My best shots of 2014

This is what I reckon are my best shots of 2014. During the 12 months I travelled from Dartmoor in Devon to Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and this is what all the 1,000s of shutter clicks, flashes of light, miles on the motorways, 100s of cups of coffee, early alarm calls and hours in front of a Mac screen all come down to.

The main image is of ballet dancers Wendy Whelan and Edward Watson photographed in the ‘Crush’ room at The Royal Opera House and it’s probably my favourite image of the year. There’s something about the grey clothing against the corner of a gilt-edged picture frame that gives a hint of how posh the room is – it’s very posh.

This sparse, urban look came about slightly by chance. I wanted to show the dancers in a more gritty, ‘street’ way but didn’t expect them to turn up to the shoot with just a few grey t-shirts and not much else – Wendy Whelan is wearing one of Edward Watson’s t-shirts. The editor of the magazine quickly headed off into Covent Garden to buy some ‘smarter’ clothing for them but it’s the t-shirt images that I like the most.

After the interior shots we headed out into the street to really up the urban content of the images. I’ll show more images from this shoot in a later blog after The Royal Opera House publish the images in their House magazine – very shortly.

The other images in no particular order are:
Workers for Vopak, Penarth, Wales.
Fashion shoot for Truffle Shuffle, at The Paintworks, Bristol.
Sophie Stott, singer, by The Royal Crescent, Bristol.
Beth Hunt for Bluemarlin.
Sophie Bennett for Psychologies magazine.
Ben Clifford, surf instructor, for The Prince’s Trust.
The head chef at Worksop College.
Anne Ruddick with her husband’s Austin Healey 3000 car for CSMA Club magazine

If you’ve got a comment on my selection feel free to make it.