The gorgeous BENJAMINA EBUEHI photographed by PHIL FISK for OBSERVER amongst a wintery world of culinary creations.. (recipes here).
"Christmas this year may look quite different but it’s definitely not cancelled, so I’ll be throwing on my favourite festive tunes and finding some solace in the creativity and joy that baking brings."
Us too...!
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PHIL FISK shoots SADIQ KHAN for OBSERVER. The MAYOR of LONDON's experience of "racism growing up, increasing diversity in the MET and the effect of lockdown on his mental health" is featured here.
PHIL shoots OLLIE STEWART for OBSERVER. Stewart is employment manager at HOUSE OF ST BARNABAS, the private members club in Central London which also operates as a homeless charity, offering training for those who have been, or currently are homeless. During the pandemic they have been supporting 'members' in collaboration with OAPA (Only A Pavement Away) to help them navigate job loss, pay reductions and to keep them safely off the streets. Full article here.
CHRIS FLOYD shoots JUDY MURRAY, champion of grass-roots tennis, manager (and mum) to world-champion tennis pros JAMIE & ANDY MURRAY, who now has her eye firmly focussed on "game-changing women's sport".
Chris was commissioned by THE NATIONAL LOTTERY to photograph 13 'unheralded champions of the arts sector', who have all undertaken wonderful creative projects throughout the pandemic to keep the spirit of their communities alive...
These awesome projects are funded by the massive £30million raised each week for good causes by National Lottery players.
Featured here are just a handful of the inspiring creators and founders from projects such as OPEN BOOK in Scotland where Liz Treacher hosts creative writing sessions to combat loneliness; Vic Brown in Tamworth whose creative arts project NEW URBAN ERA has launched a new online platform for beatboxers, street artists, breakdancers and schools to collaborate during the pandemic; and Maria Connolly, founder of 1 ELEVEN THEATRE in Belfast who performs socially distanced theatre (as Judy Garland, Bette Midler and Marilyn Monroe) to elderly people with dementia.
The portraits are currently being exhibited at eight galleries around the UK including IKON, the MAC Belfast, the PHOTOGRAPHERS' GALLERY, BFI Southbank and the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, London.
Chris shoots Vic Reeves at his home studio in Kent for The Idler Magazine.
"Although when you're in his home studio you don't call him Vic. You call him Jim because Jim's his real name. Jim Moir, like Goya".
Jim has just produced a new book called Vic Reeves Art Book, a sumptuous compendium of his drawings and paintings from the last two or three years.
Full article here. The book is available from all good bookshops.
A beautiful short film by CHRIS FLOYD showing the making of the original artwork for the Limited Edition Label for Berry Bros & Rudd's 'Good Ordinary Claret' … 🍷
A few months ago CHRIS FLOYD captured portraits of SIAN CLIFFORD, SHARON HORGAN and WAAD AL KATEAB for the STYLIST / REMARKABLE WOMEN AWARDS.
CHRIS spent a memorable afternoon on shoot having “a complete laugh with this lady and her massive cake!”… aka SHARON HORGAN, actor and Bafta-winning writer behind razor sharp comedies such as Catastrophe, Motherland and Divorce.
SIAN CLIFFORD, aka Fleabag’s sister Claire, recently played Diana Ingram in ‘Quiz’, the terrific 3-parter on ITV.
For five years WAAD AL-KATEAB filmed the conflict in the Syrian city of Aleppo for her feature documentary ‘FOR SAMA’ which has received numerous awards including the Prix L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, and the Special Jury Prize for International Feature Documentary at the Hot Docs Festival. It is a deeply powerful film and “a rare first hand account of war, from a strictly female perspective”.
In a new term after the challenges of lockdown, the charity CHEFS IN SCHOOLS is providing 11,000 London students with fresh, nutritious and creative food.
PHIL FISK captured these awesome chefs, (who previously worked at St John and Nopi) in action at Woodmansterne School, Lambeth and Little Jungle Nursery in Dulwich for OBSERVER.
School dinners are definitely not how we remember them…!
For a story in the May issue of MEN'S HEALTH, CHRIS FLOYD was commissioned to photograph several British servicemen who have all endured PTSD in one form or another.
"How do you fight an enemy you can't see? One that can infiltrate every base, aircraft carrier and submarine and strike down a teenage cadet in the safety of his barracks yet is just as able to lie in wait for months, or even years, before dealing a fatal blow, long after a soldier has exited the theatre of war and even the military itself? Between 2014 and 2018, hostile action accounted for the deaths of 2 servicemen. Over the same period, at least 49 UK service personnel died as a result of suicide.”
CHRIS FLOYD shoots MR BUCKLES king of chuckle, ADAM BUXTON, at his house near Norwich for the cover of the Sept/OCT 2020 issue of THE IDLER. BUXTON is something of an IDLER hero... a multi-talented podcaster, comedian, artist, parodist, actor and writer... to name a few of his idling accomplishments!
Open water swimmer and hopeful for the 2021 Olympics, ALICE DEARING, photographed by Phil Fisk at a secluded lake in Surrey during early lockdown.
Here's an extract from the accompanying article in the Observer:
It sounds scarcely believable in modern, multiracial Britain but nearly a century after the sprinter Jack London became the first black athlete to win an Olympic medal for Britain in 1928, and more than 40 years since Viv Anderson became the first black footballer to start for England, Team GB has never sent a black female swimmer to an Olympic Games. Not one.
But next summer Alice Dearing, a 23-year-old from Birmingham who is Britain’s best open-water swimmer, intends to flip 125 years of history on its head in Tokyo – the small matter of a global pandemic permitting. And, as becomes clear over a thought-provoking and nuanced conversation, that is only the start of her ambitions.
“Being a poster girl for black swimming is exciting, because genuinely I love the sport and I want to see as many people doing it as possible,” Dearing says. “But it’s also terrifying because there’s a lot of pressure. I have rationalised it – if not me, then who? And I want this to happen as soon as possible, to break that barrier.”
It is not the only one Dearing intends to shatter. Last year she became the lead ambassador for the Black Swimming Association, a charity that encourages black people to swim, and she illustrates the scale of the challenge by citing shocking figures from Sport England, which show that 95% of black adults and 80% of black children in England do not swim – while only 1% of registered competitive swimmers with Swim England identify as black or mixed race.
“Things need to speed up absolutely everywhere,” she says. “You can’t just have elite swimmers come from absolutely nowhere. So our focus is on the learn-to-swim side. Because eventually, you’ll see that change as you get more county swimmers then regional, national, international and then eventually, hopefully, more black Olympians.”
PHIL shoots award-winning costume designer SANDY POWELL OBE for his series “FOR THE LOVE OF FILM” for BAFTA.
This beautiful atelier-style set was created by Vicky Twyman with input from Sandy, and features several bespoke 'toiles' or fitting prototypes, including two of her actual designs from the film THE FAVOURITE.
At BAFTA 2020 Sandy wore a calico template suit, got 100+ A-list stars to sign it, then raffled it off... raising enough money to protect Prospect Cottage, her mentor Derek Jarman's Dungeness home.
Blowing everything he's got...!
PHIL FISK shot musician turned actor COSMO JARVIS for the OBSERVER.
2020 is a big year for him with four new films, including the acclaimed CALM WITH HORSES. Full article here.
Late last year CHRIS photographed the world of TABASCO on Avery Island, in the Cajun swamps of Louisiana, for ESQUIRE MAGAZINE.
Still a family owned business, the McIlhenny Co has been producing the hot sauce here for 150 years, using the same 3 ingredients since the beginning; red peppers, vinegar and salt.
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CHRIS FLOYD shoots on location during lockdown for MEN’S HEALTH for a feature on 3 British manufacturers who have repurposed their production lines to create items of PPE for the NHS during the Covid 19 crisis.
COMMUNITY CLOTHING in Blackburn, Lancashire, who usually manufacture beautifully made items of affordable, sustainable and ethical men’s and women’s clothing turned their business towards making urgently needed NHS scrubs.
STAEGER CLEAR in Coventry switched from making things like shirt collar stiffeners and Easter egg cases to making a face visor of their own design.
INTERFLEX in Nottingham had also halted all their normal plastic packaging work and were producing disposable plastic aprons at a phenomenal rate.
A staggering and inspirational contribution from all 3 companies, especially as their undertakings were in the face of significant bureaucratic and logistical challenges. WE SALUTE YOU!
For inspiration, Chris took the 1950s photography of the great Maurice Broomfield, who so beautifully documented the last golden age of British manufacturing. “I’ve loved Broomfield’s work for a long time and this seemed like the obvious opportunity to pay tribute to it.”
PHIL FISK shoots British Nigerian designer YINKA ILORI at his studio in North Acton for the OBSERVER.
His work focusses on the BIG, BRIGHT and POSITIVE - you can read the full feature here.
CHRIS FLOYD shoots a series of shorts about the SLEAFORD MODS entitled SOLD OUT.
More exciting news just in that CHRIS’S recent campaign for P&O CRUISES with GARY BARLOW has been shortlisted for the PPA Awards ‘CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR’ category.
We are super happy that this MEN'S HEALTH cover of 15 year old Andrew, one of 4 different boys photographed by CHRIS FLOYD at Oasis Academy in Waterloo, has been nominated for “Cover of the Year” in this year's PPA Awards. (Remaining 3 covers are shown below)
As it’s a public vote we'd love it if you could head over and vote for Chris! Here's the link: https://ppacoveroftheyear.co.uk
Thank you :))
And please read below the words of MH editor Toby Wiseman that accompanied the issue.
“You’re probably thinking that these don’t look like regular Men’s Health covers.
That’s because they’re not.
Over the past five years, we’ve increasingly devoted our attentions to the parlous state of mental health in men.
We’ve been single-handedly responsible for that wretched statistic - that for men under 45, the things most likely to kill you is you - becoming common knowledge.
But recently it has felt like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
It’s all very well telling people that 25% of men who take their own lives have visited their GP in vain just the week beforehand. But what about the months and years leading up to that cataclysmic decision? With any other illness, the emphasis would be on prevention rather than cure.
Maybe we’re looking for answers in the wrong place at the wrong time. What has planted those seeds? When did they take root?
The kids on these covers are aged 15/16. They have doubtless been dealt a worse hand than most. As pupils of a school that, despite being rated outstanding, resides in one of the most deprived areas in the country, they face issues that the majority of teenagers will never have to confront.
But thanks to progressive attitudes, excellent support and inspirational leadership, these kids are managing their situations with poise, stoicism and profound eloquence.
These teenagers, their teachers and the help they receive have comprehensively changed my opinion about the problems we face and the best way to broach them. Please buy the issue and read their story. Then, when you’re done, consider lending your support to our #GiveThemAHeadStart campaign. It’s what Men’s Health is all about.”
