Brian O'Driscoll

Got a call from Roisin in Hot Press, could I shoot Brian O'Driscoll in their offices at 2pm today? She was heading out to buy a rugby ball for him to sign and them to use in a competition. So I had a think about what I could do image wise and I had an idea to have him hold the ball with his middle finger, so it looks like he's flipping the bird (as our American cousins say).

With a late studio shoot arrival and one thing and another, I was running late, cue increasingly panicy calls from Roisin "are you here yet"? (ooops, still in my studio, downloading memory cards), "Are you here yet"? (just pulling into the carpark down the road). Anyway, I literally just had all the lights set up and ready to go when Brian walked in. Phew!

He didn't have much time (22 minutes to be exact) but was very nice and happy to pose with the ball the way I wanted him to. He just couldn't bend his ring finger due to tendon damage, he tried to bend it more using his little finger, but as you can see, could only get about half way.

Andrew from Hot Press acted as my (star struck) assistant and held the top of the ball in place and I removed his fingers afterwards, though I needn't have bothered, as they cropped out the top of the photo anyway. The New Year off to a good start!

Lorraine Keane VIP Cover Feature

Really enjoyed this cover shoot for VIP Magazine. We shot it in the presidential suite of The Westin Hotel in Dublin. Lorraine is great fun to work with and very down to earth. Her 2 sisters are a Hair and Make-Up team and both very beautiful too. They did some great work with the different looks they created. My favourite is the smokey eyes look against the curtains and on the couch. For a bit of fun, I hired a smoke machine. At one stage it was pouring out the window and I expected the Fire Brigade at any minute, but worryingly no sign of them!

Jennifer Maguire

Jennifer Maguire was on The Apprentice with Alan Sugar a couple of years ago and has now re-invented herself as a TV presenter. She told some great stories about her time on The Apprentice, most of them unrepeatable, but as an insight into the way TV works and the way they edit things, very interesting.

Sleep deprivation seems to have been part of the plan to wear down the applicants. Jennifer told me, after being up since 5am and going on to win the task, the "winners" had to return to the house and get into their party gear so they could shoot their "reward", a dinner cooked by Jean Christope Novelli. Sounds good, doesn't it? This was at 3am! and they had to be back in the boardroom at 6am. Nice.

This was shot as a fashion shoot for Hot Press, out today.

Sharon Corr

Photographed the beautiful Sharon Corr of The Corrs for the latest Hot Press cover in my studio. We had such a laugh together. I was flirting like mad with her to get her to open up and give me a real expression and at one stage I said, "Sharon, you're laughing just a little too hard at my attempts to woe you, you're going to give me a complex to go with all my other ones" What's so funny about "You know you want to"???

Her brother Jim Corr was in my backing band for a little while during my music days and I remember asking him if he wanted to form a band together. He said no, he was working on something with his sister, which was Sharon! So I told her, it was all her fault that I'm here and she's there and it should have been me and Jim!

Like I said, we had a laugh.

She wants me, bigtime!

4 in 1 Hot Press Covers

Only 2 weeks ago I mentioned that I had 2 magazine covers on the newstands at the same time and said I'd have to go for the hat trick! Little did I know that I'd skip 3 and go straight for 4!

Well, it's a bit of a cheat really. Hot Press have issued 4 versions of the same issue with 4 different covers. Each one is a finalist in Guinness's Our Thursday (Arthur's Day, get it) They are flip covers too, which means there is a cover on the back of the main cover.

It was a very busy day, we shot all the bands in my studio and they did their interviews here too, so at one point I think there was about 20 people here. Normally it's very quiet and serene here, not that day.

Hot Press wanted various cover options which meant I had 25 different set ups to shoot. With and without instruments, white background & gold background, singer on their own (with and without instrument), singer with band and more!

Very tiring, and hard to remember if I'd shot all the variations, but I tried to keep the same energy for the last set up as I did for the first, otherwise it wouldn't be fair on the last band (bet you can't tell which one I shot last). I had an early night that night.

Who's on the main front cover? My very best friends The Script.

Who shot it? Not me.

Did I say my very best friends? I meant my very ex best friends!

Glenda VIP

I was really chuffed when VIP magazine rang to say Glenda Gilson, was being featured in the next issue, had requested that I be the photographer for the shoot. I get on really well with Glenda, she’s a real pro. It was fantastic to work with such a top team on the shoot, Paula Callan O’Keefe (make up), Michael Leong (hair & millenary) Alison McGilligan (stylist) & Elaine Prendergast (VIP Editor)

We shot it in an afternoon at the new Gibson Hotel next to the O2 in Dublin. Locations were limited as they didn’t want it to look like a hotel, but I think we managed to get enough for the feature. This issue is on the shelves now!

VIP has just asked me to do another shoot, with another beautiful Irish woman who I can’t name just yet!

Fight Like Apes

A wedding with a difference! We had such a laugh doing this new Hot Press cover shoot. MayKay and Pockets from Fight Like Apes or FLApes as they are known, were game for anything. The scary thing was, the dress we borrowed from Oxfam actually fitted Pockets! And he seemed a little too comfortable in it for my liking (joke).

If you look carefully, you'll see that MayKay isn't actually holding him up, she wouldn't have the strength, so I propped him up on some posing stools and covered it with the train of the dress. They have a great video that someone made for them using Lego, check it out HERE.

Caprice

Just finished a very quick fashion shoot with Caprice for Hot Press.

We only had about an hour of shooting time and we still managed to shoot 6 different outfits in 6 different locations! How did we do it?

Well, we shot it in The Dylan Hotel in Dublin, which has lots of different areas close together that look very different. Caprice was a pro and was right into it, no warming up, she delivered a different pose for every click. Amazingly she didn't blink in a single frame, which I have never seen before!

The last shot was in Caprice's bedroom and at one point everyone else, the stylist, make-up artist and hairdresser all disappeared to get one thing or another and so that left me alone with Caprice who was lying on the bed wearing one of the very fetching bras from her lingerie range and not for the first time I thought, I have a very varied and interesting job!

Hot Press is out on Thursday.

Cathy Davey and the snake

Friday afternoon last week Hot Press rings, "Mark can you do a shoot with Cathy Davey tomorrow afternoon?" "We need the images tomorrow afternoon too, as we're going to press". "Oh, and she wants to do the shoot with a snake, do you know any?"

Well, I didn't but I found one, a beautiful Burmese Albino Python called "Blayney".

Now the thing about Pythons is if they decide you look good enough to eat, it's like the weight of 2 double decker buses crushing your chest. The thing about Blayney is he's lovely and has been hand reared since he was a mere 12 inches long and taught that it's very naughty to wrap himself around someones neck.

Now the thing about photographing a snake with someone is it looks best when it's wrapped around someones neck, especially a neck as beautiful as Cathy Davey's, but try as we might, we couldn't get Blayney to stay put. It's quite an amazing feeling having this 14 foot very heavy pure muscule thing constantly moving at both ends, while the tail is wrapping itself around you upper thigh, the head end is trying to unwind and get off your neck!

Fair play to Cathy, she was very gentle with Blayney and eventually we got enough, but not the shot I had in my head.

We then switched to a Victorian look that Cathy was interested in exploring. It's fantastic when the subject is really into photography themselves and willing to collaborate in the process to make something good. We had a great time and I can't wait to work with her again, as she kindly said she wanted to.

Nude for Thought

The latest fashion shoot for Hot Press. The theme was "nude" clothing. Really great team this time. The stylist Karl Smith did a brilliant job, all the ladies especially loved the shoes! Lorraine Browne did the hair beautifully and Naomh Kirwan did her usual superb job with the make up.

The model Leah Duff really got into character and produced some fab poses!

Christy Moore

When Hot Press called and said Christy Moore was coming to my studio for a cover shoot, I nearly fell off my chair! Usually I meet them somewhere else and have little time to check locations etc, it also means I have to bring the studio to them. This was a first with Christy coming to here.

I was a bit nervous and with about half an hour to go, was just getting everything ready when Mick, Christy's friend rang to say they were running early and would be there in a few minutes! So I quickly shoved half a sandwich in my mouth and turned on the studio lights. And there he was, at my door!

I needn't have worried, Christy was wonderful, he walked straight into the studio, took off his coat and sat down and starting playing me a brand new song about a Navajo woman that even Mick had never heard. I had to pinch myself, Christy Moore sitting in my studio singing me a new song, mad or what? I hadn't realised what a funny guy he is and very quick with the retort. We were talking about platform shoes and I said it wasn't fair that women had these great heels and most of us men could do with a extra couple of inches, well, like I say he was very quick with the retort!

The shoot went really well and I got loads of great images that may surface at some stage. He slowly added layers of clothing and his hat, then his guitar over the shoulder and before I realised what he was doing, he was off! Laughing all the way.

If you even make Christy a cup of tea, he likes two teabags in a mug and leave them in!