Go ahead, it won’t take a tick.

Right then. All caught up? Brilliant.

Looking back at it, it feels weird. That day started out with me getting ready to go on a quick 3 day break with my wife before the baby arrived and turned our lives upside down. Now, here I was, less than 12 hours later sitting in a hospital room alone, having just been diagnosed with full blown Leukemia & wondering what the hell was going to happen to me. They had even gotten me started on the basic pill chemotherapy that all Leukemia patients would start.

At the time, I was classed as neutropenic. Put simply, the things that create white bloods, neutrophils, were either infected or not working, and without white bloods cells, my body couldn’t fight any infection.

And it gets a little worse.

Because I was neutropenic, I had to be monitored every 4 hours. That meant checking blood pressure, temperature and oxygen levels. Every 4 hours, even if you’re sleeping.

Between being disturbed every 4 hours and being alone with your thoughts, you run through all sorts of scenarios in your head. I went through all 7 stages of grief in less than 24 hours. There was some bargaining, a fair bit of looking in the mirror telling myself to “pull it together man”, and a lot of tears as it dawned on me that my one ultimate responsibility in life – providing food, shelter & safety for my wife and kid – might not be a possibility.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless in my life.

In the beginning we didn’t know what type of Leukemia it was. As far as I was concerned Leukemia was Leukemia was cancer. One and the same. So in order to fill the time, I read. I read anything I could get my hands on. I got nurses to bring me leaflets & printouts. I  must have burned through most of my mobile phone’s data allowance that night. Information was power, and getting more information kept me busy and my mind occupied. What I didn’t realize was that there are 4 main types of Leukemia with various subtypes of each one. You’d be surprised how quickly you become an “expert” on a subject that might kill you.

The next day, a whole team of doctors, nurses & health care assistants came in. The results had come back and it turns out that the type of cancer I had was a rare one. So rare, that the senior hematology consultant had only seen 8 cases including mine! On the plus side, this type of Leukemia was VERY receptive to treatment. *phew!* And it also meant I was eligible to participate in a  medical trial measuring the various side effects of two “standard” types chemotherapy treatment used in Europe but not it the UK. Both forms of treatment were normal in other countries with neither having any better rate of success than the other. In all honesty, if any one of the treatments had had a better success rate than the other I would’ve been selfish for once and gone with that (Hey, I had a baby on the way!), but as everything was equal here I figured that at the very least I could contribute to the research being carried out. So I signed up and let the research computer randomly assign me to one of the treatments. 10 minutes later, I found out I had been assigned to the Arsenic regime.

You heard right. Arsenic.

Now, the consultants were over the moon! Me? I heard “Arsenic” and the rest was a blur. All I heard was that garbled noise that the adults made in the old “Charlie Brown” TV shows, all the while picturing two old ladies killing single men and burying them in their basement.

(If you haven’t seen “Arsenic and Old Lace“, go ahead and find it. It’s a chuckle)

It turns out, the Arsenic treatment has been used in Italy and America since early 2000. Why the consultants were so happy was that a) The Leukemia I had was found to respond very well to that type of treatment and b) the side effects were minimal compared to standard chemotherapy.

For those of you unfamiliar with what chemotherapy does, it destroys your body indiscriminately. Think of it like napalm for your blood. The arsenic would attack everything down to the bone marrow. This naturally, leaves your body a bit worse for wear while it recovers from the treatment.

So I was scheduled for 4 course of treatment and told that the first one would start as soon as I could be fitted with the proper IV line.

In the meantime, I started to get to grips with the pill schedule. (more on that later)

Well…

I was hoping to finish up the story with this installment, but it looks like I’ve got a few more to go.

A big thanks to everyone who’s tweeted or emailed their support, it means a great deal.

Back? Good.

With a crazy February (London Fashion Week is always a little mental), work with the Sussex Symphony Orchestra taking up a chunk of the first half of the year and a baby on the way, I was running around like a mad man! Throughout it all though, I’d noticed that I was getting a little tired and occasionally out of breath after doing little things that shouldn’t have been causing me any problems. Then, while renovating the kitchen, I noticed a massive bruise on my arm where I’d supported the weight of a cabinet. This, coupled with the shortness of breath got the wheels turning over in the old brain. Shortness of breath? Odd bruising? Probably should go and see the doctor.

Later that week, after getting a blood test done first thing in the morning and speaking to my GP about the situation, he suggested that I was possibly anemic, but the blood test would confirm exactly what was going on. The results should have take a week to come back, which was fine, as the wife and I were going to get a final holiday out in the countryside before the arrival of the baby.

They phoned me at 3:00pm that same day.

“Stop what you’re doing, get to the hospital. Quote these two reference numbers and DON’T get put into the emergency waiting room”

What the..??

Arriving at the hospital, we were isolated in a room away from other people and the doctor started to put together a medical history.

It turns out that shortness of breath, the pale complexion and mystery bruising was because I had full-blown Leukemia.

Cancer.

Oh. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

A million things ran through my mind in that moment.

• How serious was my condition?
• Cancer?
• We had a baby due in about two months!
• Cancer!?
• How would we keep the roof over our head with the wife about to go on maternity leave?
• Fuck! Cancer!!
• Am I going to live?

It turns out my immune system was in the same shape as somebody already undergoing chemotherapy, which is to say, I had no immune system at all. It was so bad that If we hadn’t gotten the phone call and had sat next to somebody with a little cold, there was a very strong likelihood that I would have caught it. And because I had no immune system with which to fight off the infection, something that would normally be a minor inconvenience could have killed me.

They took me up to a private room, and explained that what was going to happen over the next 24 hours. They took some more blood tests, and a bone marrow biopsy (ever seen one of those little kitchen apple corers? imagine one the size of a ballpoint pens ink reservoir. Now imagine it digging some bone marrow out of your hip. Joy!) in order to determine exactly what type of Leukemia I had. Once they knew that, they could put together a plan of attack.

I said goodnight to the wife, and settled into the room. Once all the tests had been taken, the Night Sister told me to “get used to the room” as I was probably going to be in there for quite a few months.

(and breathe…) Well..

This post has turned out to be a bit longer than I thought. If you made it this far, thanks! It looks like I’m going to split this up into a second post for later on.

More to come.

First though, the fatherhood thing.

Late 2011, my wife and I found out we were pregnant (Well, I say “we”, I was in no way pregnant. This body would’ve been sold to science quicker than you could say “fixed-rate mortgage”). It’s an amazing thing, it was something we had wanted, and it was a long road to get there, but nothing could have prepared me for how your life as a couple changes. For the next 9 months we found our lives changing faster and faster.

Aside from the obvious body shape changes, you become bombarded with all sorts of information.

Germs – For heavens sake, don’t get on any form of public transportation!
Diet – No more rare steaks for you! (On that note, did you like Lamb? Pray your taste buds don’t change their mind.)
Music – Did you know that if you wear headphones around the bump the baby will be infinitely smarter?

And that’s just the “helpful” information we were getting from family and friends. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. In this day of information at your fingertips and the “There’s an App for that” culture, we often found it difficult to be able to filter out the noise. In the end, we found that by trusting our instinct, we got on just fine.

Nothing can prepare you for the cost!! The kid wasn’t even born yet and was a) costing us a small fortune, and b) kicking me out of my office. Sorry, NURSERY. But seriously, if you think as photographers we pay a tax on ridiculous gadgets that say “photography” or “camera” on it, wait until you have to purchase anything that says “baby” on it.

This conversation, and many similar, happened:
“£75 for a bag?!”
“It’s a baby changing bag.”
“but… SEVENTY FIVE POUNDS?!”

(It was then pointed out to me that I had many camera bags, all rather expensive and with no discernible difference between them…)

All joking aside, we were fortunate – very little out of the ordinary happened (at least, as far as the pregnancy was concerned, but I’ll get into that in part 2). The boy grew in line with all the recommended charts. Ankles got swollen, moods were swung, cribs were built and in the end, barring a particularly “enthusiastic” delivery (No details on that, the wife would kill me), were we presented with an awesome, healthy little package.

He’s changed my life. He’s given it an absolute focus and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Update: Part 2 is here**

Well… So much for a “consistent posting schedule”! I have a good excuse however. Two good excuses really…

2012 was a bit of a crazy year, with 2 notable incidents that really took me away from the website. I’ll get into it in more details another post soon, but suffice to say. 2012 was monumental.

But for now, here’s a quick tease.

The highlight of the year:

Guess who’s going to be a dad!?

And the low of the year:

Meet Baxter

Some other little changes. I’ve added a little Tumblr account to document all those little bits, or snapshots that don’t really warrant a proper blog post. You’ll find a link to it in the main menu.
See you in a few.

Jim was looking for some shots that weren’t the usual party shots. Instead, a fun record of who was there that evening was the brief. I think we managed to meet his expectations nicely.

Here’s a small selection from the evening.

Now, back to our scheduled programming…

Lewes (Pronounced “Loo-is” for my North American friends), a small town just north east of Brighton with a population of around 15,000. Lovely place, nice pubs and home to one of my favourite events of the year, the Lewes Bonfire, or Bonfire Night – Guy Fawkes Night celebrations on the 5th of November is arguably the town’s most important annual event.

In Lewes this event not only marks the date of the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, but also commemorates the memory of the seventeen Protestant martyrs burnt at the stake for their faith during the Marian Persecutions.

The celebrations, which controversially involve burning effigies of the Pope and other timely figures (This year saw Gaddafi getting lit up), are the largest and most famous Bonfire Night celebrations in the country with an average of 50,000 people coming into town to watch the processions, dodge “Rooks” (small firecrackers usually dropped near your feet by the procession)  and enjoy the fireworks displays.

Here’s a small selection of shots from the night. Many thanks to James McCauley, Kate Benjamin and Rob Orchard for making the annual event even more enjoyable.

The orchestra, run entirely by a team of dedicated volunteers who do everything from hiring music,  sorting out seating, selling tickets to the designing of the promotional material show an immense amount of pride in the work that they do which comes through in the work they produce.

I had the pleasure of working with their in-house designer, Kate Benjamin, last year and after bouncing some ideas around we came up with a nice little piece on how the Sussex Symphony Orchestra is more than just another orchestra like any out there. This was Sussex’s orchestra! Not just for a select few, it was made of up the people living and working in the area and it was a family affair. We highlighted some of the couples and families that had been formed because of the orchestra and I think we ended up with a lovely result.

With the SSO happy with the end product, and feedback being quite positive it looks as though they’re happy to continue developing our working relationship. I can’t say I’m unhappy about that! I’ve already started putting together a few ideas for this year, and can’t wait to start working with the orchestra and Kate again. and don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted about those developments here as well.

This week brings you London based brand Izmaylova, run by duo Antonina Izmaylova and Nathanael Gam. With an Orient Express themed show, complete with  conductors checking your “train ticket” invitations and vintage suitcases set about a bench in the middle of the Freemasons Hall. Styled by LOVE magazine’s Victoria Young, who stated that “IZMAYLOVA is an amazingly elegant brand for the modern woman who wants to incorporate old fashioned glamour into her life whilst still retaining a ‘cool’ edge”.

A quick bit of background on Bryce… Born in France, Bryce Aime moved to London in 1998 to study at world-renowned Central Saint Martins College of Art, where he graduated with a BA Honours in 2005. Designer Aime launched his eponymous label the following year, presenting a highly successful debut collection for Spring/Summer 2007 using his love for modern architecture and its technically challenging design as the inspiration to guide his vision.

Now, back to our heroes.

I’d met Jay McLaughlin at London Fashion Week in February and had been keeping in touch with him from time to time. If you haven’t seen his work, be sure to check out his website, his portfolio is lovely, and his blog is full of helpful information for everyone. Jay had sent out a tweet earlier that week looking for two assistants for a hush-hush shoot during Fashion Week. A secret shoot? In London? During Fashion Week? I’m there!

We met up with Karl Gregory, another photographer Jay had worked with in the past, and made our way to the Mayfair hotel where we took delivery of the gear for the evening. We were using 4 Broncolor Scoro A2S 1600  heads with generator packs, I’d never used these before and being used to my Bowens 500′s I was blown away by the sheer power these generators put out! We had to light the bedroom of the penthouse suite so that the light coverage was consistent, using a third light as the key light and keeping the fourth light in reserve should it be needed.

Throughout the shoot we had the heads lighting the room firing at nearly full power, and not once did they fail. The quick refresh times, and consistency of light quality across the room blew me away! Sure, it sounded light the tubes had blown up every time the shutter button was pressed, but they never failed us.

With a live audience coming in and out of the room, a small army of stylists, makeup artists and illustrators in the shooting space, and a deadline approaching as the models needed to be out of the hotel inside the hour, Jay set about creating a series of images.working quickly and efficiently became the priority. Between Karl doing doing double duty of crowd control and cable management, me  manning the key light & the models being absolute professionals, Jay was able the get a good selection of images for the final edit.

Job done (for now), we reviewed the images taken, satisfied with what he had, Jay began finalizing the little details with Bryce while Karl & I began the tearing down the equipment.

I realize this comes off a little “rambley”, and I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but when you’re kept so busy that you can only manage to snap off three pictures on your iPhone, you take what you can get! Hopefully you’ve found it enjoyable, and if you’ve any questions, please, leave a comment below.

For more information on the people mentioned click through the links below. (Do it, you know you want to!)

Jay McLaughlin (Photographer)

Bryce Aime (Designer)

Access Fashion

Sabina Emrit (Stylist)

8D Fashion Film and HL8 Production 

Karl Gregory (Photo Assistant) 

After being asked to design a coat for Michelle Obama earlier in the year, the buzz around the Nigerian born designer, Bunmi Olaye (Bunmi Koko)  show this season was tangible, the room was full of the types of people usually reserved for a movie premier. I have to admit, I was looking forward to the collection since shooting her A/W 2011 show last season

The venue was upstairs at the Freemasons Hall and I wanted to shoot this one a little differently to how I usually shoot a show, to showcase the fantastic surroundings as well. The lights dimmed, and the voice of twelve year old Tallia Storm began to fill the room. Singing for the whole show, she really lent a mythical air to the whole show.

Enjoy!