The above photograph has now been place in to the Crowded Gallery. It is from Normandy, and shows a little girl playing in the window of a French chateau.
Category Archives: Photographs
….as opposed to ‘leaving Las Vegas’. This was taken the actual moment I entered Vegas - a strange and ridiculously hot venue for a town. Nevertheless, a great place to go, even just to see the diversity of people. This was one of the first places I visited on a road trip a few years back - eventually finishing in San Francisco.
The trip was made up of commercial commissions and ‘my photography’, and I remember getting literally thousands of transparencies back from the lab. I guess I have the same problem now with digital photos.
This image is in the Crowded Gallery.
The last week or so has been spent photographing in Normandy - everything from the streets of small rural villages, to emotional visits at the American War Memorial there. As yet, the photos are unsorted, but I will upload some shortly.
Sometimes a print just doesn’t make it to the Crowded Gallery, no matter how much I like it. Sometimes, I just like a print because I liked being there at that point in time. Irrespective of what the final image comes out like, I will always like it. That is the case with this photograph.
I guess I liked it because it was taken on my thirtieth birthday a few years back (ok, 6 years ago). I had been on a short visit of about four days, and had just spent the morning of my 30th getting lost in the back streets of the capital, Vilnius. I stopped off at a cafe (mainly serving either coffee or vodka) and took this photo of a woman deep in prayer. It literally was taken by candle light using a rangefinder camera - and the final print is very grainy.
A few years ago I had a commission to photograph Las Vegas from the air for Virgin. Usually I am terrified of flying in planes and helicopters, but Virgin actually operated a blimp (maybe still do) that flew at dusk over the city, and the main strip (I might post a photo soon).
For photography, the blimp was great, it moved very slowly, allowing me to get night shots while hand holding the camera. Anyway, the day after the commission I took a trip out to the Grand Canyon, where I took this photo at sunset.
This photo can be purchased from the Crowded Gallery.
The past few months have seen more and more enquiries for stock photography from the Russian Federation. This week alone has included the subjects of Essaoira for a travel magazine, and London, for a newspaper.
Apart from having to negotiate ‘VAT’ with Customs & Excise (apparently, there is no VAT to be paid when sending digital images abroad - just in case you were wondering), supplying images abroad and being paid online is a whole new market, which every photographer should try and work with. There seems to be a definite trend for picture buyers to source images from small ’boutique stock agencies’ and less so from the ’supermarket agencies’. Saying that, I’m also going to stick with the large agencies for a while.
Last night was the launch of the RIBA book titled, Birmingham: Shaping the City
I was the Photo Editor for the book, and photographer for some of the projects, while Ben Flatman was the Author (who spent years researching it).
I have a little known secret. At the end of the nineties/start of naughties, I was the tour photographer for UB40.
I got the contract via a magazine I was working on at the time. Apart from the fact I don’t like the music, it was a good job to get! The bands management always treated me very fairly. For example, I had to fly out to Rotterdam for an end of tour concert, and they arranged a limo to pick me up at the airport and transfer me. But I felt ridiculous sitting in the back of an absolutely huge car, so I got the driver to stop so I could get in the front passenger seat. This seemed to unnerve the driver who proceeded to tell me about the intricacies of the Dutch irrigation system. It turns out they don’t hire limo drivers for their conversational English. I should have stayed in the back.
Anyway, I was a few hours early for the concert and went for a stroll with my camera. This photo is probably one I like more than you will - some photos are like that I guess. It is simply a reflection of the hotel room lights looking out over the town. I remember being quite nervous that day as it was the first time I had to do band portraits on the tour bus (not a great location to shoot) and some of the musicians weren’t keen on photography (understandable when you saw what other pleasures were available on the tour bus).
The concert went well - those Dutch do love UB40- we got on the tour bus, got back to the hotel, packed the cameras for an early transfer back to the UK (with a different limo driver!). Arriving home just in time to photograph my cousins wedding (before anyone asks…I don’t do weddings..she was family!).
This photo is on the crowded site as a black and white print.
Last year we had a limited run of books produced on Birmingham photography. They all sold out very fast, so if you missed those, you can now order direct from the publisher.
Essentially it is 142 pages of our best photographs from the Images of Birmingham Photo Library, covering all aspects of the city, from people to places.
There is also a PDF of the first 16 pages available to view, should you need persuading!
Well, the new CraigHolmes.com website has now been launched. I was a little unhappy with the old one - especially as it was partly a blog displaying a new photo every day - which kind of doubles the workload with this blog. So the new one has now arrived, and pretty much has no words on it whatsoever. I felt it best to stick to the photos. In all honesty, it still needs a small amount of work, but that is behind the scenes.
Secondly, the Royal Institute of British Architects book on Birmingham - titled, Birmingham: Shaping the City - is now at the printers and will be launched at a party in early March. I have been working on this book, with the editor Ben Flatman, for several years, so I can’t wait to physically hold it in my hands (having only seen the final proof pdf). Anyone who slates Birmingham architecture, should find at least one modern project they approve of - even if its the small ’shell like’ cafe in the Bullring!
