For anyone slightly more interested in reading this, than I am writing it…
So for better or worse, I have only ever worked in the creative industries. I studied photography at art college but started my professional life in design and latterly advertising and after long stint at TBWA Simon’s Palmer working with Nike and Wrangler, I went on to a start up, Maher Bird, as head of design continuing my design relationship with Nike. It was probably here that I acknowledged just how much more interested I was in working in the camera department. So that and my father’s love of film, together with his involvement in television as a producer and director for the government’s Foreign and Commonwealth office and the COI, prompted me to leave advertising to pursue a career behind the camera.
Following three months in the Ukraine and Crimea in 1998 on a public information film project with the UNHCR, I started to shoot more documentary and subsequently then spent six months working across Africa for the United Nations and Bill Gates Foundation. From 2004 on, I shot and often directed factual and documentary series for Channel 4, the Discovery Channel and UKTV and US network AMC. My first feature documentary as cinematographer ‘In the Hands of the Gods’ was released by Lionsgate and opened in Leicester Square and nationwide in 2007, to critical acclaim and a record number of screens for a UK feature doc. I’ve since embraced a broad spectrum of work, from documentary to feature, commercial and content.
As well as working purely as a DoP, depending on the project I also direct and amongst numerous promos and corporates, directing work has included Emirates Airlines, Cannes Silver Lion, Webby and Campaign Digital Award winning ‘Keep Discovering’ digital campaign shot in Sao Paulo, New York, Mumbai, Kenya and the UK. Over the last few years, I’ve shot and directed cinema and digital content for the launch of the last three films in the Star Wars franchise, Rogue One and the Last Jedi for Lucasfilm, Disney, GREAT and Feref. And more recently I wrote, shot and directed a piece for Legendary and Funcom for the launch of their Dune: Awakening game. I’ve worked as Director of Photography on commercial work for Adidas, Barclays, Kellogg’s, Landrover, Mclaren, Sony, Star Alliance and documentary for BBC and ITV.
I hold both UK and Canadian passports.