Camber Sands

A few pics from last weeks little family jaunt down to Camber Sands starring Billy, Daisy Mae, Betty the dog, a horse and a scruffy terrier that wee'd on our sandcastle.

Dog Of The Week

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This week's dog of the week is urban super dog, Pandora. She is a Border Collie, German Shepard cross who recently retired from her sheepdog job in Wales and now lives in Camden where she has quickly adapted to her new urban environment, regularly swimming from her home down The Regents Canal to Kings Cross where I got this shot of her.

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The Onesie

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It’s hard to avoid the onesie these days, believe me I’ve tried my best. This was once something known as the snuggle suit and relegated amongst the many other comfortable but not all fashionable items at the back of Sunday Supplements. I’m slowly trying understand them and having just done a shoot with some,  I’ve seen that they created some genuine excitement in the models, including Matt here. Don't worry, I won't be wearing one anytime soon, they can actually look ok on young folk, but definitely not on middle aged men.

Festo

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My man Festo who lives in the Naguru slum of Kampala, Uganda. Like my son Billy, he's 9 years old and is in a class of nearly all girls but unlike Billy he lives in extreme poverty, has no father, is small and malnourished and unable to see his 3 younger siblings who live miles away with his grandmother because his mother cannot afford to keep them. He helped carry my gear and keep his mates in order while I was there on a shoot last year. I now help out by sending a few quid every month to help pay for his education and give him a little bit more of a chance in his difficult life.

Lights, Camera, Action!

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I'm proud to announce that I've just moved into my new studio, within the Tunbridge Wells headquarters of creative communications and international marketing agency Red & Green. So now I'm set-up for studio portraits and still lives as well as my usual location portraits and reportage.

Lou Reed RIP

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Very sad to hear of the death of Lou Reed. I had the pleasure of taking his photo in 2007 for The Times, a bizarre but amazing experience. 

It was the most nervous I’d ever been before a shoot. Lou, as well as being a keen photographer himself, was renowned to be awkward at the best of times and it was no secret that he didn’t much like journalists and the interview process. True to form, on his eventual arrival, he refused to sit on the chair that I’d found and certainly wouldn’t sit crossed-leg on the floor as I also suggested. He told me he would remain standing and would only be shot from the waist up and also insisted that I count one, two then three when I click the shutter. This I did of course but it seemed unnecessary as he did not move or change expression in any way.

Me and Lou

Me and Lou

He also wanted to see each shot on the back of the camera so we ended up in a kind of creative stale-mate. One, two, three,  show Lou the picture, hmmm he doesn’t seem to like it much but won’t move or do anything, oh well, one, two, three, one, two, thee. After a few painfully long minutes doing this I think he must have sensed my stressful state or just realised it was worth making an effort to get a decent picture, so he changed into his stage gear for that nights performance, and adopted a bit of rock star attitude. One, two, three, click. I had the picture and once he’d seen it, I was suddenly in the company of a surprisingly friendly Lou Reed who wanted to talk cameras and agreed to have his picture taken with me while adopting what he called a RUN DMC pose. (This is now framed and proudly on show in my downstairs toilet).

Then straight back to grumpy mode, he made the nice lady interviewer cry, accusing her of not listening properly to his new album of ambient tai chi music. I didn’t care though, I was basking in the warm glow of  having bonded (for a few minutes) with a true rock legend.

A Lady's Best Friend

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"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring, it was peace."  Milan Kundera.

Portraits of people with their dogs is a new project I'm working on. It's simple, I'm offering a shoot of dog and owner in a scenic location and then the chance to buy a framed print. Please if you or anyone you know may be interested email james@jamesclarke.me and if you have time please share this post. Oh and this picture is of Vanessa the Belly Dancer and her great dane Daisy Doo.