Ray Lema - Electric African Woman
This image was inspired by a trip to Thailand where I went into a bar and saw a dancer performing covered in fluorescent paint. On hearing Ray Lema's album I heard what I termed as electric African music. Therefore the combination of tribal painting and electric fluorescent paint made sense. I asked illustrator and model maker Sue Venning to create a costume and look for a model that I flew in from Paris. Richard Haughton took the photos. This image was stolen by Channel 4 for their animation ident which ran for several years and Creative review put it on their front cover.
King Sunny Ade - Aura
This image was shot by photographer Brian Griffin. We'd discussed the idea of an aura around King Sunny but when I turned up to Brian's studio he didn't seem to have prepared anything all I could see was a strip of white ribbon pinned to a black background. To make things worse and knowing King Sunny was on his way Brian suggested going to the pub next door! When we returned King Sunny turned up in a gold Rolls Royce and I was left wondering what we were going to do. Brian used a long exposure on the camera and with a light shinning on the ribbon rotated it around King Sunny Ade's head then combined this with another exposure flash. It was quite extraordinary as the final image image was created completely in camera.
King Sunny Ade - Juju Music
Inspired by Leni Riefenstahl's book the people of Kau I took one of Adrian Boot's photo's of King Sunny Ade and turned it to a line image. I then proceeded to paint on overlays African tribal paintings that I'd seen in Riefenstahl's book. I printed a special gold to give the package an extra special quality and also printed on the reverse side of the board to create a special texture to the image.
Gipsy Kings - Commercial
This was the first official video I directed. I'd always wanted to direct and used to make Jazz videos on Super 8 during photosession's with the likes of Courtney Pine and the Jazz warriors. Finally I got my chance when our general manager Dave Domleo asked me if I'd like to pitch for it, so I did and got the job. I recruited my brother Pierre who worked in the film business who held my hand through the process. We shot the clip using members of Aswad, Mikey Campbell and King Sounds in black park near Pinewood studios. Brian Lofthouse was the DOP and
The Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra - Debut album
The problem was there's a lot of them in the orchestra. So what we needed was space. I always loved photographer Richards Haughton's work particularly his landscape images. So we got together and chose Brighton beach and it's stoney beaches. The idea was to manipulate the colour to create to create arty look.