Remember. We are concerned about access and movement so have decided to get in early. Vacate the tube at Victoria and make our way through St. James’s Park to the south side of the route where we will work between Parliament Square and the Mall. Photographing yesterday was crucial. The tents have now been packed away and the rows are deep. I shoot and weave amongst the royal masks, maple leaf bunting, sleeping men, women dressed as brides, the alfresco plastic urinals and the occasional outburst of royal rage as late arrivals encroach on established viewing positions. We pause to talk to the impeccably suited Harry Arthur (8) and brother Rory (5) and the more dishevelled Berry Collins and Gloria Doherty, who slept under the stars and have ‘appropriated’ a tent for shelter. They complain that unlike at a wedding in their community, they haven’t even been offered sandwiches and a drink.

As Big Ben tocks towards wedding o’clock I decide the best place to photograph will be from Parliament Square. There’s a massive cheer, Dalia Yousif is hoisted onto the shoulders of Panos. I snap some frames of his thigh-clenched face and ask what Dalia can see. It’s the litter pickers on one final round. Another cheer and she grabs a frame of Prince Harry. It’s the first I’ve seen of the A-list wedding guests. As William took Kate up the aisle, I was probably only a straight 100-metres away. Cocooned in a living cordon I photograph what I can. 10-year old Callum Lewis uses a ‘Blighty’ periscope to scan for action. Ben Fowler and William Fox-Staeton picnic on the grass. Mr Higgins chuffs his pipe, 21-year old Rhyll de Teglia has a solitary moment and a woman picks up dog-poo. There’s a little Britain-village fete-Henman Hill kind of feel to the proceedings.

Over the two days I shoot 686 frames, FTP an edit of ‘as shot’ 82 to the Telegraph Magazine and head off for a day clay pigeon shooting in the Oxfordshire countryside. On return the TM has edited 13 images to be delivered as polished, ready-for-publication files. This is encouraging. My hopes are for six consecutive pages with a double-page opener. I text my friends and call my Mum. Finally, I think she will have something to be proud of produced by her son to frame and hang in the spare bedroom. I asses Martin Parr’s effort on the Magnum website and think perhaps, I may have edged it on the day.

Saturday 7^th, the day the Telegraph Magazine Royal Wedding souvenir edition is published. It’s with leaden feet that I head out to buy a copy. Three days after the wedding I received a call delivering the “AWFUL” news. None of my photographs would be published; zero. nought, nowt, nada. I’ve been around long enough, just, not to take this personally and got proactive, called STERN to see if it was too late to send some their way. The subsequent elimination of Bin Laden had squeezed out wedding pages. I get six images on to the CORBIS website for syndication and upload 50 to ALAMY but it all feels a little bit late. 20 are posted on my website, I Tweet the link and put an album on Facebook. Responses are good: Martin O’Neill thinks them “Most amusing”, Sam Christopher Cornwell, “Great stuff.”

Wincing back a double vodka tonic I find Zed’s 6 images over two pages and Simon’s one image over two pages treading water in the Getty pool publication. Slightly embarrassed at my exclusion, I text my friends and call my Mum with the news. It seems even the staunchest cynics have been seduced by the occasion (except me). And the wedding is to be remembered and revered as a right royal fairytale (except by me). I now know, why I don’t officially shoot weddings. You wouldn’t want me at your wedding, and in all honesty, I probably wouldn’t want to come. I raise a glass to the hundreds of millions that watched TV coverage of the wedding and consider instead, the next royal funeral.

More Royal Wedding photos - www.peterdench.com

Dench Diary : March 2011

2011-07-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

1^st My wife has taken to buying boxed wine in an effort to save money. It’s not going well. Paranoid you can’t see how much is left, each secretly tops up. I suggest both having one box that we can lug from room to room like a medical drip or reverse catheter. I’d hoped as I age the quality of wine to improve. I once drank a 1989 Haute Brion (currently retailing online at £1200 a bottle) from a glass antler as a guest at Chateau Lafitte. That set the standard. Today I find myself ripping out the foil interior and manically pumping for the last drops like some wheezing Scot piper.

3^rd “If you can smell the street by looking at the photograph, then it’s a street photograph.” That may be so Bruce Gilden but this is Derby, it mostly smells of Greggs and the Steak Bakes are selling well. I’m back in my old University town for the FORMAT Festival looking at the Market Square exhibition Take to the Streets, a major survey of street life from around the world by leading Magnum photographers. Before the official festival opening I take a tour of some old haunts. I stand on the spot where 18 years ago I was punched and kicked to the ground and mugged of my Mamiya RB 67, the blood has gone. I visit my former local the Crompton Tavern. I never took a girl there, didn’t want to risk ruining a good local if the relationship went flat. The day I was to move to London, after three years of lock-ins, persistent drinking and headed goals for the pub football team I took in my girlfriend. “Hey Pete, we all thought you were gay.” The landlord is a face from the past and I ask after my old drinking partner and film tutor John Hawkridge. I find him for a few at the home of great real ales the Smithfield before finally heading to FORMAT where it’s straight into drinks with Twenty-Twenty director Freddie Spencer and omnipresent artist PollyCampanyDavidBraden. I totter to find my pictures on a digital loop. I submitted 85 but as each frame remains for 15 seconds it’s too prolonged to verify the number. It’s good to be involved and I’m in stellar company, surrounding exhibits include Raghu Rai, Vivian Maier, Joel Meyerowitz, Jeff Mermelstein and some striking crisp colour prints of automobile breakdowns from the Amy Stein project Stranded. During the after party at Revolution I say hello to former Magnum snapper Paul Lowe, now course director of the Masters programme in photojournalism and documentary photography at London College of Communication. I haven't talked to Paul properly since 2002 when I was a student in Amsterdam on the five-day World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. Paul was one of the Masters. I’d hoped the week would be treated as a free-flowing exchange as equals. Paul was more of the opinion that the Master would master and the student would listen. When the course had run I stayed on a few days for a break. So did some others. In the bar of Hotel Arena, Paul joined the table where I was drinking with photographers Tim Hetherington and Narelle Autio. He picked up my pint and poured some into his glass. I let it pass. Then he did it again. Now I’m from Weymouth where people have been killed for less. So today I keep a firm grip on my tumbler as Paul talks excitedly about his anticipated slot spinning discs at the Revolution DJ booth. It’s a new Lowe.

4^th Pop back to FORMAT and stand through a bit more of my slideshow. Spot Dewi Lewis chatting with Chris Steele-Perkins. I’m trying to get a book published and Dewi is a key figure. I really should say hello but it looks to tight to interrupt. Take in the Dougie Wallace collection Reflections on Life on the flight down from the first floor and blink into the Flickr Group, Hardcore Street Photography presentation. Settling down on the train home with two cans of Strongbow and a copy of the Derby Telegraph I absorb the local news. “A man has been arrested for allegedly carrying out a sex act on a 25 year old donkey called Jane.” I was once told Derby has the highest number of people born in a city that remain there for life, literally one big happy family. Remembering the women, I give a sympathetic nod for the unnamed 39-year old man. “The donkey was checked out afterwards by a vet. She was found to be fit and well.” I toast Jane’s health and mentally pencil a return to Derby in another 16 years.

7^th Visiting Focus on Imaging at the NEC I meet Wedding Photographer and PP subscriber since the 70’s Mr Roger Tyas, a PP subscriber for decades. Well he was a subscriber but feels the content relevant to him has disappeared. I ask Roger if there’s anything he likes in the magazine, anything at all? “No.” He asks what I do, “Write a column for PP.” Pose for a picture with Jake handing out bags for Aaduki Insurance resplendent in orange striped swim pants. Scour the Sony ‘make.believe’ stand, there are only soft drinks, ‘can’t.believe’ and defect to the Denis Wright exhibit, ‘the longest established and most experienced manufacturer of albums, strut mounts presentation folders and frames.’ Denis has it right, bubbles and crust cut sandwiches. I nibble at the world of strut mounts with enthusiasm. There must be so much to learn here, so much to see and much of it free. Instead, hot but not that bothered I cool down in the Cougar Tavern (Mary’s Bar) with a Vodka Tonic and the fanned underarm flaps from the women serving drinks. On one last circuit of Focus I wait to be noticed at the Calumet show. A welcome interception comes from Chef and Photographer Pete Cranston. I think Pete is looking for a Dench drink challenge. Sat in Wetherspoon he shows his intention and chugs the first two pints to my one. Four hours pass with our interpretation of the classic Smith & Jones, Not The Nine O’Clock News Beer-Darts sketch (visual on YouTube) before Cranston walks, a near full Guinness left on the table that I drain before the train.

11^th Meet with international thriller writer Tom Knox for drinks in Camden. He hands me a copy of his new book Bible of the Dead. I scan the acknowledgements. ‘My great friends and colleagues Peter Dench and Dan White, brilliant photographers both, have always been ready to tell me – over a warm beer in London, or a cold beer in Bangkok – just how wrong I am about almost everything.’ Knox explains the main character; photographer Jake Thurby is part himself, Dan and me. It’s fair to say Knox has had, a rather scandalous life; I’m hardly a role model and ask about Dan. Yikes! It seems he’s the dark Dan Diary of Asia. Promises to be a entertaining read.

14^th Last week saw drinking at it’s most self-destructive; often without purpose or hope. On one occasion at University, Jonathan Worth asked me too meet for a quick pint. With a course deadline looming I was wary but Jonathan didn’t come out much, so I agreed. Eight days later I called time on the session. Jonathan had of course left after one drink and completed a project in the interim. Keen not to fritter away another week I get to work emailing out PDF’s of news relevant images from my archive.

15^th Arrive at Alphabet Bar in Soho for leaving drinks with Joanna Moran, Picture Editor at Men’s Health Magazine. I’ve not thought this through. I’ve never met Joanna in person before. Order a wine and scan the throng for familiar faces. MH has been good to me. Before Thom Knox became an international thriller writer he was humble hack Sean Thomas. Together on assignment for MH we spent a week quaffing at a French Vineyard, another sun drenched on the Caribbean paradise of Martinique. When the troops rolled into Kuwait for Gulf War Two we were safely waiting for Swifty the Swimming Pig to take the plunge at the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo. My highlight was the trip to landlocked Belarus, the only country in the developed world where men die 12 years before women. Why? I think it was the heart-punching beauty of the ladies. At times I felt like killing myself. We drank Vodka with the locals to numb the senses and watched the Slavic sirens pass. Photo Director Cat Costello who pours me into the MH pool rescues me from my reverie and explains the nations best selling men’s magazine is looking for health related photo-essays, committing at times to 8 pages. This is encouraging and I start to formulate a plan.

17^th It’s good to have a project to shoot when work is slow and money is tight. I’ve been adding to one for some time. In an Ideal World, is a study of society's perception of perfection. Today I’m off to the Ideal Home Show; a slap of the Oyster card and flash of the Press Pass and I’m in. As a compulsive cleaner keen to see what’s new, I zip past the Bearskin-topped Foot Guards, ignore the Pap pack chasing Prince Charles and suck up to the Houseware section. It doesn’t disappoint. The 'Magic Mop, Best Mop Ever,' raises the pulse ‘The Amaze Brush, Good on Fluff & Lint’ beads the brow and the ‘Miracle Shammy’, (absorbs 25 times it’s weight in liquid) has me twitching for the wallet. Then I discover a jaw dropper, never before seen in the United Kingdom, it’s the all-in-one more effective cleaning, never again need for separate sponges and scourers designer glove Onhandz. Managing Director Colin O’Neil proudly shows me a picture of him with Prince Charles taken 20 years ago. I humbly ask if I can snap this moment with Marketing Director Angela Riverie also selling the scouring sensation. It’s a good start to the day. Move on to the Ideal Woman section to see if I agree, pause at the Catwalk, seems I do. Last stop before bus stop the painstakingly recreated Rovers Return Inn with one amiss, no painstakingly recreated real beer.

18^th Today I peed on the floor of the pub. I did it for Comic Relief.

23^rd “Squirrel.” I’m kneeling on the floor of a Belgravia flat. “Squirrel.” Shooting a portrait for Stern magazine of Ingrid Seward, Editor-in-Chief of Majesty Magazine. “Squirrel.” She has white Puffie on her lap. “SQUIRREL!” Apparently this makes the Westie dog prick up the ears. I glance across at Coventry University second-year student Dean O’Brien on a two day internship breathing the life of a sometime working pro. He looks nonplussed. “FOSTER'S!” O’Brien’s eyes level like a fruit machine triple bell jackpot. Job done, we twinkle toe into the sunshine.

25^th Only one days commissioned shoot for the third successive month, at least I’m consistent. Not too disheartened, I’m booked for the first 11 days of April on three commitments. Two days in Glasgow, three in Norway, six in Jamaica. Then I receive an email cancelling Norway. Not too disheartened, I’m still booked for eight of the first 11 days of April.

26^th Receive an email cancelling Glasgow, not too disheartened, I’m still booked for six of the first 11 days of April. Then I receive an email . . .

A version of this feature first appeared in the May 2011 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

Dench Diary : February 2011

2011-07-05T00:43:00.000-07:00

This Month, Peter Dench, the award-winning photojournalists finds that self-imploding magazines and shrinking expense accounts mean things just ain't what they used to be in the world of professional photography. On the plus side there's always a launch party just around the corner . . . welcome to the world of a sometime working pro.

1^st “Whilst Peter has shown an increased dedication to photography and has produced a good portfolio of work for interview, his overall attitude tends to be one of indifference, flippancy and at times complacency. Unless Peter grows up a little in the very near future and works hard in all his subjects he will soon find himself out in the cold world surrounded by students who leave him standing.” Words as relevant now as they were 21 years ago. Keen to know her progress, I Google Virginia Bolton, my former A Level Photography teacher. I discover eight used copies of her book Focus on Photography for sale at a penny on Amazon but nothing else. My mum has retired and is doing what mums do best, sorting things out. In my hometown of Weymouth there are three boxes of my life needing rescue including this college report. Flicking through the viewed once magazines it’s clear just how much editorial photography has changed. A 1999 Marie Claire a whacking 426 pages, a 1998 GQ a healthy 321. The format is big and the pages are jammed with adverts for Palm Pilots, before Viagra remedies and photographs of Gail Porter with hair. My contributions failed to save some of the publications, Frank, The Face, Wish and NOVA, all gone. It’s poignant tipping them into recycle. Today what was probably my last editorial mail out will reach their destination. From habit I ordered 200 postcards. Three immediate commissions would usually follow plus another half dozen within a few months. Checking the list less than 70 recipients still have their job. I say a mental goodbye to the days of jollies masquerading as stories, visits to a town dedicated to Superman, foam parties at Club Med and I go out with a smile. The stamps bore my cheesy pate next to a billowing Union Flag courtesy of the www.royalmail.com/smilers service, ‘Smilers - Share a special moment.’

8^th I’m hanging my LoveUK exhibition at Creative Ad Agency, Archibald Ingall Stretton in time for Valentines Day and pop along to the offices to asses the space. After, I have three hours to occupy before a long anticipated private view of an important Eve Arnold retrospective at the Chris Beetles Fine Photographs Gallery in Swallow Street. The sun is out. Resisting the urge to imbibe I start snapping the street. It feels I’m trespassing all over iN-PUBLIC member and street photographer David Solomons Up West project. Stalking red scarves around Carnaby Street a Hexar AF sneaks into view. It’s iN-PUBLIC member and street photographer David Solomons shooting his Up West project. We have one of those twitchy conversations photographers often have with one another where no-ones really paying attention, eyes and wrists flick to the colours that pass and the people that wear them. David is gracious enough to let me crash his drinks meeting but something odd happens. I decline. I’m enjoying myself and continue to play peek-a-boo with the sun as we bounce up and down Piccadilly before I finally succumb and head up to the 5^th floor bar in Waterstones Bookstore. If I ever have a lover of advanced years who enjoys The Express and a good Royal Wedding this is the ideal venue to take them. Looks like many of the men at the tables agree. The walls are decorated with the covers of 40 years of Pulitzer Prize winners. I scribble some down. The woman next to me asks if I’m a writer. I snort derisively. Then say yes. For a second I think she wants to caress my head in her leathery nape; her friends turn up and the moment fades. It’s opening time at Chris Beetles and I jittery flit moth like towards the gallery door, swerve sharply and compose myself round the corner. My legs bow, the table I glanced inside was groaning with fizz. Breath, skip back round and nip through the door. No name or invite check, they let anyone in these days. A man views the work seated by scooting round in a desk chair. Another prods me out the way with his walking stick. The bubbles are introduced to my palette and I acquaint myself with the work, some of it familiar some not. In a fantasy moment I rehearse purchasing ‘Bar Girl in a Brothel in the Red Light District, Havana, Cuba, 1954’ and check the price, £2800. It’s one of the cheaper prints. ’Marilyn Monroe During the Filming of The Misfits, Nevada, 1960’ is a busty £17500. Most I talk with think them a fair price. The red dots are out and at least four have stuck. I check my lapel for a scarlet disc. I decide to leave when my camera bag dominoes an empty glass into a terracotta army of others. I momentarily detect the spirit of Roy Castle and Norris McWhirter chortle their approval. I hold my nerve and let the lady trying to stand them up take the blame, doff an imaginary cap to the £8000 ‘Barmaid, New York City, 1950s’ grab my coat and burp into the evening.

12^th Attend the first anniversary party of the Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff - turn to the 6-page feature in this issue to read of the experience. Wait! Finish the diary first.

17^th The editorial mail out has tweaked the interest of Stylist Magazine, a portrait in Soho of former MP Jacqui Smith, breeze past presenter Claire Balding and into the BBC’s Henry Wood House where we are to meet. While Jacqui is having her make up done I get a call delivering news as significant as winning a World Press Photo Award. I’ve only ever spontaneously shouted out loud for joy three times in adult life and to the surprise of the office release a shattering fourth. It’s Director of the 2011 Visa Pour L’Image Festival of Photojournalism, Jean-Francois Leroy with confirmation that they would like to exhibit ‘England Uncensored’. This is big news. Leroy ends the call with those magic words, “Welcome to the club.”

18^th TAXVAT man has cleaned me out and is still squeezing. I check my air miles from more prolific times and book an escape. It is time to go on a journey to see a man. Not just any man, but a man with a fine head of hair. The ladies call him Mr Darcy. Many call him Captain Congo. Others call him friend. I simply call him Bleasdale. Marcus Bleasdale. I first met Bleasdale when he joined the IPG agency of which I was already a member in 2002. I think he will concur benefiting from my tutelage. It’s satisfying to see him doing so well and progress to a point where I was only on the subs bench at his wedding. Winner of World Press Photo of the Year 2005 Finbarr O’Reilly shot the stills. Current Magnum President Jonas Bendiksen was on video duty. Now with the VII photographic agency, Bleasdale has got me a gig teaching a workshop at the Bilder Nordic School of Photography in Oslo where he lives. Realising I’m heading to one of the most expensive cities in the world I log onto wonga.com to see if I can raise enough for a round and head off to the airport. I arrive bearing the requested maximum quota of duty free and series 8&9 of Silent Witness.

19^th Arriving at the £8000 a year School of Photography the nerves aren’t bad but I postpone breakfast just in case. Last night at the Crown Prince’s favourite Restaurant over Venison (I was tempted by the Braised Ox Cheek in Beer) Bleadsdale had warned me, “Dench, you’d better be funny.” This morning I don’t feel funny. Breakfast with Bleasdale is not always an amusing start to the day. All the hope and light from this dawn is juiced into a tale of Congo Rape and Child Soldiers. I stare out the window at the residence across the road and applaud the Norwegians aversion to net curtains. It’s a peeping Peter paradise. “Are you a nation of tall blonde, fluffy jumper wearing, whale killing, pillaging sea warriors?” may not be the most conventional question to kick off a presentation but most of the ensemble seem to take it in their stride. I check the slow blinking lids of ice cool Catrine on the front row for a written message. Nothing. She just seems tired and idly jabs at her phone. The theme of the workshop is Irony and Humour in Norwegian Life and Society. I show them a cross section from my work on England from Dagenham Estates to Blackpool Hen Parties, Country House Events to the Banbury Hobby Horse Festival and end the presentation reading a few extracts from the Diary to see if it translates and am pleased the laughs are loud. Skidding round to the Dubliners Pub on a high I get the drinks in. Two pints of Guinness and two packets of crisps please, £22.59. My legs start doing an involuntary Charleston. I’ve never taken so long to finish a pint.

20^th The family have joined me for a mini-break and while we watch the girls ice skate I complain to Bleasdale about having to pick up the cab fare on my Jacqui Smith all in fee commission and ask him about his recent 21 day trip to north-east Congo on assignment for Human Rights Watch and the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting. He flatly explains spending $17000 on flights and only eight of those days being shoot days. Of having to fly with motorcycles and a generator before seven-hour rides through the bush. On one ride an accident smashed his knee and chewed the skin off his elbow down to the bone. Two days from decent medical care he patched himself up and finished the job. Not wanting to alarm the wife, the first she learned of his ordeal was as he crawled the stairs to his apartment 10KG lighter and urinating blood. Three trips to A&E followed before he headed off on a three-week trip to the Central African Republic and 10 days in Uganda. After ice-skating, hot chocolate and waffles we move on to The International Museum of Childrens Art, I pick up the entrance fee and make a donation. Under the Chinese masks Bleasdale talks about an orphanage he and a bunch of Congo conscious journalists have set up (congochildren.com) feeding, medicating and educating around 134 kids from past or current conflicts. He starts to regale a story of shooting backstage at Marc Jacobs during New York fashion week when a Nun called from Congo; she was having difficulty raising the $65 tax required to get six cows across a lake intended to provide milk for the orphanage. Before he can finish he beats off to catch the start of an African drum lesson, you can take Bleasdale out of Africa . . .

22^nd Today I’m back at the Bilder Nordic School to assess the work of the students. I kick off the morning with a YouTube video of Jahn Teigun’s 1978 Eurovision Song Contest Nul Pointer, Mil Etter Mil (Mile After Mile) just to show that Norwegians are capable of being hilarious. Of the 40 students that attended my presentation, twenty have returned and 17 produced work. I ask Sebastian what’s his excuse and float the idea of getting the non-shooters to sing a chorus along with Jahn. “My best friends brother took an overdose and his wife hung herself.” I let thoughts of punishment pass. Later, reflecting on the quality of work from the Bilder Nordic School I find myself once again out in the cold world surrounded by students who will probably leave me standing, assume an attitude of indifference, flippancy and at times complacency, board the plane, sit back and suck back the British Airways Malbec, Mil Etter Mil Etter Mil . . .

A version of this feature first appeared in the April issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

Educating Peter

2011-06-29T05:55:00.000-07:00

When we heard that three Middlesex University Students had won place in the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition we wanted to know more. More than a decade ago photojournalist Peter Dench graduated with a first-class degree in photography but no idea how to make a living, so we sent him back to school to see how today's photography students are being prepared for the real world.

I am standing in the National Portrait Gallery looking at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibits. 60 images selected from 6000 submitted by 2400 photographers. Perhaps more startling than the tumescent My British Wife is three of the entries are from students. Students of Middlesex University (MU). Last year they had two exhibitors. In the awards previous incarnations I had success in 1999, 2001 and 2003. The last seven years a cold slap in the face. MU are clearly doing something right and I want to know what. I give BA Photography Programme Leader David Simmonds a call and enrol for a day. It’s time for this snapper to go back to school, Educating Peter, the sequel.

Like any student before their first day I’m nervous. Will I fit in? What shall I wear? Jump on the tube to leafy Cockfosters and ponder the day ahead, a day talking with students. I suppress my inner Paul Calf and scan the Metro for research; Gillian McKeith is not pregnant, Morrisey’s been a naughty boy. I pause at the gates. It’s been 15 years since I walked out of University and I momentarily doubt my ability to return.

David strides forward, Royal College of Art Graduate and respected photographer in his own right. Thankfully he’s not wearing an elbow padded jacket and cravat. He introduces 26 year-old BA student, Asef Ali Mohammad. Asef was given a brief to produce a series of photographs that use ‘America’ as a starting point to the creative process. While others in his year took off to the studio flinging cream pies at the statue of liberty, Asef took off to Kabul. MU didn’t discourage him and advised he text his daily progress. Foreign communications often being what they are, they weren’t always received. While concerned, staff trusted Asef’s ability to complete the assignment safely. His resulting Photo Essay ‘Stories From Kabul’ is a series of colour portraits featuring ordinary Afghan people, Caterers, TV executives, Beauticians, The Police. It premiered as a 4m 45s multi media piece on the prestigious FOTO8 website. Subsequently US Newsweek published the reportage across four pages paying around $1600. I decide not to mention selling, as a student, a portrait of Sir Richard FitzHerbert Baronet, Squire of Tissington for £25 to Derbyshire Life & Countryside.

Asef is exceptional and may be the exception. I navigate the 30+ Macs in the digital suite looking for his antithesis. The Macs only have Photoshop installed. Social networking addicts must vacate. Over the shoulder of one student I spy images of a stunning model. I introduce myself to Rokas Darulis. The model is his girlfriend, who is a model, ranked among the top 50 models in the world. Lithuanian-born Darulis, who wouldn’t look out of place on the catwalk, graduated from MU in 2009 with a first. In a year working as a pro, commissions from Magazines Pravda (in Lithuania), Monika and Tank are casually referred to. Elite Model Agency and Svyturys Beer tick the commercial client box. Accolades already on the shelf include the AOP Open Awards and Taylor Wessing. Aha! one of the years MU inclusions. I flick through the brochure and find the entry Ernest and Ernest from his project; It doesn’t matter who you sleep with, a series of portraits of people of the same sex in bed together. A subtlety lit portrait portraying two of Darulis friends. I note ‘same sex relationships’ as a possible ingredient in the Taylor Wessing victory sauce.

I reflect on the projects from my University 'class of 95’. Roger photographed himself naked. Debra photographed herself nearly naked painted white. Sharon portrayed herself smoking a cigarette. Sarah chose a child’s plastic farmyard cow to document. Jane simply snapped the BBC Soap Eastenders playing on the TV. To be fair, Sarah went on to graduate from the RCA; Aperture has published a Monograph of her photographs. Debra is co-proprietor of a gallery in Brooklyn, New York. Perhaps the MU liberty statue pie flingers will end up chairing a World Photography Organisation while a Photojournalist like Asef will graft for recognition in a world of grant refusals and shrinking budgets. It’s a common tale.

Back at MU, Squiz, already a brand, (squizhamilton.com), shows striking work in progress from a self-funded 10 day fashion shoot in Japan. Estimated cost, a dedicated £2500. Tottenham resident Inzajeano Latif, a 31-year old mature student and graduate from the MA at MU, is also in attendance. Latif has already impressed picture editors finest Cheryl Newman with commissions for the Telegraph Magazine. Among other achievements, an Ian Parry Award Show Finalist, work featured in the FOTO8 Summer Show and D&AD Awards. The 2009 Taylor Wessing poster was Latif’s inclusion, Female Boxer Number 3. I scribble down, female boxers in bed together?

After being ejected from the digital suite a tour of further facilities follow. A historic smell permeates one room. Stepping in, through the amber gloom, over 30 traditional B&W enlargers morph to attention. David explains the importance of teaching the craft. He deplores the quick fix digital prints produced by students as if an afterthought. He encourages them to treat the process with the same develop, stop and fix precision you would an Ansel Adams landscape. David is constantly slowing people down. The frantic ‘shoot 1000’s of frames something must be good sort it out in Photoshop later attitude’ must stop.

It is not unrealistic to compare my experiences of 15 years ago. The principals of education remain the same. Equip a student with the necessary skills for a career in their chosen industry after education. I sped through my University doors with a First Class (Hons) Degree in Photographic Studies and headed for London. I would join Reuters (I’d seen a photograph I liked credited in a newspaper) and travel the world. The folio was lost in the Reuters system. Two years on the dole followed. I had no realistic concept of how to approach the industry. On reflection, my impressions are the lecturers were self-serving. Their own personal projects a priority. It is important for a tutor to have a profile outside of education but not at their students expense. Their efforts are still as bemusing now as they were then, Portraits of fish, found objects outside photographed inside, views on top and under a table. It was with a sense of the inevitable that our final year degree show was called Introspection. Academically the work of Jo Spence, Cindy Sherman and Nan Golding prevailed. It took me years just to remove the lens cap without feeling a misogynist. My dissertation on Dr Diamond and his use of Photography in the treatment of female lunatics has not been useful.

It is with these concerns that I head to lunch with David. Over wine and calamari David explains how the course reflects the industry. Deadlines are non-negotiable, lateness an immediate markdown. Students are introduced into the industry as much as possible and Industry to the students. There is a healthy visiting lecture programme from retouchers and photographers to magazine editors and gallery curators. The only visiting lecture I remember was a Philosopher who posed the question, ‘does green exist’? For two hours. It does. I seriously questioned if I wanted to. Internships and competition submissions at MU are compulsory. Assisting is encouraged. Tim Walkers’ assistant of five years, Alison Tanner, is on hand to advise. Rather than a ‘Jack of all trades’ approach to portfolios the strategy is to produce one substantial coherent body of work that the creator is passionate about. There is an open door policy from staff to students. The course is young and has already made a significant mark. David is realistic enough to suggest only 15% of graduates may go on to make a living taking photographs. Other employment opportunities within the industry are covered. Being a Technician is not considered a failure.

Back on Campus, David is keen for me to meet Steven Barritt (35) another MU MA graduate. I’m not so keen to meet Steven. The Taylor Wessing brochure introduces it’s protagonist as a product of the “I photograph myself naked’ approach. Steven’s portrait The Solitude of Pygmalion from the series Analogous Mythography is based on the Greek myth of a sculptor who fell in love with his sculpture. Steven said: “I made a lot of effort putting on lots of weight and letting myself go, even resorting to not washing for weeks.” Essentially, a dirty Steven sits naked on an unmade bed surrounded by booze and with walls covered in posters and magazine articles on Britney Spears. I warm to him immediately. Steven wants to make enough money from photography to get out of London. He prefers the influence of Truro on his photography. His Anachronisms portrait series for his MA show are beautifully considered, meticulously planned 5x4 film portraits. It took him around nine months to shoot the first frame. That’s academics for you. Eight years discipline as a former computer programmer has left an imprint. Steve’s umbilical connection with MU has him lined up to interview for a teaching position.

All of the students I spoke with expect to hit the ground running as working pro photographers. They all have a print folio and eschew the argument for iPads. Cited influences are the ones that have shaped previous generations of snappers - August Sander, Bruce Davison, James Nachtwey, Walker Evans, Cecil Beaton. They speak fondly of their tutors and hope to retain a relationship with the University. We talk through the afternoon amicably as equals. Industry names are exchanged with familiarity. I even note down a few new ones. Social networking is understood and embraced. I consider myself a bit of a player ( 500+ Facebook friends!) and suggest they keep in touch. I leave them my card. There is nothing in the inbox when I get home, or the next day. I search them out. Squizhamilton has 4956 Facebook friends. I request to be his 4957^th. Rokas Darulis 2365, most of them I assume beautiful. Inzajeano Latif, 1333. Steven Barritt, well at least he’s clothed in his profile photo.

Curious to find a few students not drafted in for my benefit and craving female company I peel off unescorted to the studio. It’s industrious and populated. A jewellery student sparkles on her back. Photo student Holly, fragrant clipped and sartorially crisp is setting up for a shoot, a series of portraits on Red Heads. A young man poses awkwardly on a stool. I make a note to remember his face, a potential Taylor Wessing 2011. Reminded of my pursuit of domination I show students the portrait prize brochures from the previous decade, pen poised to jot down the winning formula. Discussions suggest not much has changed. There was a bit more B&W. The dominating digital 35mm format has conquered the square but the content is constant; the ginger, puberty, teenage girls, nakedness, muff and combinations of all represented. Back at my studio, well The Villers Terrace in Crouch End, I re-assess my own successful entries, verdict - guilty; naked old man, a ginger woman on a urinating horse, two awkward looking children. Seems I’ve been entering content along the right lines all along. I have an idea for the next submission, pick up the phone and dial. “Hello, is that Anne Robinson?”

A version of this feature first appeared in the February 2011 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

The Year Of Living Dangerously

2011-06-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

An independent gallery located at the top of a period building in Cardiff is showcasing some of the most exciting contemporary photography in the UK. On its first birthday Peter Dench catches up with the owners of the Third Floor Gallery to discover if it really is tough at the top.

Maciej Dacowicz is not comfortable. He presses a splayed hand hard into his face and rubs. It’s not the disco ball lights peppering his face that is causing distress. It’s the questions. Maciej doesn’t like questions and doesn’t like to answer them; in fact he doesn’t like to talk much at all. We are at the Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff that he launched with Joni Karanka (Bartosz Nowicki joined some months later). Today is the gallery’s first year anniversary party. I ask Maciej (pronounced mach-ic) what he enjoys about running the TFG, he rubs harder, “Ask Joni.” I’d arrived a few hours earlier. Approaching the gallery Joni and Maciej had parked up outside with a car boot full of beer. It had taken them three hours to choose it checking for the best deals. “Give us a hand Peter,” no one is beyond being asked to help and we take turns to deliver the crates up the 60 stairs past an Indian Dance Class and Taxi Rank to the top-floor premises.

On the 22^nd December 2009 I received an email from Joni that said; ‘Dear Peter, I wander if you’d be interested in exhibiting LoveUK in Cardiff. Maciej Dakowicz and I are opening a small photography gallery in February, and we wanted something with a bit of a nice bang to open up. Any reply is good for me, ranging from interest to rejection with alternative suggestions J.’ Feeling festive I answered in the affirmative. A call from the considered and unassuming Joni followed and the details required softly spoken through a Finnish, Spanish hybrid accent. The gallery and exhibition opened on the 12^th February 2010 to a warm welcome from the Cardiff media and community. Located in the Bay area of Cardiff a short bus ride from the centre, TFG sits comfortably opposite the Millennium Centre and developing Mermaid Quay. A sandwich board at the door of the period building, padlocked to the railings quietly introduces the venue.

One year on I am back visiting the gallery to find out how the first year has progressed for the team and what is involved in running a successful exhibition space. A theme quickly dominates, moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney. No one has any and how to get it is a constant time consumer. Joni heads down to Iceland to get some nibbles for the evening bash. The budget is £7-8 but he splurges. 75 piece Tex Max Platter, £4. 36; Chocolate Strawberries, £2; 14 Filo Wrapped Prawns, £2; Blackforest Gateau, £3. I throw in some crisps and buy a couple of pasties to keep us going. TFG has achieved charitable status but the benefits are yet to be realised. Around £700 a month comes from donations, any shortfall is made up from the pockets of each proprietor. There is an Amazon well wishers list that to date has provided an A4 Multifunction Mono Laser Printer, TV, professional trimmer, pair of scissors, tape dispenser, screwdriver set and some white tack (the sandwich board was a wish list gift). In the initial business plan, it was hoped the rent would largely be funded by print sales from each exhibition. Collective sales so far fall short of double figures, this is surprising, since the LoveUK launch the list of exhibitors have been impressive including David Solomons, Jocelyn Bain Hogg, Carolyn Drake, and Magnum royalty David Hurn and Chris Steele-Perkins.

To exhibit, the photographer is approached and direct submissions discouraged. The three gallerists chat informally, usually in the £2-a-pint Captain Scott pub nearby about what work they want to see and what photographers they would like to work with. Volunteers lubricate the gallery, a central pool of around a dozen help with the day-to-day running. This allows Joni, Maciej and Bartosz to concentrate on off-site matters. The volunteers call ponytailed Joni ‘The Thinker’ for his Zen like presence and Maciej ‘The Director,’ because of his matter of fact way of explaining how and when things should be done. There is no nickname for the open faced Bartosz, ‘The Smiler’ wouldn’t be inappropriate. Each team member has no specific role. Tasks are taken as and when by who has the time or most suitable allegiance. Joni and Bartosz are perhaps better with the PR and communication side of it. Maciej with the details, or as he would describe it, “Dealing with the shit.”

Thirty-five people visited the exhibition on the first anniversary day, taking the estimated annual number to over 4000. 50+ guests are jostling for position in the 60ft Sq gallery space tonight. It’s an open-door policy, invites were sent via social networks and word of mouth. The crowd is eclectic with Poland heavily represented courtesy of Maciej and Bartosz. The mood is friendly and familiar. Also well represented is the University of Wales, Newport. Students from the prestigious Documentary Photography – BA (HONS) course gobble beer and peer at the pinned Laura Pannack prints. The University is very important to TFG. It’s proximity, as well as providing a ready and willing rotation of visitors print some of the exhibitions in return for having their name on the fliers and in the gallery space. Photographers often consult the course leader at Newport, Ken Grant, for his opinion before deciding to exhibit at the gallery.

Joni, Bartosz and Maciej are all keen and productive photographers as well as appreciators of photography. However, Joni is on hiatus from taking his own photographs, too busy with his paid day job and the gallery. Bartosz, a recent graduate from Newport is quickly finding his voice. Maciej has already pinched the industries consciousness with his pictures and has his 5000 or so Flickr followers anticipating each update. Cardiff After Dark, his burgeoning project on the city’s nightlife is where he thrives. Five images over four pages from the project were included in the Street Photography Now book and the work helped him to achieve an honourable mention in the reportage competition for National Geographic Polska magazine for Polish National Geographic. His work has appeared in many national and international publications, The Guardian, Independent, American Photo and Der Spiegel among them.

I have walked with Maciej along St Mary Street where the bulk of his project is shot. The spectacle of the street has held his attention since the Pole moved to Wales from Hong Kong in 2004. I’ve seen my fair share of Britain’s bad behaviour and St Mary Street is top ten. A nightly production penned by the devil himself, choreographed girls shiver, totter and titter through the litter warmed only by the click flick of cigarette lighters - the Police and the bloodied never far away. On this occasion Maciej was fidgety in his skin. He admits to a lull in creative libido, researching too many pictures on the Internet to be interested in taking them. I’m sure it will pass. He usually shoots in tandem with another snapper for safety, each watching the others back, the imbibing stars of Cardiff After Dark haven’t relished the attention (although the council did deliver a yellow skip to the street to help with the mess after seeing some of the work). Certain bars are out of bounds, the security recognises him, his name is down and he’s not coming in. I left Maciej at 3am; he stuck around for a while, just in case.

In The Claude Hotel over lunch the following day I asked him how his night went. Clicking through the results I spot some keepers. What Maciej enjoys about photographing he won’t say. What inspires him to take photographs he doesn’t quite know. What’s the best thing about running a gallery? It’s difficult to explain. Is he happy with his situation? Stopping on a frame of a couple kissing in the rain under a black leather jacket, I would suggest that for 1/200^th of a second each night spent on the street in Cardiff - he is.

At a recently attended private view in the West End of London, the glass-fronted and lighthouse bright interior felt intimidating, the thousand pound prints inhibiting and the bar staff prickly on repeat returns to refill. There wasn’t a Tex Mex Platter in sight. Bounding up to the Third floor Gallery you know you’ll be welcome, to have a drink and a chat or just to look through the donated books. There’s an adjoining artist studio where Ian Smith is currently resident that gives the place a feel of a work in progress and one you are encouraged to take part in. Exhibitions come and go every four to six weeks. TFG is your friend, an arm around the shoulder, a social club for the creative and surprisingly forgiving. At the party I see an ejected fist from the opening show event that one-year ago put a hole in the wall so big it could have been appropriated for use on TV by Anton Du Beke, “Bring on the wall!” As the anniversary hour approaches, shots are distributed and speeches delivered. A comment in the visitors' book catches the eye, "With all the technologicel (sic) advances, people don't change that much. Loved the show. Came with my daughter Amy who is studying photography in college, and is a big fan. Also, good to know you're not only alive but vital." I sniff the 50% proof Finnish vodka and down a toast to the Third Floor Gallery being alive and vital in another year.

A version of this feature first appeared in the April 2011 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

Podcast 11 & 12

2011-06-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

Podcast 12 from the PP team discussing collecting photography books

Podcast 11 from the PP team discussing the Best of British

The Dench Diary - January 2011

2011-06-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Dench Diary : January 2011

1st “Awful pictures every single one of them. Bad compositions, wrong exposures, the kind of photos drunk people take at parties with a cheap point-and-shoot camera. Gives real photographers a bad name.” The name is Dench. Peter Dench. In February 2010 the Sun newspaper ran a centre spread of my images on England with an accompanying online gallery. This quote is a response from Nickjlt posted in October. It was one of the gentler ones. He must have been pondering his reply for eight months. Today is 1/1/11; the barrel of a new year presses the temple. A year loaded with expectation, foreboding, paranoia, hope and solutions for a toned abdomen. I’m reviewing 2010 looking for the positives to kick-start 2011. I think Nickjlt is one. I would have expected Sun readers to connect positively with the work, to recognise something familiar of themselves or their country. (The tabloid was a fixture in my adolescent household). Nickjlt, I will do better, I will learn to compose and expose. Sun readers everywhere, you shall be my inspiration.

5th The first day back at work for many and I’m determined to meet it head on. Now is the time. Hit the year square on the nose. My mind’s blank, I don’t know what to do. Looking in the fridge I find a ghost of Christmas past, a corked bottle of Pinot Grigio. I divide it into two pint glasses, top up with soda water and begin to spritz it back in the hope it will help me decide what to do. It does. I decide to go to the pub. Flicking through the papers for ideas and good news I chance across my horoscope in the Daily Mirror. Taurus declares, “Later in the year Uranus is getting stressed under a relationship with Pluto... you won’t be laughing when the planet of shock falls out with the planet of loss.” Brilliant, nothing to look forward to except a stressed Uranus. I return home and settle down with a six-pack and meet the assembled cast on the oche starring at the BDO World Darts in Frimley Green. A man howls like a wolf. A clip is played of another walking an invisible dog on a pink lead. The year is looking up. As the cans slip back I formulate a plan to kidnap commentator Bobby ‘Midas’ George and bundle him down to CashMyGold.

6th These are the dark times. Depressed, lonely and lacking any creative libido, I can’t get out of bed and stay ridden until noon. In an effort, collect the post and open a package containing the book Closing Time by Kevin Casey, 81 photographs of the lost pubs of Liverpool. I mourn each page, every picture a tombstone. I didn’t order this! Who would be cruel enough to send it? Since I’ve been asleep two more pubs are likely to have closed. I can only do so much.

10th The phone rings at 9.15am. Stern, leading German news magazine and loyal client, books me for a job. The year is afoot! At 2.22pm, the phone rings. Leading German news magazine Stern cancels the booking. I am not disheartened, for today I am the ‘all expenses paid’ guest judge at the Kentish Photography Club. We meet at the Blind Dog in Canterbury, an aptly named venue for a gathering of snappers. Earlier I had judged the club entries on landscape. After an initial round of fours and fives for the two pictures submitted by each member I showed them to my daughter. She liked them and commented that photography “isn’t a real job, Daddy”. I scurried to put an extra pen mark over the scores. Back in the Blind Dog I survey the anticipated ensemble. First to be judged is the gloriously buoyant Agnes. I wield her an eight out of ten, my second highest score, and search those Estonian blues for moist adulation. Agnes is unmoved. The score for her second image is six. Local hotshot, commercial photographer and club co-organiser Jason Dodd, whispers that the lowest mark he has ever given is six. I continue to throw out the scores with the lethal precision of Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor. At one point I think some members might leave. At another I think perhaps I should. The evening is salvaged and I give a quick presentation and hand out the gongs, a trophy to 2010 overall winner Paul Spree and a signed ‘Dench’ to the most improved, Steve Baker.

11th Jason emails through the KPC ceremony snaps. Another email arrives from the member I marked lowest, well joint lowest; there were three least of the low. I’m thanked for my time and insight and told it was a turning point and springboard to do better. Later that evening I apply the same strategy and score my wife a five out of ten. It doesn’t meet with the same positive response.

12th Inspired by the company and productivity of KPC members (I’ve not yet shot a frame) I decide to stop being such a sad sack whimpering about my predicament, and embrace the future. It’s time to do something significant. With one eye on the body clock the decades are ticking low. A project I return to often for inspiration is August Sander’s People of the 20th Century, a collective portrait of German society. In the Sander spirit I have tried a couple of test shoots for my UK interpretation. Once, I erected a backdrop next to the dance floor at Schooldisco.com, the nation’s favourite themed night out. On another it was erect backstage at Miss Leeds. The results were pleasing. I’ve an initial list of other groups and locations I’d like to feature, and get to work sending out requests. Riding a new-found optimism for the year I prepare my submission for Visa pour l’Image 2011, which are being received until 31 March. The French festival of photojournalism held in Perpignan each September has screened five of my projects in the previous eight years. Having an exhibition is a greater achievement. This year I haven’t a new project. In a cheeky manoeuvre I edit from my archive, slap on a new title and request a retrospective.

17th Today is Blue Monday, statistically the most depressing day of the year. Turn on the radio. Nicky Campbell reports that the average age of children being abused has fallen from 15 years old to 13. In an odd effort to cheer up listeners they play some ABBA. I turn off the radio. In October 2010 Thames & Hudson published the book Street Photography Now, featuring 46 of the “world’s best street photographers,” I wasn’t included, perhaps I was number 47. It has taken time, but my pride has recovered enough to order a copy; it arrived today. It’s a beautiful book with worthy contributors, Trent Parke and Lars Tunbjörk my highlight. Consumed by all things street photography I deliver 85 files for late inclusion in the FORMAT Festival running in Derby from 4 March to 3 April.

18th Off to attend Orphaned and Ostracised – HIV in Africa, a talk by Carol Allen-Storey hosted at the Frontline Club. It’s a serious topic for a serious club. Up the stairs past the Robert Capa prints; if you run fast you can pretend to be landing on the D-Day beaches. Glass of red in hand I’m seated under the Marc Riboud next to the coat rack; the scent of shed women’s outerwear cloys around. I first met Carol at the Sony World Photography Awards VIP dinner in Cannes last year. A fascinating, fizzing redhead and 100 words a minute New Yorker talker. She had me hooked by the fish starter. While the images aren’t exceptional (but then I am in the company of James Nachtwey and Larry Burrows’s work) Carol is and her passion and commitment unquestionable. I look over at Don McCullin’s Shell-Shocked Soldier, Hue, Vietnam, and momentarily feel a fraud. Carol explains about returning to her subject time and again. On each visit she takes an album of photographs from the previous trip to help build a relationship in the picture-making progress. Photojournalism is alive and well tonight, although the subjects of the images don’t look like they will be for long. The audience questions are Paxmanesque. I decide not to ask what film she used (think it was TRI-X). The applause is loud, the lights are on and we’re back in the room. The 70% majority female audience form a fine denier flock. There are many I recognize and I start to say hello, then realize I don’t know most of them but have become familiar with their LinkedIn thumbnail and profile. I shall social network with them in the morning, retreat down the beaches of Normandy and head into the cold neon-lit night.

20th Today’s forecast, scattered drinking, becoming heavy later. Tonight is the Telegraph Magazine’s belated new year party. Historically they’ve been my most prolific employer. Since my first contributing feature in June 1998 more than 25 have followed, including seven covers. Things have slowed. My last commission was in March 2010, a feature on cheese, and I pitched it. I’d like to ask what’s happened but probably won’t. Many there I consider friends rather than employers; might ruin a good drink. I meet image producer Caroline Cortizo first before we trot over to Mayfair and the Tempo Club in search of the bar. Picture editor Cheryl Newman points the way. I consider Chezza among the best and she’s responsible for some of my career highs. One was spending a week with Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya, who owns United Breweries. We flew from London to New Delhi on his private Airbus corporate jet. A £1 million upgrade had included a bedroom, office, dining table and bar with two billionaire-standard barmaids. Announcements for take-off were considered vulgar. Only as we taxied the runway did I decide to sup up and belt up. Mallya idly leafed through a helicopter brochure; someone no longer on his Christmas card list had shot down a previous chopper. The week was spent in a machine-gun protected air-conditioned bubble of privilege, attending his 51st birthday on Indian Empress, one of the largest private yachts in the world, a welcome experience; I even ate off a silver platter. Shame Lionel Richie wasn’t coming this year, would have been nice to say Hello. Back at the TM party Chezza pencils me in for a spring commission. Sweep past fashion photographer Julian Broad to say hello to Team Telegraph: Sheth, Greenacre, Campbell, Captain Lavery, and rock up to comfy-looking Gary ‘lotsa huggin’ Cochran. The bar tab soon dwindles.

25th I’m in the village of Farndon, Cheshire, standing outside Paul ‘my rock’ Burrell’s flower shop. Not my rock, but that of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. I’m here on assignment for Stern (they’re back) to shoot a portrait of the former royal butler. “I can spot a paparazzo a mile off ” comes the pronounced voice behind and Paul guides me into the shop past a picture of Diana, and upstairs into a room where photographs of the royal family eagerly await my arrival. I explain once excusing myself from the Queen’s company to get a refill; apparently not protocol. Maybe I should have offered to get her one. The shoot runs smoothly and Burrell is an engaging host. I’m served tea, given a lift in his ‘Chitty’ to the station and handed a signed copy of his book The Way We Were – Remembering Diana. Reading it on the train has the women at my table in a Diana dither. It’s a late and welcome fee for the month. A battle of superhero proportions is imminent. Dual-faced villain TAXVAT-Man beats an angry path to my door. I stand ready, slightly unsteady, your friendly, neighbourhood Imbiber-Man.

www.peterdench.com You can hear me in person each month on the Professional Photographer podcast, available on iTunes or on the website at;

www.professionalphotographer.co.uk

The Dench Diary - December 2010

2011-05-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

The Dench Diary: December 2010

5th I’m dozing clothed, wrapped in a blanket. Empty beer cans nibble at my feet. A skirt bustles. An unfamiliar perfume strokes the nostrils. A beautiful woman whispers in my ear. “Seat up and fasten your belt please, Mr Dench.” I remember this. I’m only on a bloody foreign assignment. Touchdown Namibia. Hello Africa, the land where Daily Mail readers fear to tread. Welcome to the Dench Diary Overseas Africa Special starring TV producer and ‘Mr Incredible’ lookalike Ollie, soundman Stevie and cameraman Kess ‘Wolverbean’ (the hair of Wolverine, chin of Mr Bean). Let’s hope no one gets drunk enough to discover a best boy grip. I’m on stills duty. We are here to shoot reportage on a sports programme being implemented in the Osire refugee settlement 250km north east of the capital, Windhoek, where we land. The objective is to promote the benefit of participating in sport without distinction of tribe, nationality, politics, religion or other opinions. The previous few days had brought a welcome buzz of anticipation. Googling the destination and researching the story, logging on to the trusted fitfortravel.nhs.uk website and getting an arm pumped full of inoculations. Days before departure every sense is heightened. Life is more poignant. I frequently laughed out loud for no real reason. I waved jovially from the bus to the children in the local school. They didn’t wave back. Food is tastier, beer crisper, loved ones lovelier, even Sandra Bullock films are entertaining. From -3ºC to +33ºC. It’s good to be back on the road, the road to Osire.

6th Buoyantly out of bed for a 4am start. Days dealing with poverty are ahead. For once it’s not my own. As the sun breaches we reach the Osire camp, guests of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of the camp’s population of 8,500 originate from Angola (around 69%) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (22%). The rest arrived from 21 other African countries. Today we are mainly shooting colour for the reportage and looking for a few suitable protagonists to build the story around. The camp residents rise with the sun. Driving into a clearing we hit a photojournalist’s jackpot. Women exercise on a concrete clearing. A jujitsu lesson tucked in the corner. Statuesque men balance on chests. Children box. Everything is brushed with the quality of light only an African morning can provide. I shoot for three hours without hesitation. Moving on to photograph at the medical centre proves more unsettling. Stevie tries to defuse the tension by handing out sweets. Unfortunately, the girl he hands them to has a bandaged jaw. I peel off and silently steal some frames. The morning is a success and provides a wealth of strong material in the digital bank. We pause for lunch. I pass on the fish heads and opt for the fried chicken and reflect on how good it is to be shooting again in Africa. You don’t have to be polite about noise levels in the cubicles here (if you can find one). Apart from an eye infection Senegal and a plane bursting a tyre on landing Liberia, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid being or injured abroad. My health generally improves in Africa; more a reflection on my home habits than cautions applied. My big dilemma is having to wait four hours after popping anti-malarial Malarone before I can take an antacid. I have to think very carefully which one takes priority. The Continent can be as dangerous as it is exciting. Checking the Foreign Office website travel advice to the region flagged familiar concerns: Carjacking, drunk drivers, armed gangs, disease and snakebites. I can add another, the unwashed tomato. During lunch Stevie comments that he’s feeling a little peculiar. Two hours later he’s in hospital being impregnated with antibiotics and stacked with rehydration packs. His decline is as rapid as it is brutal. The team, from experience, understand it could happen to any one of us. Stevie is simply unfortunate. We are temporarily a man down. In the afternoon we rally. Kess deals with the sound and I’m drafted in to shoot cutaways on the Canon EOS 5D MkII, my in-at-the-deep-end video debut. Set ISO (less than 3200), aperture (f5.6+), auto white balance, manual focus, shutter up, press button and roll. Job done. The real skill seems to be able to shoot, move and frame with speed. We take a break from the sun. The nearest beer is more than 100km away, so I ask Kess for a video tutorial. It takes him 10 minutes to impart what many workshops stretch into a morning and he doesn’t charge £200. After a productive afternoon, exhausted but content, the team piles into the Out of Africa guesthouse for a DEET-infused dinner. I pass on the seafood platter and opt for the fried chicken. The waitress must think all Westerners smell of insect repellent, the same way the Queen thinks everywhere smells of wet paint.

7th A 7am start and I’m ready at six. I can’t get out of bed this easily at home. Today is the main event. Namibian hero and Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks will be hosting the Osire Athletics event. En route we pull over for snacks. I grab the local paper. The reason there’s no Daily Mail equivalent in Africa is the fear is real and not merely implied. It makes grim reading. Namibian Cluedo must be fearsome: ‘Native in the post office with the broken bottle’. ‘Vengeful husband in the street with the petrol bomb’. Kess bumped into guesthouse security this morning. They casually mentioned armed robbers being shot at the previous week. To be honest, I love it. TIA my friends, This Is Africa. On arrival in Osire we are handed a programme of events. A 400m running track has been painstakingly carved into the parched red earth. First up is the long jump where a pit has been meticulously destoned. Fifteen participants are scheduled to leap. Thierry Beya is the first to make his mark. It can’t be measured as there is no tape. Voices are raised. There’s a bit of push and shove. In the melee Thierry’s mark is scuffed over. Thirty minutes pass. Someone from the crowd wryly observes, “too many chiefs”. Four more jump before the event is abandoned in favour of the running track. Each race has a false start. There will be only three 100m races before the event dissolves and half the programme dismissed. Two-thirds of the track goes unused. TIA. Another satisfying shoot day and as the sun dips its chin we head for Windhoek for a long anticipated night out in the capital. A good driver and guide is a crucial part of the team. Stay near the vehicle, keep it clean with a full tank and be ready to leave. Simples. On a previous trip, Ukrainian driver Andrey Valdman, a former policeman in the organised crime prevention unit, set the standard. A unit so dangerous you retired on full pension after only 18 years. Retired at 36 but keeping busy, he showed the AK-47 bullet wounds in his legs. He was a good driver. I would follow Andrey anywhere. I open the door to our Namibian car, nestle among the litter, wait for our driver to finish a personal call and settle down for a nap. Ollie’s curt inquisition cuts through to consciousness. For some inexplicable reason, our driver has forgotten his overnight bag and is returning home to get it. Even more inexplicable, he thinks we wouldn’t notice heading two hours out of our way. We pull over for a confrontation. The scenario is the rest of the journey can be spent with four people hating one or one hating four. The maths is clear. We make the decision. The driver arrives home to collect his bag.

8th We ended up spending the night back at the Out of Africa guesthouse rather than suffer a surly four-hour drive. Today is a 7am departure (UK time) for a 9am arrival tomorrow. When asked where and when I am happiest, I, of course, reply at home with my family. More accurately it would be at times like this. A good job done and nothing to do except booze our way home. Stevie’s back and on the beer. We crack a six-pack and toast his health. It’s been gruelling, exciting, troubling, rewarding and enjoyable. On one African adventure with a more uncertain outcome I was advised to put my affairs in order, just in case. I wrote a letter to my then three-year-old daughter explaining why I thought it necessary to continue on risky foreign assignments. I hope she doesn’t ever get to open it and we can read it together one day as adults. This is where a photojournalist belongs, on the road, limbs aching, embedded with dirt, witnessing something new, striding the world to provide for one’s family. Briefly I am a hunter and a man. Feels good. It’s regrettable that many closest to me will never observe what I can be. The journey to the airport is good banter, camaraderie at its finest and we bond, stopping frequently for Windhoek Draught. Our driver is slowly forgiven.

10th I have 1,000+ frames to edit, process, tweak and caption. The deadline is soon. First priority, my daughter’s school play. Photographer and model father Richard Baker (@bakerpictures) tweets some advice: “Take Kleenex in case it gets too much. Watch out for divorcees on the pull #nativitycougars”. Antsy mums, soppy dads, recorders, camcorders, babies, snot, ABBA, no wine, kill me. My daughter’s Dancing Queen is, of course, brilliant but I’m distracted. I didn’t shed a tear in Osire. Rarely do. Then it happens. An androgynous angel pirouettes on stage and performs a ballet solo of such purity and innocence a salty drop cracks my sunburnt cheek. I exit stage left. Next scene, the interior of the Villiers Terrace pub. My wife joins me after a works lunch. The dulcet tones of Andy Williams nudge the air. I begin to relay tales of my African adventure. She slowly slips from her chair and plops on to the floor. I’ve been home a day.

11th I’ve earned enough from the Namibia trip to meet my monthly minimum with beer money to spare, invoice and wait. Life can be that easy and it used to be. However, last month was a wage vacuum and I’m playing catch-up. From Premium Economy to Peter Economy. Tom Stoddart once described photography as a champagne and chips lifestyle. Chips at the moment seem a luxury. I start clearing a backlog of emails hoping for good news, mostly Pizza Express vouchers and notification of no stock sales. I try the post, mostly pizza menus, an amendment of my Photo lease agreement increasing the payments and the result of my Criminal Records Bureau check. I’m allowed to be around children.

18th Snow blizzards, long johns on and off on assignment for a men’s magazine to cover the student protests in London. On paper the event looks good. A flash mob is to occupy Topshop. At exactly four minutes past one a PE lesson will break out with three-legged, egg-and-spoon and sack races. On the ground at exactly four minutes past one a man strips to his football kit and bounces a ball. He is prevented from entering Topshop. There’s more press than protesters and progress is slow. Events like this are good for street photography. You can shoot around the periphery. I stick it out and gather enough images to justify an invoice. Swing by friends on my way home to collect my wife from prolonged teatime drinks. I begin to relay tales of my capital adventure. She drops from my side and plops into a snowdrift. TIE my friends, This is England.

www.peterdench.com

You can hear Peter in person each month on the Professional Photographer podcast, available on iTunes or on our website at www.professionalphotographer.co.uk

Podcasts, News & Pics

2011-05-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

Podcasts 9 & 10 have now been added the Professional Photographer Magazine website discussing, among other things; getting exhibited and the world of convergence. The 'Dench Diary' continues to be published monthly in the Mag where all my best jokes appear. Backdated DD's will appear on this blog when available online.

I have a shiny new commercial agent, the vibrant, spirited uber professional Abby Johnston.

Lens Culture posted a selection of images from my 'Drinking of England' project.

An edit from my observations at the Royal Wedding of Prince William & Catherine Middleton can be viewed on my main image site www.peterdench.com

Finally, for now, I have a dedicated portraits website, the imaginatively named domain www.peterdenchportraits.com

The Dench Diary - November 2010

2011-03-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Dench Diary:
November 2010

1st Frank Sinatra once quipped, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” I’ve never wanted Frank to feel sorry for me. The longest I’ve been without a drink in adult life is five days. I was on a North Sea Fishing Trawler shooting on assignment for GQ Magazine. You slept below the water line next to the engine room. It smelt of fishy men. I felt drunk and threw up often. I vowed to continue sobriety on dry land. 40 minutes from docking after one hot shower and one bottle of Veuve Cliquot the sentiment was never referred to again. I think it’s time to give being dry another try. I might be brilliant. It would be a shame not to find out. I put my new life plan into action, juice a Kilo of carrots and meet friend and agent Abby Johnston. She’s agreed to review my folio and wave the fee she can deservedly charge. It’s insightful and confirms what I suspect. Commercial clients want to see a high turnover of fresh new work. My portfolio is constructed from a decade of editorial hot shots. It doesn’t make the transition. I need the folio to secure one more well paid job to finance a complete make over.

4th I’ve been called in to chat with the creative team at a direct and digital marketing agency. They have a credit card client and usually source images from Royalty Free stock. Their search has revealed large gaps; the images are often too globally generic. It’s encouraging to hear RF stock hasn’t conquered every requirement. Even more encouraging to hear they want the work to have a strong sense of British. I was once described as the affordable Martin Parr (and Parr’s drunken brother). I pull out a decade of work on British-ness. They’re concerned. The work features ‘real people.’ Would I be able to replicate that using actors? I lucidly explain this would be easy. You don’t have to wait for hours for that decisive moment but can apply what you know happens eventually and get paid people to do it quicker.

5th Now I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. Who put so many hours in the day and what are you supposed to do with them? The past four days have been a lifetime. Turns out I’m not brilliant. I bore myself. A writer explained to me with conviction you can only be truly creative three to four hours a day. The rest is mental tinkering; dealing with emails, phone calls, vacuuming, watching Loose Women. I usually sit down at my desk around 8am so by noon I’m spent. Today the NUJ are on strike. In a mark of solidarity I down pens and lens and head over to my local for a time consuming bender.

7th I read on Facebook respected portrait photographer Abbie Trayler-Smith has become a mum. Might free up some commissions. I see Harry Borden and Laura Pannack already ‘like’ this status. Congrats AT-S. I check Zen Nelson’s status to see if he’s due for an Op or recovering from flu. He seems fine.

8th Regular dd readers will know I’ve been absorbed in a project with a South Asia flavour documenting 2nd generation migrant girls living in Southall. On the 5th of November I remember attending Diwali celebrations at a Sikh household. On that fiery night one of my migrant girls invited me along to the filming of a music video for Bhangra sensation MC Special. I meet director Blaise at the Blue Green Restaurant in Northolt where the shoot will take place. When I arrive MC Special hasn’t so I peruse the impressive cocktail menu and decide on a White Russian. The rumble of an amber Lamborghini deposits the star to the bar. “Hello I’m Special.” Of course you are darling. Blaise asks if I can be in a scene as Paparazzi. He then asks if I can play the Pap in other scenes. I must be good, actor, writer, photographer, is there no limit. Then it dawns this is the real reason I’ve been invited. “Hello I’m Peter, rapper Special’s special Papper.”

11th Tonight’s the World Press Photo 2010 London launch at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s lit like date night by the pool. I survey the scene, a giddy Tom Daley. The swinging dicks are out and the bar is swell. I dive in with precision. Moretti, Gary Cochran (Art Dir Telegraph Magazine), Moretti, Aidan Sullivan (Vice President Getty), red wine, Jon Jones (Pic Ed Sunday Times Mag), red wine, portraits finest Harry Borden, air kiss kiss Laura Pannack and Moretti with the fully loaded Irina Kalashnikova. I come up for air and check the clock. Half an hour late for drinks Part Deux. I collect thriller writer Tom Knox and TV Producer Ollie McMullen from Gordon’s Wine Bar (not decorated since 1890) and move on to Soho House. Ollie did PE at school with Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Ollie and I travelled the world together. We worked on a project for footballs governing body FIFA documenting 26 stories in 20 countries. Football’s Hidden Story (FHS) was a series of emotive human-interest features showing the positive impact that football has had at grass root level on individuals and communities across the planet. The Italian team of Schizophrenics a personal highlight. During one extraordinary period of play the ball sat idle while one goalkeeper took to all fours and prowled around the penalty box. Other players tackled their myriad personalities. Ollie whispers the possibility of another intercontinental sojourn. It could be a career saver. I don’t remember getting home.

16th On this day in history, well last year, I was landing in Iraq to shoot a reportage on mine clearance in the volatile northern district of Kirkuk. Today I am in the local library flicking through the paper half-heartedly looking for a job. I would rather be in Iraq than looking for a job in the local library. I didn’t even need to be here. I could have looked for a job on the Internet at home but fancied a stroll. The highlight of my day is a stroll to the local library to look for a job I don’t want to do. I think about what the Iraqi special-forces bodyguards who escorted us might be up to. The paper announces today is also significant for another reason, more significant than my mums 60th Birthday. It’s the grand opening of Crouch End’s first JD Wetherspoon pub. Its evil sibling ‘CASH MY GOLD’ arrived last month and thrives. The local de-gentrification mirrors my career. I look through the window at the menu, Curry and a Pint £5.59. I finger my ring and stride in. It’s been 32 days since my last direct photographic commission. This is turning into the drink diary.

17th Thanks to the University of Derby I can confidently illustrate the development of prison photography within a Foucault framework, grab Gombrich’s hand and skip through the problem of meaning and bond with Barthes over the rhetoric of the image. Can I deliver a business plan or file a tax return? No I cannot. I’ve had an accountant for ten years. They charge around a £1000. This year it’s an expense too taxing and I’m online alone and it’s not going well.

18th I’m in a meeting at Channel 4. They want to turn this column into a series. There’s a hamster on the desk and Christopher Walken is dancing outside. Lazytown’s Robbie Rotten who is to play the lead is washing cups. The alarm stops the nonsense. Two hours later I’m in a meeting at Channel 4 showing my portfolio. I used to freelance for the Discovery Channel shooting on set for £500 a day and drinking tea with Tommy Walsh. My DC contact moved on and I got lost in transition. It was a welcome wage and I’m hoping C4 might fill the hole. They show me what’s required. A super slick flick book of campaigns by La Chapelle and von Unworth startle the retina. My dream of meeting up on set with the girls of Hollyoaks After Dark receding with each flap. The omens for work aren’t good but we have a mutual friend and float the idea for a Christmas bevy.

19th Attend a talk by the understated and often underrated George Georgiou (check out Fault Lines: Turkey from East to West). We shared the ITV breakfast show sofa in 2003 talking about our then projects, palettes sticky and stomachs bouncing from the previous evenings awards show imbibing. Today it’s a pleasure to be in the audience. He talks in a matter of fact manner about his need to spend 5 years on a project. Of moving to the territory he wants to document to get a better understanding and fending off the threat of financial ruin. It’s great Photojournalism. Afterwards, I sit down for the beginning of a talk in association with the Royal Privilege Society; ‘handing out bursaries to the double-barrelled since 1853’ and enjoy a jolly introduction by it’s speaker.

24th The competition season is under way and I start to upload my Sony World Photography Awards entries. I can’t defend my second place in Advertising. I haven’t completed an Advertising job in 2010. Instead opt for Portraits, Campaign and Contemporary Issues. It’s not looking good so decide on a trip out. I’m after an experience embracing naked ladies, possibly ginger, mature breasts, underwear, maybe a wounded deer. Clear you filthy minds. It’s time for the annual romp down to the Taylor Wessing Portrait Exhibition at the NPG.

25th Plan to attend daughters’ school Advent fair. I’m thinking a crispy cake, mulled wine, scratched Dylan CD and a few 50p novels. £5 top night. Arriving it’s like John Lewis on location. This is competitive parenting at its fiercest. Kids have been drafted in as Mini Boden mannequins. Local business Tim Spiers Photography is selling hard, well his assistant on the stand is. Tim is busy elsewhere. I flick through the price list; Event photography £100 an hour, Corporate portrait files £50 each. There’s a flyer for ‘Cherub of the Year Competition’ with a ‘life changing’ £10,000 up for grabs. I scan the room for unattended babies. Nothing. Push through the crowd and present myself at the bar. I can afford two glasses.

30th The snow falls and the month closes with a diary first, no new paid Photographic commission. Despite this I decide to Photolease a Canon MKII Body and start my convergence adventure. £99.56 down payment, £49.56 monthly payments for three years. No penalties if you pay it back early. It could happen although I expect by the time I do pay it off they’ll be another upgrade. Hover cameras? It’s not looking like a very Merry Christmas at Casa Dench but I wish you all a terrific one. I hope you feel a bit better about your lives by reading about mine and return for more adventures of a sometimes working-pro in the New Year. The next installment is already shaping up to be a cracker. Yesterday I received a phone call. Words more joyful than “it’s a healthy baby girl” were shouted in my ear; “ARE YOUR JABS UP TO DATE?”

Next installment, the dench diary takes to the skies!

First published in the January issue of Professional Photographer Magazine, back issue are available on their website

The Dench Diary - October 2010

2011-03-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

The Dench Diary:
October 2010

4th Today I’m officially old. It’s not my birthday. Worse. I find myself using the safety rail to get out of the bath. I worry about slippery floors and make a noise when I sit down. I raise a hand mirror to the back of my pate. No man should ever do this. Someone is definitely stealing my hair. It’s the first Monday of a new month. Bedroom, get dressed, Zantac, soluble Solpadeine Plus and draw back the curtains; the room gets darker. Check the weather on the BBC, heavy rain for the next three days. Check Google Analytics – traffic to my website is down 18.27%. Check the diary for the month, oh dear. Here we go again. Check through my monocular for activity in my local. Nothing, but it is only 8.09am. This is going to be a long day. Flick through a backlog of weekend papers for inspiration. A feature in The Guardian tweaks my interest. Blackpool has applyied for UNESCO world heritage site status. If I didn’t have a family, or if they were alcoholics, I’d live in Blackpool. Well, for a year at least. It has everything I like to photograph in one place and often go there on assignment. I write a proposal to the heritage manager outlining an idea I have for a project that would involve the reputable photography degree course at Blackpool & The Fylde College. It’s a long shot but if you toss enough rocks in the pond, one day a mountain will break the surface. Won’t it?

5th Jonathan Worth calls. He’s a lecturer at Coventry University. As soon as I see the name flashing on the mobile I feel nauseous. I know what he wants. Jonathan (@jDubbyah for Twitter fans) is a good friend. We graduated together from the University of Derby. Jonathan and I were two of the few who didn’t spend the course photographing ourselves or our friends naked. He asks the question. The answer is no. I was a promising opening batsman in my teens but had to give it up. I could never quite get over the nerves of striding out to the crease in front of a crowd, the real chance of unblinking failure (with a camera you still have the thrill of being out in the middle of an event and you can fail later). I have the same sense of foreboding when asked to give a lecture. This has to be overcome. A nice little income can be earned by photographers who aren’t photographing, teaching students who probably won’t. I start scripting a talk.

6th Attend the book launch and exhibition of Infidel by Tim Hetherington at HOST Gallery in London. It’s lightly attended for a man of his stature. Events like this used to be crammed with picture editors. I don’t recognise any. I clap eyes on the Cellophane-wrapped book. I’m not paying £25 for that! Free beer later and I’m in the queue to get it signed. Ask Tim to sign it ‘To Peter without whom none of this was possible.’ He doesn’t. Once the book is in hand something peculiar happens. With Stuart Smith involved in the design it had to be special. It’s the feel and size of a Bible and becomes an object of absolute fascination. I take it on a tour of London transport. By the time I arrive at my local I’m frothing about its brilliance and thrusting it in faces like some deranged missionary. People slowly edge away.

7th I’m working on a project co-financed by [cultural organisation] Limonkraft and the European Commission’s Daphne programme. It’s been exactly a month since I was asked to contribute a photo-essay documenting second-generation migrant girls in the context of education. The deadline is December 1. I haven’t shot a frame. I’ve decided to concentrate on the South Asian community in Southall, sometimes known as Little Punjab. Around 55% of Southall’s population of 70,000 is Indian/Pakistani, with less than 10% being White British. It’s a good peg for a story and also home to one of my favourite pubs. The Glassy Junction was the first in the UK to accept rupees. It used to have exotic dancers on a Thursday. Pupils at Villiers High School in Southall represent more than 45 nationalities and languages, embracing 25 ethnic types. There’s also a college that many of the pupils progress to. Today I meet at the college at 10am, tomorrow the school. It’s critical the meetings have a positive outcome and one of them grants me licence to shoot. At 10.15am, after a two-hour nightmare commute, I call the college PR. She’s forgotten all about our appointment. She says I’ll need a Criminal Records Bureau check. I call the CRB and am told a registered institution has to apply on my behalf and the process takes 10 days. I deliver the documents and £36 fee to the college, who say it will take up to five months. In 12 years I’ve never had a CRB request before.

8th It’s 11am and I’m in a meeting with the head of Villiers School. She is enthusiastic about the migrant project. Relieved, I sit back and tuck in to a custard slice. “Oh and I have to ask, are you CRB checked?” I cough a flock of custard flecks. “No, is this a problem?” “Not really, you’ll just have to be supervised when with the pupils.” Access is everything and I’m in.

12th Thank you photography, without you I’d never have got to watch the Guru Nanak Sikh Faith School production of Macbeth as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival 10th anniversary. Credit to the young girl who delivered without fault the words of King Duncan through a heavy lisp. I was there for act one, scene one, of my own production of Second-Generation Migrant Girls, in which three of my protagonists were performing.

14th This evening I meet Preet, co-founder of ‘Eat Natural’ food products & journalist Sally Williams. We went on commission to South Africa for a feature for the Telegraph Magazine on fair trade Macadamia Nuts. We meet at Shaka Zulu in Camden, an appalling kitsch bar and restaurant guarded by 15ft statues of African warriors with more personality than the staff. Sally is fresh of the plane from Uganda, the charities own snapper took the pics and also shot video. Another startling reminder I need to make the move into moving media fast.

15th I wake with the sense I’ve done something wrong; a job for the Scottish Sunday Herald throbs into view. I’m to shoot the notorious Walworth Road [in South London], as a photographic community service; £180 all in minus 25%, as it came through an agent. My wife reminds me it would take a week working in the canteen of Capital Radio to earn this. It doesn’t help. My daughter tries to rouse me with a rendition of Merrily We Roll Along on the recorder. It doesn’t help. The shoot is plodding and pedestrian. In the evening I head off to a Navratri Garba Festival to meet two of the migrant girls. It’s an hour-and-a-half journey. Leaving in haste, I ignore one of my sacred shoot rules, always dress smart. Good trousers open doors. I was on assignment in Monaco for the Sunday Times Magazine with two days to woo the world of wealth. Armed with press pass and linen slacks I breezed on to a yacht party where current ruler Prince Albert II was in attendance and got to say “CHEERS” with Ted Danson. An invite to an exclusive White Theme party followed. Bejewelled models in swimsuits ushered me in. Hot women in PVC nurses’ outfits raised my temperature. That was a good day and they were good trousers. Back at the dance I am the only white man in a hall of thousands, standing in threadbare socks, faded jeans and T-shirt staring at a rotating whirl of impeccably dressed sirens, looking for two 15-year-old girls. I abandon the hall and start asking giggling groups what school they go to. This is not a good strategy. Some boys overhear and put me out of my misery, they’re not coming. This has been a disastrous day and definitely the wrong trousers.

19th I’m back at Villiers photographing 15-year-old girls in lessons and at lunch. I am 23 years older – 20 years older than 18-year-olds. When I was 16, 18-year-old girls seemed 10 years older. I ask the girls how old they think I am: “43?” Purchase a copy of the Southall Gazette with the headline story: ‘School worker is accused of having unlawful relationships with nine under-age girls.’ I fold it away and call the heads PA to confirm shooting a PE lesson, netball and trampoline club.

20th Evening drinks with the charismatic Tom Knox (when he’s writing novels) or Sean Thomas (when he’s being a journalist). The latter once made the front page of The People for his involvement in a posh sex scandal. Thomas Knox and I have worked on many features, including trips to a Spanking Festival and Europe’s Largest Brothel (12 floors of whores, the busiest day is Christmas Day; insert gag here). He’s just back from a remarkable two-month trip to Peru. I tried to cajole the commissioning magazine to send me with him. Finances dictated a local snapper. A trip to Easter Island beckons. He suggests I inform the magazine I’d pay for my own flights or take a half day-rate.

25th The Photographers’ Gallery in London is closed until autumn 2011. Tonight it is having the first of its off-site socials, a screening and talk on street photography. The bar is crammed with beautiful, slightly sweaty enthusiasts. I talk with a smouldering Oxford grad working as a BBC journalist who wants to be a photographer, and a Cambridge grad who’s just bicycled around the world, is into watercolours and poetry, and wants to be a photographer. A lawyer who sounds like an Oxford grad with an interest in photography explains that we can photograph children and the police on the street at any time of day or night. It’s been an education.

27th I’m sitting on a high stool. The left side of my body has gone numb. The lights are bright. I think I’m about to have a stroke. My drink is out of reach. There’s an audience. All of this is being streamed live on the internet. Welcome to Canon Pro Photo Solutions 2010 at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Last night I was at the Nikon D7000 event, but that’s another column; just to say I woke this morning with a signed wooden spoon in my pocket. Back on the stool I opt for the dehydration = numbness scenario and stoically continue with the interview. My mum might be watching. Afterwards I feel better. Must’ve been nerves but am glad I did it. Head off to read the Mirror and not think about cameras. So much kit-chat, I’ve been living in a Clive Booth column.

28th Had a request from a German magazine for shots to illustrate a feature including a Bearskin Hat, Queues for Red Buses, Ladies Having Tea, A Gentleman’s Club and A Red Telephone Box with cards advertising adult services. Think they’ve watched too many Ealing Comedies and head out to deliver. Find a phone box splattered with ads but the sun is in the wrong place. Stuff the ads in my bag and try to find another box to put them in. It’s not photojournalism at its purest but I haven’t got much time. There was no need, find a perfectly sunned advertised box round the corner. In the evening I arrive for dinner at the home of one of the girls from my ‘migrant’ project. The family are Pakistani Muslims and I pick up a box of vegetarian sweets on the way. The evening is very comfortable and welcoming as I go about snapping their home life. During dinner I ask questions and reach into my bag for notepaper. ‘BIG TIT LADY NEEDS A SPANK’; I’m sure you do, my soaped-up lovely, but now is not the time. I fold the phone box ad and stuff it in my pocket. I think it goes unnoticed.

29th Today I take the day off and lie in bed. This morning after a swim I fell on a wet floor and hurt my back.

Taken from the December 2010 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine, back issues are available on their website

FORMAT International Photography Festival

2011-02-05T03:42:00.000-08:00

England Uncensored

Delighted to be included in this years FORMAT International Photography Festival 'Right Here, Right Now' - Exposures From the Public Realm running in Derby UK from 4th March to 3rd April. There will be some teasers from my England Uncensored set running as a loop on a digital screen in the QUAD exhibition and the FOCUS section of the festival. Work also featured at QUAD include Brian Griffin, Joel Meyerowitz, George Georgiou, Jeff Mermelstein, Raghu Rai and many more.

Thank you to the Kentish Photography Club who kindly invited me to give a short presentation and hand out the gongs at their annual awards for 2010. Congratulations to Paul Spree who took the overall winners trophy and to Steve Baker who won most improved member. Read more of my adventures with the KPC in the Dench Diary March issue of Professional Photographer Magazine out later this month. Talking of which, bringing you up to date with the PP Podcasts;

Podcast 7 - Business

Podcast 6 - Icons

Podcast 5 - Competitions

The Dench Diary - September 2010

2011-01-29T23:59:00.000-08:00

The Dench Diary:

September 2010

6th: Start of the new school term and I can finally get back to some sort of discipline. There’s a lot to be said for having your own studio or a desk among other creative types. Unfortunately, my desk is at the end of my bed. The window over looks the sun terrace of my local pub. I’m caught between a shot and a soft place. I really should consider relocating. I get scores of requests from young photographers and college graduates asking to hang out at my studio. Not sure how to reply, perhaps they could change the sheets, then buy me a pint. The school holidays have left me with a backlog of 500-plus Tiffs that need tweaks and captions so crack on. I miss hurling a sack of exposed film over the counter of a lab, nipping off for a glass, collecting the film and China graphing an edit over a bottle. Now I don’t need to go out, it seems a bit shabby uncorking a Merlot in your pyjamas.

7th: I’ve a shoot for the Guardian Weekend. This is a surprise. I’d written them off the regular client list. My contacts had largely moved on and my last conversation with the picture desk revealed they’d be working their contract photographers harder. In 2003 they sent me to Jamaica to shoot a nine-page cover story on Jamaican gigolos and the white middle-class women who go there for a taste of the ‘Big Bamboo’. I’m reminded of this on today’s shoot, a portrait in Brixton; there’s the whiff of Jamaica on arrival. Despite the welcome call, the editorial walls are tumbling down and I’m riddled with dread. Talk with VII agency snapper Marcus Bleasdale about my concerns. He’s just been paid five figures giving a workshop in Kashmir. He’s a different league but it’s a thought. Perhaps I could give a UK workshop on how to press the national self-hate button.

9th: It’s time I had a book. A decade of snapping the English is shaping up. There’s a movement called ‘Self Publish, Be Happy’, Photofusion is hosting workshops for £375; this doesn’t sound like a fairytale beginning and I’m unconvinced. I grew up in love with Cornerhouse Publications, a book for me is the Holy Grail of photography but it has to be ‘properly’ published; Dewi Lewis, Chris Boot, Steidl, Contrasto, I’d even take a Taschen. It’s a long and daunting process but I think I’m ready. I’ve spent months intermittently preparing files for a Blurb book dummy. When it arrives, the images are all wonky. I give Caroline Cortizo a call and arrange a lunch date. She’s an image producer and master of her craft, having worked on projects including the UK At Home book, The Obama Time Capsule (a print-on-demand book with Against All Odds) and i-Witness with Tom Stoddart.

13th: Lunch with Caroline is everything I expected, inspiring, informative and honest. She explains her current take on the world of books. It sounds shut. She explains with a poignant example involving the difficult process of getting Eugene Richards’s multi-award winning War is Personal project into print. A fascinating lunch ends four hours later. Caroline has restricted herself to three pints and the beef salad; I had the fish and chips. The bill comes to £75, seems I was thirsty. I arrive home five hours later, having forgotten to collect one of my unsold Foto8 Summer Show prints. The other has a second chance of purchase at the Crane Kalman Gallery in Brighton.

14th A parcel from the Get XoPhoto Festival arrives. In it are a book, coasters and a wall chart. They distributed 3,000 coasters with six images from my Drinking of England project. The bars’ locations are marked on the wall chart by a wine glass, seems appropriate. I start packaging sets of the coasters for a mail out to advertising agencies as a ‘DESKTOP DENCH’ exhibition.

15th Last month I was commissioned to shoot a five-day feature on ‘Traditional London’ for a German magazine. I find it difficult to shoot creatively on the street for more than six hours a day and it’s become prolonged. Today I stride out with purpose to nail the job and find ‘Posh Schoolboys’ and ‘City Drinkers’ to photograph.

17th I like Fridays. I walk my daughter Grace to school, inhale the world of yummy mummies, back home to do a bit of work on the computer before returning to pick her up. There’s another book on the doorstep, the Sony World Photography Awards 2010. It’s five months since the awards ceremony but worth the wait. It looks, feels and smells great. You don’t get that with an iPad. I should invent a ‘real book smell’ app. It includes meaty contributions from Pellegrin, Stirton, Astrada and 14 pages of photos by Magnum legend Eve Arnold. I won second place in the advertising category and my image spans two pages near the centre. I’m pleased to be involved. Even more pleased to discover I’m their ‘Photographer of the Month’ with an online interview about the winning image and a separate gallery from the England Uncensored project. This is shaping up to be a fabulous day as I get to work Tweeting and Facebooking the news. I even call my Mum. By lunchtime, however, the freelance reality bubble has started to deflate. Despite me feeling a success, the diary rudely admits to only one commissioned day’s pay. The bubble parps its last when I go to pick up Grace. A successful commercial photographer lives at the end of my road. Our daughters are in the same class. That’s where the similarities end. I often see him burning up Crouch End in one of his personalised motors. I think today it was the EOS 1D. I ask Grace what she wants to do. “Go to the pub and eat chewy sweets, Daddy.” This perks me up. I’m not a father to disappoint.

18th Photojournalism may be dead but the trigger finger of this photojournalist still twitches, so off to shoot the Pope. Well, at least buy the T-shirt to photograph as a still life piece of contemporary art later. The last comparable event in London I tried to photograph was Diana’s funeral. Her coffin passed as I was photographing the price sticker on the sole of a young lady’s shoe. The enduring image for me from that day was a shot of her coffin heading north on a deserted motorway. Today I aspire to the discipline of David Modell, the photograph’s creator. It’ll be interesting to see what images come from the Pope’s visit. I don’t envy the news and agency snappers. I once got lumped in with them on a commission for the Sunday Times Magazine to shoot a feature on the Queen’s royal tour to South Africa. We’d arrive on the bus three hours early. The pack would dash to the same spot and wait. Liz would eventually show up, they’d shoot for seconds, dash back to the bus, swap and send files. It was a lesson to be able to shoot around the periphery and the approach I’ll take today. During the morning I bump into three snappers, all Getty.

In the afternoon I meet Maciej Dakowicz (check out his brilliant Cardiff at Night) and Joni Karanka who run the Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff. They kicked off the gallery with LoveUK, my first major UK solo show. They’re in good form and off to the Street Photography Now book launch; Maciej has four pages. I buy them both a pint before heading off to a neighbourhood street party and afterwards party with friends where I take the best pictures of the day of the kids dancing around.

20th: An email request has arrived out lining a project being co-financed by the European Commission. The request has come as a direct result of exhibiting at GetXoPhoto. I’ve been asked to produce a photo essay documenting the social integration of second-generation migrant girls from North Africa and South Asia. Six countries will contribute work for an exhibition in San Sebastian, Spain, in June next year as well as inclusion in a catalogue and on awareness posters. I will be paid 1,500 Euros. This is serious stuff and I begin the research. I used to pitch editorial story ideas regularly until response to them dwindled. Firing up the old investigative brain cells again proves hard work.

22nd: Blurb replaced my wonky book. It arrived with a ‘Clarisonic Skin Cleansing System’, an interesting customer service strategy. Fire off an application for the National Media Museum 2010 Photography Awards for early career and emerging photographers. I’ve been emerging for more than a decade. I want to arrive. Continue research for my European Commission initiative on migrant girls, enquiries so far have met with an eruption of silence. I can’t stop previsualising my images as minimum depth-of-field, solemn-looking portraits. If I went to war would I shoot grainy black and white? Must remember to be true to my style and work this to an advantage.

23rd: My commercial agent has called. It’s been a while. There’s the possibility of a small ad job. I’m very fond of my agent. They’re the ‘grandes dames’ of advertising who made their money representing car photographers in the 1980s. I’m worried they might retire. When I left a previous agency in 2005 I owed over £35,000 on credit cards. They got me an eight-day job that paid it off. Admittedly over the years, my roving liver has slugged a proportion of it back. Lately, however, the situation has become a little frustrating. I’ve had a great year in terms of releasing projects, having work shown at major festivals, and would like to pipe that exposure to the commercial world. I’m World Photography Organisation Photographer of the Month, you know! It may be time to put the ‘grass is greener’ fingers out and head off to some appointments in town. Afterwards, my impressions are I’m already sunbathing on the right side of the fence.

24th: I receive a copy of PP Magazine with the first instalment of The Dench Diary, fold it under my arm and stride towards my local, this calls for a drink. I stop halfway, saturated with dread. I know what it says but what was I thinking? Photographers are supposed to present themselves as flawless models of success. It all seemed rather innocuous ensconced at home. I feel like the Penn & Teller of photography. Sod it. The shiny pro approach hasn’t made me rich. I order a double and read the interview with Tim Hetherington first. Tim and I were on the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass in 2002, an initiative bringing 12 promising young photographers together in Amsterdam for a week of mass debate. Since then, Tim’s career has taken him to the Civil War in Liberia and the trenches of Afghanistan. I’ve been to a nudist resort and dwarf convention. I give my effort the once over and order a bottle. Darlings I’m a writer, scrub that, a columnist. I’m drinking for two professions now.

25th: This weekend I’m away at a family wedding in Sheffield. I’m not the photographer. Even my own relatives have stopped employing me.

29th: My computer has a virus. Every time I log on to the internet I see pictures by Simon Roberts. Even the more obscure sites. The man’s a marketing rash, a one-man modern handbook on self-promotion. I’m hoping to catch some tips this evening and have RSVP’d a seat at a talk he’s giving about the Election Project at London’s Host Gallery. I’ve a quick portrait to shoot first for Stern magazine and head into the kind of weather you dread as a colour photographer. The journalist has a clear idea of what images should illustrate the feature. They often do. I photograph a Korean economist at a newsagents, vacuum cleaner shop, in the toilets of an All Bar One and at the hairdressers. The talk provides useful nuggets on the logistics of planning a big project but I duck out early to catch theend of Champions League action.

30th: I wake late and agitated. Last night I dreamt of Simon Roberts.

www.peterdench.com You can me in person each month on the Professional Photographer podcast available on iTunes or at www.professionalphotographer.co.uk

The Dench Diary - August 2010

2011-01-29T05:59:00.000-08:00

The Dench Diary:

August 2010

Looking through the work of Elliot Erwitt, and Martin Parr in the library of Bournemouth Art College in 1990, I decided to take photography as a career seriously. If you could travel the world, make people laugh and think then that was a fine way to live. If you could have a few drinks along the way then that was the life for me. Having been fired from all previous ‘proper’ jobs except for a stint selling trousers in Top Man, self-employment and photography seemed the only option left.

According to the tax man, I’ve been a professional photographer since 1998. Twelve years later, I own no property, have no savings, shares or bonds, no car in the garage, no garage. I do have a number of global accolades, memories in the bank and have had the privilege to work in over 50 countries across the planet. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Until this year, I’ve always made my living and my losses from photography. After a rotten April and May – only two commissioned days’ pay – I joined a recruitment agency to pay some bills. Three days as a garden labourer and 11 as a canteen assistant at Capital Radio followed: “Would you like honey on your porridge, Toby Anstis? Brown sauce with your bacon, Jamie Theakston?” I bumped into Johnny Vaughan on my round to stock the office fridges. He clocked me for a moment and did a double take. I’d photographed him recently for a five-page feature in the Telegraph Magazine. He looked well. This is where we meet; my introduction to you. These are interesting times, difficult times; perhaps the biggest hurdle of my career: how to adapt and diversify. ‘Photojournalism is dead’ is a constant headline and I’m starting to believe it. The game is survival and the game is on. I’ve £20 in the bank and just had to delay my rent.

This is unexpected. I check a News International remittance: ‘Payment due date: 30 July’ then in brackets: ‘payment should be received within eight working days of the payment due date’.

August 1st: A new month brings renewed optimism. July was a success; a chunk of money invoiced and August is off to a flyer. My new project, England Uncensored – a laugh-out-loud romp through this badly behaved land – is profiled in The Sunday Times Magazine. I get three pages including the cover; six images in total. Not great, not bad but they’ll pay £1,000 on publication. The reason I approached the STM is because from previous experience it gets the best response. The industry takes notice. In January they gave six pages to my project LoveUK to promote a solo show at the Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff. Publication coincided with Valentine’s Day; it’s good to have a peg. The Sun picked up on it and ran a portfolio across its centre spread. Direct commissions followed and some regional papers picked up on the exhibition. I’m hoping for a similar response.

2nd: The morning is spent waiting for The Sun to ring and emailing the Dailies about England Uncensored. There is no response. I turn my attention to an upcoming commission. My kind of job: four days are booked in with a writer later in the month. It’s a cover story on ‘Traditional London’ for a German travel mag. I’m to do another day on my own and I have a list: pubs, greasy spoons, wooden escalators, Routemaster buses, clubs and casinos. More than a day’s work but it’s a quiet week so I will give it two plus half a day’s research. Start Googling ‘traditional London pubs’.

3rd: 7am and it’s sunny skies; a snapper’s delight. I’m thinking saturated primary colours; red Routemaster buses. Head out early before the sun peaks. Think about shooting some stock on the way. It took me a long time to take stock sales seriously. This was a mistake. I thought of stock as left over pictures and that those who shot stock deliberately were good amateurs or cheesy pros. When I started putting my projects with Corbis in 2005 and monthly sales began averaging around £800, I took notice. The market’s dived. I have around 3,500 images for sale online across three respected agencies. The last sales report was a fat blob of a zero. I try to flush this from my thoughts and spend the day running after red buses.

4th: Today I must submit my entry for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize – the premier photographic portrait award with £12,000 up for grabs. Over the years, I have had entries exhibited in 1999, 2001 and 2003. The last seven years have drawn a blank; a few years unselected and a few I couldn’t afford to enter. This year, I have entered one portrait that I think has a real shot but I’m chancing two entries. Set off to get them printed at The Printspace and deliver them to the London College of Communication. Total cost of entering two prints: £118.

5th: There comes a time when I think every photographer should turn their lens towards home. For years I’ve avoided this, following the principle: ‘not on your own doorstep’. Recently, it’s become clear that I owe my hometown of Weymouth a lot. I was born with sea salt in my nostrils. My earliest memories are colourful: deck chairs, beach huts, bumper boats, Punch and Judy. All have shaped my work along with the seaside sense of humour. I’ve two commissions booked in for Coast magazine: one in Bournemouth on the 14th and one in Margate on the 21st; not much in-between. It’s a shoot window. I have an idea for a series on photographers who shoot the town in which they grew up and discuss how it influenced their work. Could be magazine, online, multimedia or exhibition. I try not to think too much about it. Trust my gut and pack my kit; it’s time to go home. Have been recruited to go to Eastbourne to help my sister move house. One of the diversions of being freelance is that if there’s a family emergency or sickness, it becomes my responsibility; freelancers can always reschedule.

10th: I begin shooting in Weymouth. Everyone and everything feels sticky and damp. You leave the beach smelling of cigarettes. Bars sell jelly bean-flavoured cocktails and T-shirts declare: ‘I Luv Da Muff’. What strikes me most, walking around, are the snatched conversations, mostly blaming immigrants for one thing or another; even the gingers are getting a bashing. I’m thinking an audio-visual piece might be the way forward but am unprepared. I stop a pensioner wearing a T-shirt with the slogan, ‘Sex, Drugs & Sausage Rolls’. He tells me to “piss off”. Walking the beach, I’ve been called a ‘paedo’ twice. The local paper headline today reads ‘Man stabbed in night of violence’ – this depresses me. I wasn’t there to document it. I know I’ll have to try a late night shooting the town. This depresses me further. I take the open top bus to Portland Bill and shoot some nice calming coastal stock.

11th In May, I was asked to exhibit at the Getxophoto festival in northern Spain. The theme is ‘Leisure’ and Martin Parr is to cut the ribbon. In the past I’ve been referred to as ‘the affordable Martin Parr’ and ‘Martin Parr’s drunken brother’ and it tickles me to be involved. Six of my images are to be exhibited on 3,000 coasters in bars across the area. How my work should be viewed. There’s an urgent email from the curator and I spend the morning formatting pictures for the brochure and captioning.

12th Documenting my hometown is not as straight forward as I’d hoped. As a product of the town, I’m shackled to its past and its people and have spent more time sipping wine than snapping winos. Tom Stoddart once advised that if you do a personal project, make sure you think it through, keep focused and do a thorough job. He wouldn’t be pleased. I end the day at 3am kneeling in the sand on Weymouth beach with my head in a deck chair. I am 38 years old.

13th Friday the 13th. The date says it all. Sleep until opening time; shades on and down the Red Lion for hair of the dog. Four glasses of wine with ham and chips does the job and it’s back to bed.

14th Up at 6.30am for a train to Bournemouth where I’ll be spending the day shooting a beach hut community for Coast magazine. The coast is about as far as I get to travel these days. In 2007, 76 days were commissioned shoots abroad; 2008, 56 days; 2009, 15 days; this year, three and all to France! I watched Clooney’s Up in the Air last night and wept. Foreign travel has been one of the major casualties of budget cuts. I miss the thrill and finger the BA executive club silver card that still hangs, fading, from my Domke. The shoot goes okay. On paper I have a clear list: eight pages, a double-page opener of the group then six single page portraits of hut owners. One doesn’t turn up so I find a replacement and between the rain I think there’s enough brighter weather to deliver a good set.

15th: I stall my ‘Shoot Weymouth’ plan, call my family down for a holiday and shoot stock intermittently: some images of my daughter bouncing around and of Weymouth’s annual highlight – the carnival.

21st: An assignment for Coast magazine in Margate. The traditional seaside ‘freak show’ is making a comeback. This is a terrific feature to shoot. I meet The Headless Lady, Girl in a Goldfish Bowl, Electra resplendent in satin pants and Ukulele Eric, who asks if I’m straight. Assume he’s the funny man. The highlight is taking a portrait of the flea circus proprietor Dr Jon while a man bathes in the sea behind.

22nd: I have a screening at this year’s prestigious Visa Pour L’image Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan. It’s my fifth screening in 10 years and I’ve only made it to one of them. Admittedly, I’ve been there for some of the others but too distracted to go; regular attendees will understand. This year, I’m determined to go. How many festivals of photojournalism can be left? My project LoveUK will be shown on the evening of the 31st during professional week. I design a quirky email invite ready to send out on Monday. If News International pay up for the ‘England Uncensored’ feature, I’m on the plane.

23rd: This week, I’m booked to work with a journalist to complete the ‘Traditional London’ feature. I’ve not heard from her and begin panicking. I’ve had to turn down other work to accommodate this commission and arrange care for my daughter who is on school holiday. I email, call and text without reply. Finally an answer. She’s not coming. I calm down and decide to be positive and ring the picture editor. All’s okay and I’m to proceed alone. This is good news.

24th: The ‘Traditional London’ shoot goes very well. I’ve been told to tone down my cynicism and shoot with more of a wink than a wallop. I try to sneak in some bum shots and wit. It’s a refreshing reminder of why I get up, go out and take pictures. Every day offers a different challenge, from the weather to the effects of the previous night’s imbibing. Ian Berry once commented that if your first encounter of a day’s shoot doesn’t go well, you might as well go back to bed. I concur. Fortunately everyone I meet is welcoming and I start the week on a high.

28th: Read Clive Booth’s dispatches in the September issue of Professional Photographer magazine; an account of a corporate commission embracing 12 countries. A photographer only reads of others’ success. This particular account hurts. I was in the final few being considered for the job. My understanding was the client thought my folio a little too risky. This is happening with more frequency than it was a few years ago. I resolve to produce a more corporate folio and start raking my archive for shots of pens, cufflinks and smiling office employees in suits.

30th I have an email remittance from News International, I’m to be paid for ‘England Uncensored’ – ‘payment due date 31 August’. Made it by the frame of a film. Off to Perpignan for one last hurrah. All aboard! Then I read in brackets underneath, ‘payment should be received within eight working days of the payment due date’.

A version of this first appeared in the October 2010 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine

iMac 27 Inch Review

2011-01-13T03:58:00.000-08:00

A version of this review was first published in Professional Photographer Magazine

As a trained Photojournalist I try not to judge or be judged. I have a sensible haircut, no tattoos, no Bling and avoid branded clothes. I admit to no allegiances, except one. I am a Mac Man. In 2002 I was sent on assignment to San Francisco by The Face Magazine to document a Mac convention. Computer geeks! I thought and was prepared to be unimpressed. Witnessing Steve Jobs casually attired in black long-sleeved top, washed out Levis and rimless glasses unveil the iMac G4/800 to a crowd of whooping disciples tweaked my interest. I trotted off to shoot a portrait of fellow Englishman Jonathan “Jonny” Ive, Apple’s then traditionally media-shy Vice President and chief designer. He was the personification of cool and gently imparted the merits of Mac with remarkable lucidity. By the end of our session, I’d been truly bitten by the Apple.

8 years later and I’m eagerly awaiting the delivery of a 27-inch iMac to my home. With a minority share of the market, Apple doesn’t want their computers to be seen as a luxury item. This is difficult to implement. I un-box the contents with the same jittery fingers that unzipped my wife’s wedding dress. I lay the contents out for inspection. There are 3; screen, keyboard box (also containing the mouse), plug. The thrill is comparable with being seated on a First Class flight anticipating the delights ahead. From delivery to start-up takes less than 10 minutes and I’ve taken my time. The Galaxy screen saver dissolves into view with pinprick clarity. I flinch for my shades. In haste I check the electricity meter. It’s clicking round at the usual daytime rate. I sit down, breathe in and click the 7^th icon of the 22-icon tool bar. Aperture 3 bounces into operation.

The previous afternoon I attended an Aperture course at UK Apple HQ. Sitting in the waiting room I pondered if my review would be one of the Maccolades being flashed up on the wall. The Aperture Product Manager shadowed by an impossibly crisp Apple PR skipped with zest and fluidity through the MacAp combination. There was a tonne of information. I had difficulty absorbing the lunchtime drinks menu in the Slug & Lettuce but remained focused. I’m new to Aperture and am reliably informed it has 200+ new features including Places, a feature that allows you to explore your library based on where your photos were taken using an extensive Geotagging system. Reverse geocoding translates GPS coordinates into proper place names. Photos with GPS are automatically plotted on the interactive map. If your camera doesn’t have GPS it can be extracted from an external device including an i-Phone. Men like maps, Photographers like to travel. It’s the perfect addiction and one you can feed by constantly pinning where you’ve been and gloat to any ear that will listen. Places provide useful information when key-wording images for stock and searching the archive for a destination specific request from picture editors.

Clicking on Faces a corkboard flicks on screen with 3 Polaroid’s tacked to it that remarkably manages to placate every gender and ethnicity. I haven’t seen so much corkboard since my bathroom of 76’ and am comforted by the memory. Faces make it easy to locate people in your library using automatic face detection and recognition. Each face you confirm helps Aperture find even more photos of that person, in effect, becoming smarter and smarter the more you use it. Alternatively you can choose not to tag that tiresome Uncle or irritable Aunt. A welcome tool but one I’ll leave for the family album hobbyists.

Back home with a crammed head I decide on a streamlined process of evaluation. To set myself a project and test the MacAp combination to see if it really is . . . ‘THE ULTIMATE DIGITAL DARKROOM’ - from the point of assessing workflow, speed of use and output etc. Before I get to work my daughter interrupts “Oh my word Daddy, can I play Club Penguin?” She does and takes to the interactive world of Antarctica with aplomb. The volume is adjusted to 1 notch above half way providing the crystal clear surround sound of Penguins at play. I interpret her ‘coos’ as admiring the 16:9 aspect ratio of the environmentally friendly backlit 27-inch LED display and ‘aaahhhs’ as appreciation for the 1000:1 typical contrast ratio delivering sublime detail from every angle.

She’s off to bed and I’m back to work. Surveying the wireless desktop is satisfying. The keyboard, so often a fixture parked directly in front of the screen is pleasingly mobile, light and low profile. Not a consonant is dropped as I tap away from the sofa on the other side of the room. It’s apparently effective from 33ft away but I live in a London flat and would have to involve my neighbour to confirm. The Mac mouse feels a little clunky. The design is as you might imagine the prototype of a panty liner to be. It has the tactility of a shoe- horn I made for Mother’s Day at Secondary School in Design & Communication plastics but it does the job and the weight is spot on. As my time with the magic mouse runs up the clock it becomes a welcome accomplice.

Aperture 3 supports RAW formats from more than 150 digital cameras and backs. Disappointingly the previews are Pixelated. Even on the largest preview setting it’s difficult to assess which RAW file to edit for import. I might be playing the fool but can’t find a solution. Each file has to be double clicked to check clarity of content. The checked files are imported flawlessly and fast. Working on the files Aperture 3 begins to excel. You can flick seamlessly between images and the adjustment inspector. Enlarging RAW files up to 1000% gets you right into the lap of the image. Sharpen, saturate, curves, retouch, colour balance, brushes, job done. An image that usually takes me 10 minutes to tweak is halved. In addition to ready-to-use adjustment presets you can apply your own adjustments and save them as custom Adjustment Presets to shave off even more time. A nifty little feature worth a mention is the ‘Focus Points’ overlay which highlights the active point when the shutter was released.

The new non-destructive brushes are a revelation. 14 highly responsive quick choices can paint in an adjustment with a few clicks working on the tiniest area to the complete image with ease doing away with the need to master difficult filter and layer settings. You don’t even need to click OK to apply the adjustment, just adjust and move, adjust and move. I manage to eat my kebab with one hand while dodging, sharpening and saturating with the other. After a while enhancements become precise, intuitive and fast helped by the one click built in edge detection.

There’s a 17 choice list for exporting a version of the worked on file. Be sure to check Aperture > Presets > Export and set the dpi or it will be processed at the default 72dpi, one rooky mistake and an afternoon of work gone. The editorial client I was submitting to would not have been pleased. I turn off the radio and barely detect noise as the 64-bit processing on Intel Core 2 duo-based system running Mac OS X Snow Leopard goes to work processing the files.

Images mean nothing unless people see them. A photographer without an audience doesn’t exist. Fortunately Ap3 has enough quick ways to share your images and satisfy even the most combustible of egos. The omnipotent Facebook & Flickr are a constant corner of the eye screen presence waiting to be sated. For the more patient there’s the bookstore with a myriad of combinations to explore. I also had great fun with the multimedia presentation system where you can combine music, voiceover and location audio controlling the pace of your slideshow with the tap of a finger.

With the 27-inch iMac size does matter and what you do with it. Every inch is there to be taken advantage of and Aperture recognises this and gives your image every opportunity to access all four corners with minimum fuss. The combination has worked. This Pro is pleased. At the moment I’m in the moment and reluctant to return to my usual operating system. Is it he Ultimate Digital Darkroom combination? It’s pretty close. Time will make that judgement.

Talking of which, nearly time for the return of the Mac. The hand ticks round. The inevitable knock at the door draws near. Like the perfect escort, Mistress Mac’s performance has been impeccable. Working hard when required, discreet when the circumstance demanded, paying attention to detail and always looking immaculate. I caress the edges, run my finger over the DVD and SD orifice, finger the 4 USB hubs & 1 Firewire 800 connection, take one last look into the seductive vibrancy of that sumptuous interface, send any incriminating evidence of our dalliance to the trash and click shut down. It’s time to put the Mac in the box.

Bright Eyes - Street Photography

2011-01-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

This interview was first published in the September 2010 Photography Monthly Magazine

Peter Dench likes to have fun, but doesn’t like to waste time. He enjoys getting out and shooting, but dislikes simply wandering around without purpose. He prefers instead to photograph events and places that, by their very nature, will guarantee colourful and arresting images. He’s not an obsessive photographer who always has a camera slung around his neck. In fact, he won’t get his camera out of its bag for weeks unless he’s being paid and before setting out he has to have a strong sense of what he’s trying to achieve.

Take for example the image of a boy diving into a swimming pool. This was taken in a small US town on the weekend of American Independence Day. Peter knew in advance there would be celebrations and situations that he could visit that would have the potential for some great shots.

“I have a very naive way of shooting and chase primary colours. I’ll run after a girl in red shoes or shiny pants or holding a yellow umbrella. It’s a simple, childish and boyish enthusiasm I have for shiny things. Never let me walk past a La Senza shop.”

Peter grew up by the seaside in Weymouth, Dorset, just two minutes from the beach, a setting he feels has had a big influence on his style today. Having studied photography as a teenager, he decided to become a professional photographer because he was fired from every other job, which at the age of 16 ranged from till boy in Asda to sales assistant in Top Man. He knew early on that he wasn’t particularly good at being told what to do by an authority figure.

It is perhaps this anarchic attitude that informs his work. His approach maybe targeted but his aim is to capture the funny side of life. “I’m always looking for humour in my pictures. Charlie Chaplin is a big influence and I often try to address serious subjects in a humorous way when appropriate. My aim is to make people laugh, make people think. Looking through the books of Elliott Erwitt and Martin Parr is the reason I got into photography. If you can travel the world making people laugh and making them think, then to me that’s a fine way to live.”

Peter was 14 when he started taking pictures, shooting things such as butterflies and plants. Eventually he turned the camera towards people and began to take it seriously as a career at the age of 18 after looking at photography books in the library of Bournemouth arts college.

“I knew in 1992 that I wanted to be a professional photographer, when I enrolled in a degree course in photographic studies at Derby. By the end of the degree Jonathan Worth and I were the only two photographers who didn’t photograph our friends or ourselves naked. It was that type of course where Cindy Sherman and Jo Spence were held up as the inspiration. It was very academic, which helped me enormously because all I wanted to do was get out and shoot people and see the world in photographs.”

This direction helped him to pick his subject. He had become class conscious for the first time at the age of 18 when he arrived in Bournemouth and realised that there were people in the world with double-barrelled names.

“I found this time fascinating and during the three years I spent in Derby I tried to visit as many public schools and country houses as I could. I got invited to the Duke of Devonshire’s tercentenary celebrations [at Chatsworth] because I told him I was doing my dissertation on historical representations of the aristocracy, but I just wanted a free lunch, some good quality wine and a great subject to photograph.”

In 1995, the week after he graduated, Peter headed to London and went straight to Reuters. His plan was to make it big. Armed with three portfolios he walked through the doors of the news agency expecting to get signed up immediately. The portfolio he left was immediately lost in the system; he was forced to sign on and spent the next two years on the dole.

“I soon realised the portfolio I had wasn’t up to scratch, so I started applying for press passes to events such as Ascot and Epsom, and turning up at Henley [for the rowing] – classic summer events – and I got picture editors involved quite early with what I was trying to do. I’d go and see Aidan Sullivan at the Sunday Times Magazine and he would reject everything I was showing him, but I’d take his advice on board and go back three months later to show him that I’d listened and my developments, which he’d also reject.”

This cycle continued until 1998 when Peter had finally progressed to a level where Sullivan was able to give him a commission. Shortly afterwards he was also asked to work for GQ magazine.

“I think there are two ways to become a professional photographer. Either you assist and then try to make it on your own or you try to make it on your own from the beginning, and that was the route I chose to take, but there’s no right or wrong way. It was two years of persistence and knocking on doors, which I still have to do.”

Shortly after getting this break, Peter joined the IPG agency for which Tom Stoddart was shooting stories on AIDS in Africa and Zed Nelson was photographing gun culture in America. Peter was encouraged to pick a subject as well and with the project drink UK he did exactly that.“There’s an underlying theme in my life. Drink is my passion. I grew up in a brewery and my family were all involved in the industry. My home town was a violent place to grow up in; there was a Navy base and 180 bars with holiday makers. It was a mess, but an enjoyable one too, so that’s the culture I wanted to document.”

Peter’s long-term aim is to document England and to understand the country. He does this by breaking it down into manageable chunks with a specific theme or title, a method which also mean he can raise money for his projects.

His drink UK project earned him a World Press Award and 11 pages in the Sunday Times Magazine, which really fired his enthusiasm. The next section he concentrated on was ethnicity in the UK, followed by rain UK and then love UK. Peter treats each subject in the same way and believes you have to be classless. He doesn’t have any tattoos, doesn’t wear any religious symbols and doesn’t even want people to know which football team he supports when on a job.

“I just try to be a blank canvas because it’s not about you when you’re shooting. I try to be as unremarkable as possible. When shooting I wear no logos, there are no allegiances anywhere, so the subject can project on to you what they want to be. The best asset I have is this unassuming presence where people aren’t afraid of me, I behave accordingly and they don’t judge. Generally people get on with me and let me shoot what I think I need to.”

That said, he makes no attempt to conceal the fact he is a photographer. Before switching to digital, Peter shot exclusively on Mamiya medium format cameras for almost 10 years. Shooting wide and as close as possible with such a cumbersome camera meant the last thing he could be was discreet.

“If I walked into a pub I’d either have people saying ‘don’t point that f***ing thing at me’ or ‘come and join us.’ I make no disguise about being a photographer. The thrill I get is shooting real people doing real things in a certain style that is very simple. There’s a drive to see things such as girls changing backstage. Who wouldn’t want to see that and who wouldn’t want to be there with a 6x7 camera? It’s the access to the ordinary, but for me they are extraordinary situations.”

His realistic approach is also the reason he is in demand with advertising clients. They like the fact that his work looks so natural. Even when it is all set up and every element and detail has been approved, Peter will try to make it look like a grabbed, humorous moment, because that’s what clients want him to recreate. They are looking for him to produce something that will make people smile.

In 2007 Peter was approached by FIFA – football’s governing body – to shoot a 15-month project, 26 stories across 20 countries. The choice was between two photographers. Both were asked if they shot digital. The other photographer said no, Peter said yes and got the job.

“I immediately ran home, bought one, called the photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale and he took me through the digital menu on the back, and it’s stuck. I still look at websites for 5x4 handheld cameras and I’ve still got film under my bed; in terms of commercial work film is a non-starter, but for personal projects I still shoot a few rolls.”

Today, Peter shoots on a couple of Canon EOS 5Ds but, as many professional photographers maintain, he believes that kit is not the key to success. “For me it was just what I was comfortable with and knew how to shoot, and then sticking with it, but in making the transition from film to digital I had to make sure I could continue with the style that I had developed.”

Hopeless at shooting in low light, Peter always feared that when it came to developing his shots he would see nothing, so he would blast them with flash or shoot only in bright sunlight so something would burn on to the negative.

Today he still uses fill-in flash, two stops under, with a Metz 45 flash gun clamped to the side of his camera. He works with two cameras, one with a 35mm lens and the other with a 28mm lens, but also carries a 70-200mm lens in case he needs to get a bit closer and is unable physically to do so. Peter always shoots on ISO 400 so he can move from outside to indoors and deal with lower light. He carries a light meter and takes a general reading, continually checking to see if there is any change. Usually he shoots at either f/11 or f/16 and dials the shutter speed to match.

“I can always recognise a good image of mine from just a thumbnail; I don’t have to enlarge it, because it’s so bold. Tom Stoddart once said to me that if you photograph a girl in a yellow dress you just see the dress, but if you photograph her in black and white you see her soul. I don’t buy into that, I just see a picture without colour and it depresses and disappoints me. I don’t think enough photographers consider the colours that go into their shots any more. It’s a real consideration of mine.”

Good street photography is about interesting lines, shapes and angles, and Peter is obsessed with clean lines, clean spaces and verticals.

“I live my life in a ridiculous way, any photographer does. You’re trying to make sense of the world through a rectangle. Composition for me is about roving your eye around the whole image and it just works, so first you look at the rectangle and then there are elements within it. I like regimented shots; perhaps it’s a rule I should break, but wonky lines upset me.” Take the shot of the elderly couple kissing in the bus shelter. The most important bit of that shot for Peter is that the ‘lost children centre’ display to the left runs parallel to the edge of the frame. Things have to work like that.

“With 6x7 and 6x6 you are more aware of what is happening at the top, bottom, left and right, but less so shooting in 6x9, where you read the image from left to right, so maybe the top and bottom aren’t so crucial. When you’re shooting 6x7 or 6x6 I think you have to be more disciplined. In 6x9 things can happen towards the edge of the frame and you can get away with a lot more, but when it’s penned in more every corner counts. That sounds like a game show for photographers, ‘every corner counts’. All my books at home are in alphabetical order and everything is square and I think this translates to the way I try to compose shots. Top, bottom, left, right, parallels, everything has to work where possible.”

Peter’s next project is a sort of road trip across UK, called Carry on England, which will look at the clichés that may or may not exist. It sounds fun and he is clearly excited by the idea, and why shouldn’t he be? Photography is about enjoying your subject, seeing the world differently and capturing the not-so-obvious. He may not take his camera out of its bag that often, but when he does it is plain to see Peter is excited by the simple things, events and situations that have a universal appeal. This is the key ingredient to any successful story and the draw for people from all walks of life.

By being selective, Peter has succeeded in creating strong images that have elements familiar to everyone. By being unobtrusive he is welcomed into disparate worlds and invited to record those elements in an engaging, humorous and sympathetic way. What more could a street photographer want?

Biography:

Based in London, Peter Dench works primarily for advertising and editorial clients. In 2010 he came second in the advertising category at the Sony World Photography Awards. His studies of international cultures have been exhibited the world over. Football’s Hidden Story, his project for FIFA documenting 26 stories across 20 countries, received six global accolades, including World in Focus, AOP Open and PDN Photo awards. www.peterdench.com

ONLINE RESOURCES

Tom Stoddart www.tomstoddart.com

Elliott Erwitt www.elliotterwitt.com

Martin Parr www.martinparr.com

Cindy Sherman www.cindysherman.com

Jo Spence www.jospence.com

Marcus Bleasdale www.marcusbleasdale.com

Nikon D7000 Review

2011-01-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

A version of this review first appeared in Photography Monthly Magazine

As a teenage boy I regularly raided my Dad’s adult magazine collection. You had to stand on a chair and reach right to the back of the wardrobe. My best mate Marc would keep lookout. Leafing through one hairy adventure we stopped at a page that had a gift token cut out. Two weeks later on a rummage in the closet we found a large box. The gift had arrived. To his credit Marc didn’t say a word. Neither did I. We closed the box and went outside to play football. This unwelcome memory is why for two days a similar box has been left ignored under a tossed towel in the corner of the bedroom. It takes a bottle of Burgundy and a shot to confront the parcel. The following morning I wake in a bed of bubble-wrap, instructions and cellophane. A recollection jabs the eyes. I open the wardrobe, pick up the box and tip out the contents. A loaned Nikon D7000 AF-S DX Nikkor with 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR plops onto the bed.

Today it’s my day to have a play. I grip the ribbed girth of the 18-105mm lens and blink into the day with Ron Jeremy prowess. Double-check the kit and there’s no memory card. You can still photograph in Demo mode but I’m not the sort of man that enjoys shooting blanks. I swap for my regular camera and release a rapid rattle. Contact the Nikon PR, they don’t provide memory. I’m going on a Nikon Press Event and was hoping to be up to speed before the day; there are prizes to be won, champagne to be quaffed and dinner at a top London restaurant. Perhaps they’ll serve the soup without a spoon.

I’m not used to being in a room with other photographers. There must be a joke about what you’d call it, an Egoclectic? The rain pours harder. We are to take part in a Photographic Challenge & Treasure-Hunt, four teams, five locations. I cross my fingers for team Kate. I’m in team Nick, Nikon’s heavyweight technical consultant. First we have half an hour to complete a quiz, I scour the room for Judith Kepple. She’s not here. The riddles provide our shoot destinations; a former entry point into the underground whose name sounds something like an old Scottish Hag? Hmmm, we all ponder for a moment, what do you call a Scottish woman, “A Prostitute” I offer finger pointed aloft in triumph. No. Hmmm, Caledonian, something, something “Auld-Wych” Nick’s in the zone and I slowly zone out.

Quiz solved and we’re off, Martin is our black cab driver. Also in the team is Blah, staff writer at Digital Dude Magazine and Wooo! Editor at Push My Digits. Blah seems a bit overwhelmed being in London and fashions a hat out of newspaper. I try to photograph the millinery offering with the 18-105mm. It doesn’t respond well in such cramped proximity. I like to shoot close and wide and swap for a 35mm fixed Nikkor Lens. Better. Light, balanced, nimble in hand and feels serious. Nick tells me the dappled black exterior absorbs most light eliminating reflection. It emits a searchlight to assist focusing in low light and I momentarily startle Wooo! with the exploratory beam. This would have to be turned off to be discreet and manual focus enabled.

We reach our first challenge, to be pictured with a Juggler in Covent Garden. I shoot some frames. My initial perception was that any built in pop-up strobe flash was amateurish but there is a real gloom so I flick it on. It will pop up automatically when needed in Auto mode. It’s very effective, once I get over mistaking the hot shoe accommodation hole for the viewfinder. You can’t use it too wide or there’s falloff from the 16mm coverage. Later I’d discover there’s no PC sync connector but am informed of an optional connector adapter that mounts on the intelligent hot shoe. On challenge two Wooo! takes me aside to tell me Nikon Nicks name is Jeremy. I am grateful. My camera is drenched. Jeremy says it’s not a problem and just to give it a wipe at the end of the days shoot. We continue to snake the capital snapping in tunnels and subways where the camera copes admirably with a quick up pump of the ISO although as is the case most digital cameras, it over exposes slightly for my taste in auto modes.

There is a wealth of menu options on the D7000 that will keep any geek busy customizing shoot preferences. While I do appreciate choice in many situations, as the day advances I find myself turning most of the functions off and distilling the camera to what photography is essentially all about. To make the process from what you see to what you capture as simple as possible. Manually set aperture, ISO and shutter speed, press shutter, job done. When I’ve accepted this I am a happy snapper. Breathe and shoot, breathe and shoot. The sound of the shutter is a welcome rhythm of life. I am complete and fleetingly start to enjoy the pure process of picture making. I try to dismiss the foreboding sense that at any moment without warning a Getty snapper might step in front of the lens.

The teams come together at Smiths of Smithfield in a private room for a slides-how and prize giving. I grab a glass of Heidsieck & Co Monopole Blue Top Brut. Gags drift over, “I’ll have the fisheye,” “We made it in the Nikon Time.” I get a refill. Each teams effort is displayed on a large screen with varying results. The videos are the climax. Rules restricted us to a 30-sec video out of the 20 continual gorgeous minutes available of Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixel) at 24fps. Most efforts overlooked the nifty virtual horizon facility or I’m starting to sway. There is background noise from the built in mic so an external mic is advised. All of the encountered improvements and upgrades on the D90 are mere foot soldiers in the pecking order. The swinging dick of additions for me is dual SD card-slots, (also compatible with SDXC & SDHC). Configure the camera to send RAW files to one and JPEG to the other. Designate each for stills or video or just let one full card flow seamlessly over to the next. General Dual Slots I salute you.

The evening reaches the crucial point I’ve anticipated. If I’m going to kit chat over dinner I want it to be with the sweetest face. While others amble table-wards I vault myself into position next to team Kate. “Hello Kate.” Her name is Lily. Dammit Dench. I recover the situation and listen to the poetic details of the D7000; 16.2MP CMOS sensor, Scotch Egg, a shutter speed of up to 1/8000, Walnut & Blue Cheese Salad, 39-point AF System with 3D tracking, Dill Fishcake, up to 6fps continuous shooting, Malbec 2009, Scene Recognition System, Roast South Devon Rib, 2016 metering sensor, refill, ISO 100-6400 (expandable to 25600), Blueberry Cheesecake, 3.0 Inch 921k dot LCD screen. After dinner a Nikon PR starts to work the table like a blushing bride. I dread the inevitable question. I don’t want to seem ungrateful but I’ve spent the afternoon driven around London in the rain being photographed in various bad band album cover poses. It hasn’t cracked into my all time top 10 days ever. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

On reflection it’s not been a bad day and Nikon an affable host. The Nikon philosophy resonates. It’s not about the amount of Mega pixels but trustworthiness and creativity. They seem to care, more Centre Parcs than Disneyland. I am about to make the real time leap into Videography. Would I buy the D7000 for it’s live view continuous focus high ISO and low noise capabilities, yes I would. Would the 28 minutes of 1080p at 24fps per 4GB memory card edge me away from the D7000’s competitors, yes it would. Would I return to Smiths of Smithfield for the beef, without question. Will the move away from the more traditional Don McCullin Nikon association to Jamie Oliver and the Channel 4 Soap Hollyoaks matter to me, no.

Arriving home I turn out my pockets; menu, bus ticket, pen, pad, gum and Wooden Spoon. Wooden Spoon! Ah yes, the prize giving. We came last in the challenge. It’s signed ‘from Lily.’ I pour a glass, self-toast the achievement and put in on the shelf next to my World Press Award.

The Sun

2010-12-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Comments from Sun readers in response to a Photo Essay published earlier this year;

"Travelling the length of Britain to capture the heart of the nation on camera." - looks like he just wanted to make us all out as a bunch of drunken fools to me! Also nice to see that the only pictures of teenagers on there are those of drunken ones and speaking on mobiles, there are more depth to the younger generation, I suppose he just went for the stereotypical image though!

As an overseas reader I have to say that this is a very poor illustration of the Britain I know. I remember the green and beauty of the place. These pictures show a poor cross section within the boundaries of the subject matter. From the woman with the hat, skirt hiked up around her thighs and what I assume is a friend with a handful of lager barely able to stand, to the guy with a newspaper on his head against the rain, I don't think we have a winner here. I love Britain and a visit always sends me back home with regrets that I missed something. But, I have to say, if this was an advert I'd been reading for "where to go", believe me when I say, keep your drunks and bare chested thugs, I'll go to Miami+

Awful pictures every single one of them. Bad compositions, wrong exposures, the kind of photos drunk people take at parties with a cheap point and shoot camera. Gives real photographers a bad name.

length of the country?? hardly made it out of london. what about the 3 other countries in britain? do they not count?

There is a VERY clear inspiration of Martin Parr with this photographer. Just like looking at his work.

Pro Photo Conversation

2010-11-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

Ealing Comedy

2010-11-02T05:40:00.000-07:00

It's a bit tricky to blog being an actual published writer. Most of what I have to say goes into the Dench Diary, a monthly column in Professional Photographer Magazine. It should go live on the PP website soon and I'll be sure to link it here. Still plenty to discuss; 'Pro Secrets Revealed' Podcast3 and 'Is it Sexy or Sexist' (no not me) but the predictably titled; Podcast4.

Late June I received an interesting email from a foreign magazine about a proposed feature on disappearing London. I was to shoot a day on my own and three with a writer in July. A shoot list was provided to be getting on with; Routemaster buses, old pubs, a 'greasy spoon,' an iron staircase and various characters and clubs. Sounded the perfect photographic treasure hunt. The writer had to reschedule our original dates due to a priority assignment, not a problem. As the date of their arrival drew near I arranged care for my daughter who was on school holiday. I had to turn down other assignments. Having not heard from the writer by the eve of our planned journey through the streets of London, I emailed called and texted without success.
Finally on proposed shoot day 1 a reply, they weren't coming. They would never come, personal issues. In panic I call the picture desk. I'm to proceed alone and can take my time, the writer will provide a list; wooden escalator, a man reading The Sun, a pint, a park and an iron staircase. I shot the 3 days and submitted the material. A list of additional motifs came, I mop up; rain, punks, Beefeaters, posh schoolboys, city drinkers and submit the material. The writer without having been to London in what I understand is a long time reports to the office to look over the pictures, a list arrives; a specific cafe with a specific boiler, a wooden bench in a specific park, a specific tree, a view from a specific building and an iron staircase. I have been to the tube station where that staircase is, twice. It has been condemned and is inaccessible to the public. I have called London Underground and put in a request. It has been denied. I shoot what I can and submit the material.25 days later an order for the highres arrives, and a list. I must have shot 8 days on this so far so ask for some more money. It reads like an Ealing Comedy wish list; Queues in front of a red bus, Bearskin hat, Changing of the Guard, ladies with flowered dresses and eccentric hats, having tea in fine porcelain cups and silver spoons, a Gentleman's Club with leather armchair, thick carpet, a wall with books with leather spine, cigars, whisky, trophy and a dirty laugh! a 'Look Right' written on the street and a red telephone box, an iron staircase. I have one and a half days in which this must be achieved. I was optimistic before this shoot, they wanted a Dench take on the material. Not too cynical, more with a 'wink and a nod'. I was happy with that.

With the mixing of so many minds a predictable set of images have been achieved that could have been dragged straight from stock. It must be nice to sit in an office and imagine what a place must be like. The respect and trust a photographer once had experiencing what is actually there to capture and develop into a feature seems as long ago as smoking on public transport. The highres have been delivered, there was no iron staircase.

Robyn (left) & Laiba from the Daphne & Limonkraft funded migrant project

I've been asked to shoot a project co-financed by the European Commissions Daphne programme and Limonkraft a Spanish non-profit association based in Valencia. A series of 6 photographic essays have been commissioned in 6 different European countries by 6 different photographers documenting 2nd generation migrant girls aged between 11-21 years old in the context of education in Europe. Once I got my head round the brief and after a month of often fruitless research I found the perfect place. Southall in West London is often known as 'Little Punjab.' Over 55% of Southall's population of 70,000 is Indian/Pakistani with less than 10% being White British. At the heart of the town is Villiers High School where I've been granted access to shoot. Two main protagonists have been found to hang the feature from. All the work is to come together next year in Spain for an exhibition, catalogue and awareness posters. Happy days.

THE DENCH DIARY

2010-09-09T07:59:00.001-07:00

The 'Winner Takes It All' rant in Professional Photographer Magazines August Issue met with a positive enough response for them to offer me my own column. THE DENCH DIARY, a warts & all account of a (sometimes) working pro will premier in the October Issue.

Available to listen to now is the 2nd PP podcast discussing the new and exciting concept the UNITED STATES OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Join Us!

Want to know what 3000 beer mats look like ready for the bars of Northern Spain as part of the 2010 Getxophoto Festival then look now.

This years festival was opened by Martin Parr with the theme 'In Praise of Leisure' curated by Frank Kalero. The accompanying book is well worth a look with an essay by Frank and work featuring Robert Huber's REALDOLLS featured as a peep show at the festival, Martin Kollar's NOTHING SPECIAL and the brilliant AMERICA SWINGS by Naomi Harris.

DRINKING OF ENGLAND, Coasters

AMERICA SWINGS by Naomi Harris

NOTHING SPECIAL by Martin Kollar

DRINKING OF ENGLAND by Peter Dench

Proud to be featured as the World Photography Organisations Photographer of the Month with a short interview about my 2nd place image in Advertising, Someone's had their Weetabix - what will become of me next month! There's also a gallery from the England Uncensored project.

The Sony World Photography Awards 2010 book is now available with some meaty contributions from Walter Astrada, Marcus Bleasdale, Brent Stirton and 14 pages of photographs from Magnum legend Eve Arnold with an introduction by Zelda Cheatle.

Someone's had their Weetabix by Peter Dench

The Congolese Symphony Orchestra by Marcus Bleasdale

A Lifetime Achievement by Eve Arnold

Darlings I'm a Writer

2010-08-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

Darlings I'm a writer! Grant Scott, Group Brand Editor of Archant Imaging including Professional Photographer Magazine got in touch, asked if I had a rant about the industry. Turns out I did, a 1200 word one. 'The Winner Takes It All' pp82-83 can be absorbed in all its literary glory in the August issue, out now! Also featuring the 25 Bad Boys of Photography, a good pub discussion piece - podcast. Will post a link if my rant goes online. In addition I give a 6 page interview on Street Photography in September's Photography Monthly. Download the podcast from i-tunes or listen here.

Congratulations to Laura Pannack who scooped 'Best in Show' and £1500 crisp ones at the foto8 summer party & exhibition launch. I managed to hide the collapse of my own hopes grimacing across my face and freeze a smile. If you do pop along to the E1 gallery and self-dislocate your neck so it's at right angle to your back you can probably catch a glimpse of my own 2 entries. Genuinely well done LP, 'Shay' got my vote, now off to shred my National Portrait Gallery Taylor-Wessing entries.

'Shay' by Laura Pannack

Received an invite from good friend and VII snapper Marcus Bleasdale to share a night of his Summer Hols. 'Captain Congo' was in ebullient and imbibing form as my daughter and I rocked up at the Great Western Arms near King's Sutton. Permission to board granted we chugged towards Oxford. Far from the plinking neon signs of central London I reclined with a Rose and imagined how the legendary H M Stanley must have felt on his expedition down Congo's 'Blood River'.

My shiny new project 'England Uncensored' - a laugh out loud warts & all romp through this badly behaved land, was previewed in the Sunday Times Magazine Spectrum section, a fuller edit can be viewed to subscribers of timesonline and of course more extensively at peterdench.com.

The Denchy love bus rolls on, with 'LoveUK' being screened during pro-week at Visa Pour L'image Festival of Photojournalism on the evening of Tuesday 31st at Campo Santo & Place de la Republique. Hope to see you there!

Feel the love xxx

from the project 'LoveUK'

Beauty Pageant

2010-06-18T04:02:00.000-07:00

Jamie-Lee Faulkner - Miss Leeds finalist 2010
by Peter Dench

The perfumed air wallops you square on the nose. The tongue quickly sticks thick with hairspray. Tongs fizz and click, heels clip and clop and there's enough fake tan to cast a small army of Oompa Loompa's. Welcome to Miss Leeds, a regional heat for the Miss England title. Beauty Pageants have always been high on the hit-list for Photojournalists, a classic subject. When the opportunity presented itself to shoot backstage at Miss Leeds I was genuinely giddy. I hoped to emulate the masters - 'Beauty Contest, Southport, 1967' by Tony Ray-Jones immediately came to mind, a bald old man with a fag sips from a cup, a distracted blonde close by. Martin Parr's shot from the 'Last Resort' of a snapper lurking by the bathing clad beauties and more recently 'Miss Southampton. Miss England competition, Leicester, UK.' from Zed Nelson's excellent 'Love Me' project all fanned my enthusiasm. I hoped to add my own iconic image to the archive. Disappointment then to hear the swimsuit round was abolished in favour of a more PC and rather 'GCSE Art' round of design your own eco-dress. Cue creatively folded newspapers, torn potato sacks and bowed bin-liners.

Beauty Contest, Southport 1967 by Tony Ray-Jones

from 'The Last Resort' by Martin Parr

Miss Southampton. Miss England Competition. Leicester, UK.
by Zed Nelson

The evening progressed in a snap and twang whirl of skin coloured pants, half eaten sandwiches and cries of 'stop standing on my dress.' My technique to shoot this type of situation is wide and close. No lurking in the wings with a zoom. Be able to talk with the subject. To me discretion is achieved by being in amongst it. To their credit the girls generally took it all with good spirit, the delightful Katie Farr, 23, eventually taking the crown and the striking Victoria Adnan, 19, runner up.

backstage at Miss Leeds by Peter Dench

Eyewitness at Sony World Photography Awards

2010-04-25T03:14:00.000-07:00

That's how you do an awards ceremony. The defeat of the volcanic ash cloud added to the sense of achievement reaching Cannes for the 2010 Sony World Photography Awards and the excitement was wrenched up to maximum. Up the red carpet, 'papped' twice & safely ensconced in a Roald Dahl experience where everything was made of champagne. The company of an Eve Arnold exhibition made the fizz dance that little bit higher.

The ceremony itself, as many ceremonies are, was a little disappointing. The 1st place winners missing out on a good PR opportunity with muted & muffled speeches. The language barriers didn't help. The UK winner in 'Fashion', David Handley was the only recipient to make an attempt at humour by unravelling a large roll of paper for his speech. Tom Stoddart was drafted in to present the 'Natural History' award. Seeing him pass the trophy to Spanish winner Pere Pascual for his close up shots of silkworms was my personal highlight.

the VIP pudding was awards branded

Before the post ceremony VIP Gala Dinner I asked if I could sit at the table with some British friends. I was rewarded with a table at the opposite side of the room seated with 6 Germans. 6 Germans, 2 Brits, no French, the odds seemed historically familiar. In true Dunkirk fashion, rescue came with an invite from Vice President of Getty Images Aidan Sullivan to join his table for after dinner drinks where he, Stoddart and the charming Brent Stirton were all in ebullient form with Stoddy deploying his amazing knack of looking like a cheeky cub scout when photographed.

Tom Stoddart in 'an impression of a young boy'

Getty VP Aidan Sullivan craves more dessert

I was fortunate enough to place 2nd in the Advertising category. 10 years ago as part of IPG, an established Photojournalist agency, it was considered rather vulgar to be commercially successful, I wasn't. I even heard rumours of another prestigious agency hounding out one member for earning too much from commercial work! Now photographers are expected to excel in the multi-media approach. This award will sit with equal merit on the shelf.

The trophy of 'Current Affairs' winner Walter Astrada

2nd place Advertising, 'Someone's Had Their Weetabix'

The Negativity of Winning

2010-04-16T01:44:00.000-07:00

Voting is currently in session for the 4th Annual Photography Masters Cup, a global online awards show recognizing excellence in color photography. I hope the eventual winners have a more positive experience than I did. Arguably it's not one of the most prestigious annual competitions, one I'd not previously considered but a few things changed my mind. Looking at previous winners there were some quality shooters in the mix, Ziv Koren and Paul Hansen stood out for me. The entry fees looked a little restrictive but I respected many of the judges, a chance to put some new work under their noses and the prize didn't look too bad - $500 + publication in a book. More decisively I had some work I was particularly proud of after trips to Liberia, India and Egypt and decided to go for it. On March 23rd 2009 I received an email from respected Danish Fashion Photographer Anders Hald saying I'd landed 1st place in the Sports Category for a shot of football in Liberia, Anders had triumphed in Fashion, back slaps all round, let the winners ride begin. Or not.

1st place Sport - Football in Liberia

2 months passed without instruction, I got in touch with The Color Awards who run the competition to ask how they expected to publish my image in a book if I hadn't sent them a highres file. They emailed details of the win, and details that I'd also had 2 images nominated which would also be required for publication. I uploaded the requested files. 4 months later I was asked to upload the requested files. I did so again. The deadline for receiving the winners cheque according to the entry terms & cons had well passed. The book was now downgraded to a magazine, a magazine that you had to purchase. With around 600 photographers published in the inaugural issue, a potentially tidy sum. I then received an email saying all winners could enter the 4th awards for free, the deadline for entries had passed. It's been a year since my win, the certificate's been filed, prize money received & spent. It's all felt rather shabby and winning has never felt so negative. I hope in time the competition flourishes and this years winners have an altogether more positive experience. I'm off to Cannes next week for the Sony World Photography Awards having been shortlisted for a prize in the Advertising Category. As a legacy of the Color Awards, a small part of me is rooting for the others shortlisted . . . but only a small part.

Street Kid Inhaling Glue, Kolkata, India

The Zabaleen of Garbage City, Egypt

Does Faith Exist?

2010-04-13T03:07:00.000-07:00

I haven't Faith in the religious sense. Perhaps if I did I'd have avoided some troubles. I like the idea of Faith and was keen to find out if it exists. It does, approximately 130 miles north of Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. Faith - population 548, birthplace of Cathy Bach aka 'Daisey Duke' from TV's Dukes of Hazard and home to 'Sue', the finest find of a T-Rex skeleton now on display in Chicago. I decided I must find Faith.

The motto of South Dakota reads, 'Under God the People Rule', however, the people of Faith believe that here, under God the weather rules. When I arrive the town is experiencing a crippling drought, the worst mayor Glen Haines has seen during his 53 years. The weather has had serious implications for Faith and the terrorist events of 9/11 seem detached and distant. Gilbert Jones, the only barber for 100 miles recalls the very real problems growing up in Faith in the "dirty 30's", he recalls the plagues of grasshoppers that blacked out the sun in 1936 and the absence of electricity until 1954.

Gilbert Jones

The American Way seems to be flourishing in Faith. You're not a stranger here just a friend they haven't met. The feeling of community is strong as no-one is immune from catastrophe. Sitting in Faith's 'Lone Tree Bar' I meet Tim. Tim has had 6 children 4 of which have died. On June 9th 1972, 2 of Tim's children were swept from his arms during a flood in South Texas. In 2002 on the same date a son dies from organ failure. I mention I was married on that date. Tim is convinced I am an angel sent to comfort him. I accept his blessing, thanks and 11 beers.

Tim in Faith's 'Lone Tree Bar'

Terry Botjen, local Pastor of the Faith Christian centre knew I was coming. Our meeting at 'Kris's Drive Inn', one of only 3 places to eat, was no accident. Terry is also a lightening quick artist and offers to demonstrate by painting onto a mirror a religious landscape. Terry is so hot for God he can feel his power dripping from him as he paints. Terry claims by passing one of his paintings people have experienced the healing power of God. I have to leave the painting he gives me behind as unsure whether to declare the healing power of God on my return through UK customs.

Terry Botjen

When the Milwaukee Railroad reached the end of the line Faith was established. Although named after one of the railroad president's daughters, the townsfolk have adopted the name in earnest. 6 churches serve the community including Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic and Christian with something for the Mormons planned soon. The people of Faith are proud of the balloon bursting, diving and water-melon eating 4th of July competitions. They would have been proud of the fireworks except in this time of drought they were a fire hazard. The residents of Faith will not worry as the inscription on the edge of highway 212 is optimistic - NEXT YEAR WILL BE BETTER.

The Front Line of Life?

2010-03-26T04:21:00.000-07:00

Paul Reas - 'Military Wallpaper B&Q'

It was while looking through the Cornerhouse Publications in the library at Bournemouth's College of Art & Design in 1990 that I seriously considered being a photographer. If you could travel the world and make people laugh, that was a fine way to live. If you could do it with a drink in your hand, that was the life for me. However, the image that really kick started my passion for pictures wasn't from a far flung location, but to me it was as exotic. Shot by Paul Reas from his book 'I Can Help', the image is presumably of a Dad, fag in mouth, resplendent in combat trousers, showing off a roll of military themed wallpaper in a B&Q store. I was astonished, it never occurred to me you could take photographs in places like this. My question now is where is the front line of domestic life. In this flikr'd world, is there anything left unseen. My last real photographic thrill came from Richard Billingham's 'Ray's a Laugh'. Where would you least expect to be photographed now. I don't mean the toilet, or having sex (although maybe if . . .) Suggestions and comments welcome.

Richard Billingham

Why Get Up Go Out & Take Pictures

2010-03-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

My biggest struggle as a photographer is motivation. Life has many distractions. Combined with a bleak winter, I often lose sight of why I get up, go out and take pictures at all. Particularly if the reason is a tenuous one and the end goal isn't clear. Two recent examples re-established my photographic libido. One was on a 2 day assignment for TIME Magazine, motivation in itself. The brief was brief. Get out to Dagenham and document it as an example of the 'Decline of Britain'. Day 1 was groundwork. Pounding the pavements, getting a feel for the place and the people. There weren't many, it was Monday, it was cold. A panic sets in for me on shoots like this. The likelihood is no more than 2 or 3 photographs being used. One has to scream opener and capture the story. Day 1 did not provide this, plenty of fillers. Questions begin - why am I a photographer, am I any good, is this the end of my career!? Then I meet Darren and his family who agree to be photographed with their dogs on parkland in front of a crumbling estate. This chance meeting is why I get up, go out and take pictures. The enthusiasm for the shot may fade. The photographs may not be published but the memory and the thrill of shooting unexpected images will remain.

The 2nd reminder of why I get up, go out and take pictures came when I was shooting at Schooldisco - a themed Saturday night out in central London. It was a self initiated shoot, a continuation of my long term look at the UK drinking culture. I'm fortunate enough to have a family who don't question why I'm investing money to shoot pictures with no definite purpose other than a hunch that one day they may be relevant. After setting up a back drop in a room next to the main dance-floor, myself and my good friend and able accomplice Ben Turner would peel off to find subjects. From the 30+ people we asked only 2 refused. Most were engaging and enthusiastic about being photographed. Which is why I get up, go out and take pictures.

The long and the short-list of it

2010-02-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

Short-listed for the Advertising category in the Sony World Photography Awards along with 10 others including photographer Rip Hopkins who is admirable. A hotly contested category with 5 UK photographers jostling for one of the 3 top spots to be announced late March.

Long-listed for the BJP Project Assistance Awards for the 'Zabaleen of Garbge City', profiling an extraordinary community of Coptic Christians living in an illegal squat on the outskirts of Cairo.

The 'LoveUK' Exhibition continues at the Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff - help keep it open by bidding on one of the prints up for auction including 'Blackpool Couple Kissing'.

'The Sun' - Picture Albion

2010-02-15T08:45:00.001-08:00

Taking it's initiative from the current 'LoveUK' project on display at the Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff, 'The Sun' Newspaper, a British Icon in itself, drew on some of my other UK projects to publish a 17 pic spread and put 14 online - 'Picture Albion' - I didn't know Albion was an archaic name for England or Great Britain used poetically. Who said The Sun wasn't educational. I know some photographers would be aghast at the idea of being in 'The Current Bun' but after all, it is where I get project ideas from, a proud day - It's all downhill from here!!

This Is Not An Invitation To Rape Me

2010-02-15T08:31:00.000-08:00

"This Is Not An Invitation To Rape Me" was an artistic response from Charles Hall to the sexual assault of a dear friend. The statement is designed to attack the perception, when a woman is raped, she asked for it, deserved it or wanted it.

The University of Pennsylvania will be hosting an exhibition representing the idea interpreted and expressed by fine artists and members of the school's student body.

Contributing artists include renowned South African photographer Jodi Bieber. 6 images from my own projects are also included.

Sam Cornwells POV on 'LoveUK" Exhibition

2010-02-15T08:24:00.001-08:00