Christopher & His Kind GT cover

Earlier this year I was the still photographer in the upcoming BBC drama 'Christopher and His Kind'.

Based on the story of Christopher Isherwood and his book about the Berlin gay scene in the 1930's.

The book was previously made into a musical you may of heard of called 'Cabaret'

Starring Matt Smith of Dr Who fame, Imogen Poots and Douglas Booth

Some lovely locations around Northern Ireland to shoot, including Mount Stewart for the cover and first DPS. One of the days was spent turning central Belfast in a Nazi flag strewn Berlin, I'll post shots of those after the film has been broadcast.

Absolutley delighted to get the cover of Gay Times and such a large spread inside. It's rare for stills to be seen used as well as this in publications, other than the TV and Film magazines.

Christopher and His kind should be on BBC 2 later this month, I think it will be well worth a watch.

Juliette Lewis

I had such a positive response regarding the shoot with Juliette Lewis on Facebook (thanks everyone!) that I thought I would post more photographs of the shoot.

It was for the Daily Telegraph, and I was sent down to a hotel in West London where she was staying with the band. The pressure was on right from the start as I was instructed by the paper to only get photographs of Juliette, but knew that her press officer would want to concentrate on shots of her with her band, Juliette and the Licks.

So a compromise was struck, I would get 7 mins with the band and get her on her own for the remaining 7 mins. I was also acutely aware that Juliette herself would not really be keen to be photographed on her own, as she was really pushing the band as a self contained unit.

One other thing that I was worried about, the fact that we had to do all this in the foyer of the hotel, which was a basically a public space and usually a nightmare to control.

I got to the hotel and did my recce, then set up my lights and waited for them to make an appearance. Suddenly this blonde girl appeared out of nowhere and I realised that she had bleached her hair ... very rock and roll

I can honestly say that Juliette did not disappoint one bit, she was brilliant to photograph, mad as a box of frogs, and it was all a bit of a blur, but I came away satisfied that I had captured some great shots.

Times Educational Supplement

I have the front page of the current Times Educational Supplement this week, they asked me to photograph a student who was waiting for her results. We did the shots the day before her results came out, so I hope she did well!

This was my first job for the TES, always nice to get a cover, it was 16 years ago since I showed this paper my portfolio, still better late than never!

Marie Jones's Rock Doves by Steffan Hill

Recently I was lucky enough to be asked to photograph rehearsals for the new play by Belfast playwright Marie Jones. She wrote the excellent 'A Night in November' and 'Stones in his Pockets'. This was to be the Belfast premier of Rock Doves, as it had already performed in Broadway.

Starring in the play was the actor Adrian Dunbar, whom I had photographed a few times before, notably in the excellent Mickybo and Me.

The play was directed by Marie Jones's actor hubby Ian McIlhenny, who pops up in just about any decent drama on television. Their son Mathew was also in the production, I last photographed him in the Liam Neeson film Five Minutes of Heaven.

Photographing rehearsals with actors is sometimes tricky as they are trying to learn their charactors and to have someone like me come along can be difficult, but everyone was very friendly, and they soon got used to me. I tend not to use flash in these occasions as it can be massively distracting, and besides, I like the gritty feel of available light.

The play also starred the excellent Ian Beatie, and Carol Moore.

Warren Mitchell photographed by Steffan Hill

This assignment, again for the Daily Telegraph was over in Hammersmith, er, or perhaps Kilburn, at the Tricycle Theatre, I can't quite remember now, but it was shot in 2001. Warren Mitchell is famous for pretty much one character he played in the 60's and 70's, namely Alf Garnett, the bigoted West Ham supporter from the sitcom 'Til Death Do Us Part' (also starring Tony Booth, Cheri Blair's Dad).

I guess he was always someone I always knew about my whole life, even though I never really watched the sitcom, (I'm just about not old enough to remember it first time around!) What strikes me about him is that he seems to have hardly changed appearance since about 1965!

He was a real darling and very nice to me, and his eyebrows just scream to be photographed all by themselves!

This was also one of the first professional jobs I shot on a digital camera, the Nikon D1, which at the time I thought was an amazing camera, and looking back at it now, I realise just how bad it was compared to what exists now in just 9 short years... very scary! I think I shot a roll of 35mm just in case as a back up! As usual the picture desk didn't choose my favourite picture (the published picture is at the bottom, but that's life!)

John Terry photographed by Steffan Hill

Well, as he is a hot topic right now, having been dropped from the captaincy of England for his affair (alleged) with a team mates missus, I thought I would throw this picture of John Terry up on the blog.

It was taken for 442 Magazine in 2006, and although it looks like a studio shot, it was actually in a tiny room at the top of the Virgin store on Oxford Street, in London.

I put a mini backdrop up and simple 2 light set up, key light front left, and hair spot rear right. Shot with fuji film 100 transparency on my Contax 645, probably the last film job I was commissioned to do before I went totally digital...

What can I say about Terry, in the whole 7 minutes I was given to photograph him...

Lets just say what comes around goes around...Oh and I've had a bit of a smile on my face these last few days....

Sydney Lonely Planet Cover by Steffan Hill

A few years ago, at the end of 2002, I decided to take a break from the cut and thrust of London and take a year out travelling, mainly in Australia. It was quite simply one of the best periods of my life. I brought with me in my already heavy backpack a Mamiya 7 medium format film camera with 4 lenses and a stack of film. A joy to travel through and photograph, my guide whilst there (and pretty much everybody else's) was the Lonely Planet.

One day in Sydney I decided to climb up the viewing tower on the bridge and shoot the harbour and views. I took a shot of the shadow of the mighty bridge with a single yacht approaching.

I guess it was with some serendipity that a few years later I sold this image to Lonely Planet to be used on the front cover of their Sydney City guide. Little did I know at the time! Although heavily cropped and sharing the cover with another photographers picture it was still a great feeling, not to mention that it paid for some of my airfare over there! Just goes to show you never know where your photos will appear...