A photo for today from a shoot last week.
Welcome to the Whitaker Studio Blog. My name is James and I am a photographer, architect and director based in London, and this blog is a small log of the things that I have been doing and seeing.
“You’ll like this… not a lot, but you’ll like it”
It was with great pleasure that last week I got to photograph Paul Daniels! (And in turn meet Debbie McGee!) My girlfriend, a proud owner of a Paul Daniels magic kit in her youth, was exceptionally jealous of this shoot.
I’m pleased to announce the launch of my brand new website and a brand new mobile website for all of you who do your browsing on the move. There’s even a nice icon for all of you iPhone and iPad users!
Head over to www.WhitakerStudio.co.uk to see the goods…
It turns out that 26 miles is actually quite a long way, but we all made it. My official time was 3 hours 40 minutes and 7 seconds; pretty respectable for a first attempt but room for improvement for next time…
We got back south in time for me to head up to Oxford last week to do a portrait of philosophy author Keith Ward for his publisher. Keith was great, and very accommodating, even when I started stacking cushions up to sit on (bending the legs wasn’t really working). I explained the source of my discomfort to which Keith replied, “oh, my son runs marathons”. It turns out that his son runs about 8 marathons a year, and all at an eye watering pace. Indeed the day after I had taken Keith’s portrait his son was going to run 26 miles down the side of the Grand Union Canal on route to the London Marathon a couple of days later, all to raise money for the Burns Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
As I now have a better appreciation of what madness running one marathon a week is, never mind two, I though I should give his cause a little mention.
I’m up in Scotland for the final 48 hours before my first marathon.
I’m running it with two friends, Jamie and Ben, who I talked in to it while a little too drunk in the pub. To help with our resolve you could sponsor J who’s running for the Maggie Centres. The more money Jamie’s running for the more he know’s that he can’t back out and the more we know Jamie can’t back out the more determined Ben and I will be!
I just realised that I haven’t posted anything up here in a while - it’s been a manic month!
So here’s a photo from a recent shoot.
This shot is from a shoot a couple of days ago, the model is Nathan Lindo.
I’ve just heard that Snapshot has won a short film competition in Canada - ShortsNonStop!
Some terrific news after everyone’s hard work!
For those of you who don’t know, Snapshot was my first short film which I made last year with a group of friends. It was written by my brother Thom and his creative partner Danielle, the set was built by my friend Jamie Hind at Cloud and Horse and the sound was edited together by the great people at Jungle Studios.
“We follow the journey of two couples as they get a snapshot that’ll last forever.”
Portobello Film Festival 2010, ShortsNonStop 2010, London Short Film Festival 2011
Snapshot starred Stephanie Wilson, Richard Mason, Becca Laidler and Chris Luca
Music by Dan Neale
Sound recorded by Dominic Humphrey
Sound edited by Dominic Dew
Set Constructed by Jamie Hind
Location managed by Michael Eichler
Screenplay by Thom Whitaker and Danielle Noel
Produced by James Whitaker, Thom Whitaker, Danielle Noel and Dominic Humphrey
Directed by James Whitaker
After a fantastic evening at the Royal Opera House last night to see Swan Lake I thought I’d post one final shot from this set.
Hope you’re all having a nice Tuesday!
Here’s another from the test shoot a couple of weeks ago.
This time Tom is joined by Esther Fuge.
