Small Island BBC Drama

Small Island was filmed by Ruby films for the BBC earlier this year in Belfast, Dublin and Jamaica, based on the popular book by Andrea Levy. I was commissioned as the stills photographer and ended up covering 8 days in total, 2 of which were in Jamaica.

It will be shown on BBC1 on Sunday 6th December 2009 and Sunday 13th December at 9pm. I urge you to watch a brilliant drama!

The first location was in Dublin, they tried to get a suitable location to double as a typical London Georgian street in Belfast, but couldn't. It was a cold February day, and it is always a bit nerve racking turning up on set for the first time and meeting all the new actors, directors etc, but it was also great to see so many familiar faces amongst the local crew from the North. Day 1 for me was spent covering exteriors of the main house owned by Queenie and the arrival of Hortense, which was filmed at night, always very tricky when shooting.

My second day was back in Belfast, in Ormeau Park, East Belfast which was doubling up for a foggy Green Park in London in the late 1940's. They had a fog machine which I had never seen before, basically a big plastic sausage skin they blow smoke into, and it made for some really atmospheric pictures. This is where I shot the 2 separate images of Hortense and Queenie, as used on the cover of the re-release of the book above.

The next day for me was in Portaferry, where the art dept had converted the whole town square into wartime Britain, it was a fantastic day for me, shooting a major scene in the film I won't talk about here so I don't spoil it for you!

Then there was a break for me for a whole month which is quite unusual, so it was a bit strange turning up in the Painthall (a converted ship yard paint hall, now a film studio) in March to pick up where I left off. Not all filming days are really suitable for stills, and they choose which ones to cover quite carefully. I had a couple more days in the Painthall including the main publicity shots which were art directed by Jo O'Leary from the BBC.

Then another 2 weeks before I flew out to Jamacia to join the rest of the crew in Kingston who had gone out earlier. This was a photographers dream, they had re-done the centre of Spanish Town, now a notoriously rough town near Kingston, to recreate the 1930's, including pouring tonnes of sand over the tarmac-ed roads to make it look authentic. It was stunning out there and the other fantastic scenes included sugar cane plantations, hurricanes, and military parades. Apart from my horrendous jet lag and the searing heat I had the time of my life, not forgetting, on our Saturday night off, a trip with my fellow crew to the live recording of the Jamaican version of the X-Factor, complete with drive by shooting...

It's a wonderful drama and I really hope you all watch it this week-end...

If you want to view more of my stills they are on my website at the link :

Small Island Stills

Evan Dando photographed by Steffan Hill

I shot Evan in the reception of the Halcyon Hotel in Holland Park, London in 1996. He's the lead singer of a band called The Lemonheads. I knew he had a reputation for being a bit of a loose cannon, and was not disappointed! This guy had a huge problem with drugs, but I was told that all that was behind him. They had not arranged anywhere to do the photoshoot (usual story) so I asked the hotel if it was ok if I shot in the reception. It is quite a rock in roll place so they were cool with that.

I set my lights up and waited and eventually Evan walked in with his people and he was as pissed as a fart, totally off his head so it made for an interesting photo-shoot to say the least. He was generally rolling around the floor pulling faces, some of which worked and some of which definitely didn't. I have to admit I was struggling a bit. As with many hotels there was a large flower display handy, so I asked if I could 'borrow' a couple, they said of course and I think instantly regretted it as Evan pretty much destroyed their display.

If you look closely on this photo you can see the beer bottle to the right that was never far away from Evan during the photo-shoot. It certainly was not his first of the day!! Anyway, we had the flowers and the shoot progressed with him acting silly buggers, but eventually I persuaded him to calm done a little and captured the shot with him holding the flower in front of his eye. It's funny, he looks so serene, it totally hides what really went on in the shoot, but I was very pleased with the outcome, and to be fair to Evan, he brought a mile more energy and enthusiasm to the shoot than a lot of other musicians. I prefer my version with his mouth closed than the papers choice, as I feel he looks far more composed in mine and too wasted in the picture below...

Inspiral Carpets photographed by Steffan Hill

I found these in my attic last night, and thought it would be fun to post them. This was probably one of the first times I ever worked 'on set' as it were. It was for the NME way back in '93 or 94' can't remember exactly. The Inspirals had a new song with The Falls Mark E Smith on guest vocals and the NME commissioned me to go along to the shoot and cover it.

I had a brilliant time, what a fun day, the storyline for the video was fairly simple, band plays on stage, bunch of beautiful girls invade stage and beat up the band, then run away....genius!

The band members were very friendly, especially Tom and Clint Boon who was just hilarious, any time he spoke you just cracked up laughing.

The shoot was somewhere in Camden I think, possibly the Roundhouse, but it was so long ago now, I really can't remember much more from the day. I thought the song was quite good, it was one of their last hits before they went off into obscurity, and to be honest they are now most famous for having had a certain Noel Gallagher as their guitar technician.

Lee Evans Photographed by Steffan Hill

This was one of my first ever jobs for the Daily Telegraph, way back in 1996. I had been to see Lee Evans along side Jack Dee when I was a student for the princely sum of £1.00 in our S.U. bar. It was one of the funniest nights I have ever experienced, and was really excited to photograph him 4 years later.

The shoot was at his agents offices in Soho, it took an age to find as it was hidden away on a really quiet back street. I had a quick scout around and decided to set up in the stairway as everywhere else was really grim. I was given a whole 20 mins with him, which is great as even just a few minutes longer allows you to get much more variety. He was brilliant, what a nice guy, he's much more famous now of course, and I really hope he's remained as nice as he was back then.

It was a whirlwind photographing him as he just came up with all these great poses, running around just like he does on stage. It was almost difficult to get him to stop and calm down, before he would say 'hey lets do this'...

In those days before digital everything for the Telegraph was shot on colour neg film, to give them a choice whether to use it in black and white or colour. My favourite shot I think is the one of him looking to towards the light, which is actually positioned at the top of the stairs, he's at the bottom. Using a honeycomb I managed to get a lovely pool of light on him and the wall.

I had one almost disastrous occurrence, as my time was nearly up with him, and I was rushing around almost as much as him, I didn't notice getting the sync lead wrapped around my legs and I pulled over the flash head which sailed pass both of us, narrowly missing his head and crashed to the bottom of the stairs. Fair play to Lee, he tried to stop the falling light with his leg and rushed down to pick it up for me. I nearly had a heart attack, thinking Christ, I've nearly knocked him out and now he's going to get electrocuted by my alarmingly fizzling flash head! Considering he was about to go on the West End for his first major season, I dread to think what would of happened if I had injured him. Anyway, glad to say I've never had as near a miss as that since, and Lee carried onward and upwards on his amazing career. I've managed to route out some old contacts and scan them so you can have a look at the progress of the shoot.

Richard E. Grant photographed By Steffan Hill

There have not been many times in my career when I have been a bit star struck, but this was definitely one of them! I was very excited about photographing Richard E Grant, one of my all time favourite films is 'Withnail & I' and his performance in that is legendary.

The shoot was arranged in a hotel in Richmond, and I decided to bring a back drop with me as I had never been there before and didn't know what to expect. I did a quick recce to see if there was any place suitable to shoot him around the hotel in-situ, so to speak, but it really was unsuitable and I was very glad of the colorama.

They say you should never meet your heroes, just in case they turn out to be horrible, but in Richard's case he was adorable, really really friendly.

Everything was turning out well, I had been introduced , had set up my make shift studio in the restaurant of the hotel ,and was looking forward to my 15 minutes to get my portrait. Of course something had to happen to spoil all this, and sure enough it did.

On shoots like this, journalists are the bane of my life, not only did she run over her allotted time with him (there was no press officer to keep a tight reign) but she then insisted on talking to him during our now greatly reduced 9 minutes. I was RAGING, what planet did she come from to think that she could carry on her interview whist I was trying to work? After a few minutes of this I had had enough and had to tell her in the politest of ways, through gritted teeth to shut up.

So in the end I had 9 not so perfect minutes with the lovely Mr Grant who had to rush off for a live radio interview. I never did meet that journalist again, probably just as well...

Film Director John Woo photographed by Steffan Hill

This is quite an old shot of John Woo, taken in 1997. It was for the release of 'Face/Off' the movie with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage.

I knew he was a huge director in Asia, but I had only seen 'Broken Arrow' up to this point. I was given a brief description of his new movie by the picture desk and was told it was about two people stealing each other's identity's, by literally implanting the others face's on their own head. (Ha!) but I was not looking forward to the shoot as it was in the Dorchester again, my old friend.

I think that's why I lit the shot like this, to again try and hide the ghastly decor in the hotel room. There was a large mirror at one end so I asked him to stand next to it to get a double image. He was a very friendly chap, and was only too pleased to do what was asked of him during our usual 10 minute session. I must admit that was what I loved about my time working for the Daily Telegraph, they always gave me free reign to do what ever I liked.

The film turned out to be a bit silly really, a little OTT, but no where near as bad as his later film 'Windtalkers' which was quite possibly the worst war film I have ever seen! I think he should stick to gangster action films!

Alexander McCall-Smith photographed by Steffan Hill

This was shot for the cover of the books supplement in The Times. I had no brief as such, which is great, they just asked for me to allow enough room in the picture for the title and text.

McCall-Smith wrote a series of books called 'The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' which have been turned into a television series. I had first listened to the radio play versions on BBC Radio Four, which I loved and was quite excited to meet him.

He turned out to be a real gentleman, we didn't have much time, but I had everything set up in the studio waiting for him. I had luckily bought a fake fur background a few years before, and never had a reason to use it, but as his books are set in Botswana it seemed like the ideal time to break it in. Also another stroke of luck, there was an antique travel chest knocking around the studio which was perfect for him to lean on.

There is always a worry that you will have an idea like this and the subject will turn up and refuse point blank to be photographed like that. I once wanted a singer in a fairly cool pop band to sit on a really great looking retro scooter, and he said no which really surprised me. Maybe he just didn't like my scooter! Anyway, no such problem here, Alexander loved the idea and was quite amazed that it suited the African theme so much.

Martin Shaw and Lee Ingleby 'George Gently' shoot for BBC

This was shot earlier this year in Dublin. I had not done any of the unit stills and was called in to shoot the main publicity specials. It's always strange turning up on set for a day when no one knows you, however , luckily I saw a few familiar faces, and had actually photographed Lee before when he did Fairy Tales here in Belfast.

This was an incredibly stressful shoot, it was at the end of their filming schedule, in a freezing cold Dublin, and they had not allowed any set time for the photographs... nothing new there.

I was shown a location away from set as a possible place to take the photos, but considering that it was on an open road and the houses all had modern cars parked in front of them (the show is set in the sixties) I politely declined, and insisted that we do them on set.

After waiting on standby for a few hours I was given, oh, about 10 minutes to get the shot, helped of course by members of the crew casually walking into my background. See that's the problem with crew's, it's a very tight nit community, and if they don't know you, they really don't give a damn. However, I have to say, the opposite is of course true if they do know you and you've been involved with shooting from the start, then they can be really helpful, especially Gaffers!

Well we got the shots done in the end and the BBC were very happy with them so I guess that's what counts...

Simon Cowell photographed by Belfast Photographer Steffan Hill.

I must admit to being a little nervous when asked to photograph Simon Cowell, as he has such a fearsome reputation. This was a shot for the Daily Telegraph taken in the offices of Max Clifford. I forget now what the story was originally about, as he's never out of the news. In the end he turned out to be very friendly, a lot better than some people I have photographed. And much nicer than the snotty cow behind the reception desk when I arrived! Maybe it was because he was suffering from a killer hangover and it subdued him somewhat! Anyways he was a real gentleman with me. The options for photographing were not great, but I noticed that they had a small balcony, and we went out there for the shoot. The sky was not too bad, but I needed to burn it in a bit to make it really dramatic. It's amazing how successful this guys is, but if you've never seen his TV debut on 'Sale of the Century', then you're in for a treat :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-a7DYz-cs

I guess you have to start somewhere!

Griff Ryhs Jones photographed by Belfast Photographer Steffan Hill

This was taken whilst working on a BBC program Griff was making called 'Mountain' where he travelled around the country climbing all the main peaks. He's just aired a follow up program called 'Rivers'

I'll let you into a little secret: The photograph is actually taken in Wales, that's Snowdonia in the background. I hope that The Scotsman didn't get anybody complaining or even noticing it! It rained all the time we were in Scotland, so there just was not a good enough picture suitable for a front cover.

We spent a week filming for this particular episode, and were knackered as we had been climbing all week. We walked to this viewpoint after climbing Tryfan, one of the hardest climbs I have ever done (Tryfan is the mountain that Hilary and the rest of the Everest team practised on, we climbed it with one of the original members of the team, George Band who was in his 70's and fitter than all of us!) . I must say that Griff was an incredibly fit person, after climbing all day we would get back to the hotel, and collapse in the bar except Griff who would be off for his daily run!

I also got the cover of the book from a shot taken half way up Tryfan, it's a shame the sky was so flat, but there you go...

I was very jealous that I was not involved in the new series about Rivers because I had so much fun filming on the Mountain shoots. I must highlight an excellent photograph taken by a good friend of mine, Paul Cornwell, which made the cover of the 'Rivers' book, as it's much nicer than mine!! :

Driving back to the hotel one night we managed to stop and film an amazing sunset of Snowdonia, which really was awe inspiring ...

Film director Chan-Wook Park, photographed by Steffan Hill

I shot this for the Daily Telegraph, as usual I had only 15 minutes tagged on the end of an interview. It was taken in The Dorchester Hotel, in London, he didn't speak a word of english, and my korean is not up to much either but with various had signals we managed to communicate enough.

I used to dread photographing in the Dorchester as the decor is really fussy and chintzy, not at all modern and photogenic, so any shoot I did there tended to be lit quite dramatically, to hide the surroundings.

I had been told he had just directed a very violent new thriller which everyone was raving about, called 'Oldboy', so I knew I wanted something looking a bit sinister, which I think I got. As usual I had only about 30 mins during the interview to set up, and I decided on a couple of very different shots to give the picture desk some choice, but this one was by far the best.

One light outside in the corridor and one inside on the floor looking up. To my great shame, it took a few years before I got round to watching 'Oldboy', as it's a fantastic movie, really really original, if you have not seen it I recommend you watch it!

Katherine Jenkins Classic FM photoshoot by Belfast Photographer Steffan Hill

This was a great shoot, with an amazing woman. I first photographed Katherine in 2004, and this was the third time we had met. We had all day to do multiple setups in Teddington Studios, London. I arrived early to start the set up, and had different parts of the studio set up ready for her when she arrived. I think there was 5 separate areas to get as many different shots as possible. For the first shot we were very lucky to get a loan of a vintage Aston Martin DB5, exactly the same type of car that was used in Goldfinger, the James Bond film with Sean Connery. The stylist made her up to look more like she stepped right out of the 60's.

The second shot was a quick set up with my own Leica camera. Again we were keeping with the 60's theme. I managed to blag the silver background from one of the vacant studios next door. For the 3rd shot, I had visited a material shop in Clapham a few days before and bought some furry backdrops, including this pink one. You never know if an artist will agree to your ideas, but she seemed to like these. I used a ring flash as the light source, and we took some great shots, then I had a bit of a brain wave, the stylist had brought his dog along to the shoot, which admittedly annoyed me to begin with, but Katherine was so taken with it that I suggested she hold it for a few shots, and we just captured this fantastic spontaneous shot, which you could never plan in a million years...I love it!

This was my second cover of Katherine Jenkins for Classic FM.

Belfast Photographer Steffan Hill 'The Invisibles' photoshoot

This was a 'specials shoot' for Desparados, which was later named "The Invisibles". It was set in Cornwall, but shot here in Northern Ireland. I remember we did the shoot late on a Friday evening in Portaferry. I got there in the afternoon to start rigging a portable studio in a room in the hostel they were filming in. Time was very tight as they were still shooting a major exterior scene with a car exploding, and we were having to grab the actors when we could, which is very normal on a film shoot.

I had been given a comprehensive brief from the BBC, and this was one of the key shots. Again photoshop was involved and we shot the safe and jewels separately. I lit the shot from below to give that glow effect, and got the boys to look at a point on the top of the lens so they ahd the same eyeline. Back light was blue to give a night-time feel.

Have to say that both Warren and Tony were a pleasure to photograph, they got on so well they were always laughing and messing around, it was hard to get them to concentrate on the photos. Very stressful shoot, waiting for them to be released from filming out side as we also had a lot of costume changes and other set ups to do on the same night. The small inset shot was also done on the same night, I had an amazing sunset over Strangford Lough, which I ran out to photograph and then we photographed Tony with his real life daughter Emily Head (lovely and now in the excellent "Inbetweeners" on CH4) and Jenny Agutter (I'm huge fan of Logan's Run). Stills from the program can be seen on my website : Belfast Photographer Steffan Hill

Five Minutes of Heaven Poster by Belfast Photographer Steffan Hill

This is one of the posters that I shot for the film "Five Minutes of Heaven". Directed by the outstanding director of "Downfall" - Oliver Hirschbiegel. Shot on 2 separate days, I photographed Jimmy Nesbitt during lunch break on the last filming day, on location somewhere in Co Down ( I forget exactly where). We had a hour to shoot during his lunch break, and as usual Jimmy was great with me. I have now worked on 3 projects with Mr Nesbitt and have to say he's a true gent, very funny and very professional.

We had to photograph Liam Neeson in my studio in Belfast the next day. We were all a bit nervous as due to his heavy schedule we were not sure how long we would have with him. The excellent team from Empire Design and I were very relieved however, when he finally arrived and gave us the full promised hour to get the shots. Further stills of the film can be viewed on my website : Steffan Hill Photographers in Belfast