Amy Winehouse In Court

The world of Amy Winehouse is nothing short of crazy and her appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court on an assault charge proved just that.
Amy photographs are used worldwide so it was no surprise to find 50 plus photographers from different fields and news crews awaiting her arrival from 7am onwards. Showbiz photographers were out in force as well as paps and news photographers making a real cross over of different genres and a lot of snappers we'd not normally come across.
Her arrival was pretty straight forward - we were all behind a barrier allowing her easy access to walk with her father and solicitors into court.
However, mayhem ensued when she came out for a cigarette break as paps broke from the behind the barrier to sorround her and it was during this small time period that I got my best pictures of her. In seconds there was a media frenzy around her, with her security forming a ring around the singer as she stood against a wall and casually puffed away.
Thinking on my feet I climbed some stairs to the side of her to get a better view. The image below shows the scene.



Knowing I need her to look up in my direction to get a decent photo I called to her a few times, she heard me, looked up for a second and I got a couple of great images.




The next day, the picture of her smoking was used in the Metro (below) and I'm hopefully these two images will be used a lot more in the future.




www.samirhussein.com

Barroso Visits Downing Street & Bunch of Amateurs Premiere

This was my second job inside of No. 10 Downing Street on a commission from the EC, whose President, José Manuel Barroso, was meeting Prime Minister Gordon Brown for talks.
No. 10 is much larger inside than you'd imagine and I was given access to photograph Barroso and Brown walking though the Prime Minister's home before they undertook a press conference in one of the many grand rooms on show.






Later in the evening it was down to Leicester Square for the Royal premiere of 'A Bunch of Amateurs'. The film doesn't feature any particularly big names, but the Queen was in attendance. This date had originally be put aside for the Royal premiere of the new Harry Potter film, but that had to be put aside as the release date was put back to next year, which is why the Queen was now attending a fairly low-key film now.
Of the cast, Camilla Arfwedson (below), attracted the most attention.

Stock Market Trader

I was called out late this Saturday evening to shoot a prominent French Stock market trader in a London house for Paris Match magazine.
The problem was, he was being interviewed by a French journalist and didn't know he was to be photographed, so after getting clearance through the journalist, who kindly asked him if I could shoot him, I turned up and got what shots I could as a two hour interview took place. Unfortunately, with the interview going on so long the trader, whose name never found out, was in a rush to leave with his business partner and family so could only pose very briefly. Hardly the situation I'd hoped for, given it was for a high profile magazine, but in these situations you just have to get what you can.

Financial Crisis

With the stock markets crashing and today was labelled 'Black Friday' because of the financial world in ruin I was sent out to get stock photos of the banks in trouble and of traders leaving the London stock exchange.
Unfortunately, unlike many years ago when they wore bowler hats, the traders wear normal clothes and the London Stock Exchange has moved from Bank in the heart of the city to a rather generic-looking building at St Paul's meaning photos of them tend to look like any others workers in London leaving their office, rather than images with a stronger context of the financial disaster taking place.

UK Commemorative Service for Northern Ireland Operations

A good turn out of Royals and Politicians, past and present, for this UK Commemorative service for Norther Ireland operations.
I missed out a couple of times photographing Margaret Thatcher, so it a relief to get some shots of her, all the more useful as I got photos with Tony Blair as well.

President Sarkozy Makes A State Visit

Upon returning from my trip to Slovakia it became apparent that the talk of the press was of the arrival of Carla Bruni on a state visit, and whose imminent appearance was overshadowing the trip of her new husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, no less.
I went to Windsor to cover Sarkozy and his wife arrive in state carriages to Windsor Castle, beside the Queen and the Prince Philip. My position turned out to be very frustrating however, as first Sarkozy turned to look the other way as he went past before Carla did the same in the following carriage. The photographers situated on the other side of the road got the shots and I, along with others my side, had no meaningful photographs from the event. That's the problem with shooting carriages at Royal events - if they look your way as they go past you get can get a decent shot, but if they don't then you don't get a second chance as the carriages move at a surprising speed.
At any rate the shot of the day had been taken earlier in the day when the French couple arrived at Heathrow and were greeted by Prince Charles was gave Carla a kiss on the hand.

The Newspaper House

I was back in Dalston today to photograph artist Sumer Erek and his newly completed newspaper house as it was unveiled to the public.
It's a great idea to make use of discarded newspapers to highlight the need for recycling through art. It really gets on my nerves the amount of free papers thrust down our throats every day throughout London. You see so many discarded free newspapers all over the city, so much must get wasted.

The Great Fire Of Camden

My Saturday night with friends was thrown out of kilter when news broke of a huge fire engulfing Camden market. I was undertaking an impromtu portrait session with my friend Nina in my flat when phone calls started streaming in telling of a massive fire burning down not only the market, but also regular drinking spot and key celeb hangout, the Hawley Arms pub.
I instantly went from being portrait photographer to news hound, picking up an extra body and long lens to make the short walk with friends to check out the scene of the fire. Unfortunately we arrived around 15 minutes too late to get really close to the inferno, where the great photos would have been, but I still managed to get a few from the Camden Lock bridge for Getty. Half of Camden was soon closed off, with hundreds of bemused characters wandering around gazing as fire fighters continued to tackle the fire. There were various rumours abound as to how bad The Hawley Arms was damaged, so the next morning we wandered down to take a look and get some more photos. The evidence was clear: The Hawley, along with one section of the Camden market had been gutted. No doubt both will be back.