A Monkey's Revenge - My Blog

Nov 7, 2023

Wide eyed....

I've written before about being taught photography as a youth by the famous, (at the time), photographer John Robert Young. Back in the seventies he could be seen regularly on Leica adverts hanging out from hovering helicopters or skiing in the French Alps with the 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes of the Foreign Legion.

One of the things he taught me was to get in close and personal which has stuck with me ever since. Not always what picture editors want of course, so I've had to consciously roll back on that ever since and shoot some wider images as well. That is especially relevant these days with the quality of modern digital cameras meaning crops do not lead to awful quality any more.

Here is a shot from a story about a Spitfire taken by me for The Daily Telegraph and also used by Manfrotto. Guess which image the newspaper used? The close in shot by the cockpit! I think that illustrates the point nicely that I always do my best to shoot a good variety of images wherever possible. Page designers hate having their hands tied by lack of choice and that is always at the back of my mind. This shot of the Spitfire flying into the sunset was used by Manfrotto however- so nothing ventured, nothing gained!

#johnrobertsonphotography #editorialphotographer #commercialphotographer