How I Work

I read a set the way the film team does, because I direct too. I work with the agency to honour their shot list, and with the line producer and 1st AD, if required, to lock the time I need with talent and locations. My stills production works around the live action, never holding up a setup or costing a take. When a frame needs more than the action gives, I direct a short stills moment, lit to match. I know how to solve these moments, having regularly worked alongside stills photographers on my own sets.

The Look

Intimate, and always centred on real people. Warm and cinematic, lit so it never looks lit, leaning on natural and practical light. Honest and a little messy, with levity and heart, never precious or overworked.

The camera work is handheld, with shallow depth of field and imperfect framing, so it reads as in the moment and the viewer as an observer in someone's life. A consistent lens set holds one visual voice across the campaign: longer lenses for observational distance, portrait lenses up close to put the viewer in the room, and a slightly lower angle to let people read as quietly heroic. The frames run from wide, big-feeling establishing shots to extreme intimate detail, a hand, an eye, a held cup. Backgrounds fall soft and warm behind a sharp subject.

Production

Captured in high resolution on the Fuji GFX100 II for full cropping flexibility across 16:9 and 9:16, with wide compositions that leave ample negative space for headlines, logos, and campaign assets.

If the agency has its copy and logo assets ready, those EPS files can be dropped over the live frames at the capture station to build on-site mockups. It gives everyone a real read on composition and crop, so images can be signed off on the day. Not a must-have, but a great practice when the assets are available, and it takes the guesswork out of the final layout.

Selects