The great thing about photography, I discovered early on, is that if you approach a really beautiful girl and ask if she would like to do some modeling for you, she will most likely say yes. This gave me enormous confidence as an eighteen-year-old boy. It may also be the world’s best chat-up line. Leaving college after my degree, I set up a photo studio above one of my dad’s Chemist shops in my hometown of Southport, on the northwest coast of England near Liverpool. On the weekends, I shot weddings and portraits to pay the bills and ‘tested’ girls from the Liverpool and Manchester model agencies during the week, as well as occasionally shooting ads for some high street boutiques and hair salons. One day a week, I would drive down to London, a 500-mile round trip, and show my portfolio to the magazines. I started at the top with Vogue and worked my way down to Woman magazine. They gave me my first magazine commission, a Royal Rota press assignment to photograph Princess Diana when she came up to Liverpool to splash some champagne on a new ship. December 21st, 1981. I was 21 and Diana was 20. The fateful day arrived, and it was raining, I drove to Liverpool’s Cammell Laird shipyard to attend the press briefing, two cameras hanging around my neck with motordrives. If I wasn’t nervous before, I certainly was when I entered the room to meet the Royal Press Secretary and about 150 of the World’s press. Diana, by now, was the most photographed person in the world, and this hardened pack of sharp- elbowed paparazzi all knew each other. They eyed me suspiciously and without humour, especially when they saw that I had the Royal Rota pass, which meant that I could walk around with the Royal party, whereas they all had to stand behind the ropes with their fixed passes.
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1 .Christie Denham for M8 Magazine 2. Ivanka for German Cosmopolitan Paris 3. New York Times Magazine 4. SELF magazine NYC 5. NYTimes Fashion of the Times
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