After the Tunisia commission, I returned home in full belief that my career was over. The cut-throat photography industry had chewed me up and spat me out. But evidently, luck was still on my side and a man called Peter Grimsditch, the founding editor of the Daily Star, who was now Editor In Chief at OBG saw potential in my work. A few weeks later, I was on a flight to Bahrain, a country I hadn’t even heard of, with a little more confidence and a few tips from Peter. “Throw the fish-eye lens out of the plane window on the way there” being one of his nuggets of wisdom.

Fast forward to the start of 2024 and my wife, Donna, who was by my side way back at the start of this story when I bought my first camera, is now part of the business. Working alongside me, managing the day-to-day of the business from our studio, assisting on larger projects and on our expo headshot booths. We are ever-evolving as a business, and are constantly exploring innovative new ideas (like our virtual headshot service) to ensure that we remain the number one headshot solution for businesses both in the UK and around the world.

I became interested in photography at a young age. My mum worked for a large publishing company and managed to blag me some work experience with a car magazine called “Revs”. The first time I ever set eyes on a professional photographer at work, he was dangling out of the boot of a fast-moving car while photographing another car that was going sideways. I instantly thought, ‘that’s the job I want’.

Through pure luck, the first serious commission I got was to travel to Tunisia and shoot-to-fill a 200 page magazine for Oxford Business Group (OBG). I barely had any idea what I was doing. I’d been thrown in at the deep end, and it was sink or swim. Let’s just say I neither sank nor swam- I sort of just bobbed around a bit. I was completely green and while in Tunis was even arrested by the secret police. They thought that the 18 year old lad running around their capital city with a camera didn’t look like he knew what he was doing with it, so must be a spy!

After the Tunisia commission, I returned home in full belief that my career was over. The cut-throat photography industry had chewed me up and spat me out. But evidently, luck was still on my side and a man called Peter Grimsditch, the founding editor of the Daily Star, who was now Editor In Chief at OBG saw potential in my work. A few weeks later, I was on a flight to Bahrain, a country I hadn’t even heard of, with a little more confidence and a few tips from Peter. “Throw the fish-eye lens out of the plane window on the way there” being one of his nuggets of wisdom.

The next several years saw me pick up more commissions from OBG and I found myself working regularly in countries that I knew nothing about. The opportunist in me thought it would be a good idea to start handing out business cards while on these assignments and, in doing so, I started to pick up new clients- Shell, Intercontinental Hotels, Emirates, Gulf Air, African & Eastern and Mercedes Benz to name a few.

Between 2010 and 2016 I continued working around the world on assignments and found myself shooting everything from people and planes to cars and buildings. As a photographer I was busy, but if you’d asked me what I specialised in, I couldn’t have given you a clear answer. I’d become a jack of all trades and knew if my career was to be sustainable, I’d have to pick a niche. I’d also become the father of two boys, which made the idea of a less frantic work life even more desirable.

The jobs I’d enjoyed the most over the previous decade were the headshot and portrait assignments. I was good at it and I loved the speed-dating-style interactions I got with people ranging from politicians, sportspeople and explorers to actors, authors and entrepreneurs. I’d met some very interesting individuals who people rarely get to meet. For example, the two people below were both bosses of MI5.

In 2016 I decided that I was going to put all of my energy in to creating a brand that businesses, leaders and entrepreneurs could turn to for everything from high-volume, company-wide staff headshots, to personal brand images and corporate portraits of key people for PR. Along with my photography equipment, I was going to bring with me a colourful background in photography and a skill set that had been forged in over fifty countries while working alongside some of the world’s best editorial and creative teams. Headshot Company was born.

The client list quickly grew and Headshot Company began to make a name for itself in the UK. It was unique in that I offer a variety of styles and flexibility that is owed largely to my diverse background in photography, but also my eagerness to make each project I work on different to the last. Like people, no two companies are the same and I endeavour to make every project as unique as the subjects in front of me. Choosing not to own a single style, but rather a toolkit of photographic techniques has won me projects with an array of clients including Forbes, Rockstar Games, Chelsea FC, the BBC, and Sky along with a huge list of specialist companies you probably won’t have heard of.

Fast forward to the start of 2024 and my wife, Donna, who was by my side way back at the start of this story when I bought my first camera, is now part of the business. Working alongside me, managing the day-to-day of the business from our studio, assisting on larger projects and on our expo headshot booths. We are ever-evolving as a business, and are constantly exploring innovative new ideas (like our virtual headshot service) to ensure that we remain the number one headshot solution for businesses both in the UK and around the world.