Tuesday 31 August 2010

ELLE Kate Hudson 25th Anniversary Issue



Here is the new cover of ELLE which just hit newsstands today. It's the 25th Anniversary issue. It was a real pleasure to be creative director on such a massive issue of the magazine. Kate was an absolute dream to work with. We shot this at her holiday home in Tuscany with my old mate, Ben Hassett. I wanted to update the iconic 80s cover that ELLE was so synonymous with back in the day. Sharon Dowsett did a fantastic job with the make up, updating the whole retro look. I threw some diagonal type on there for good measure. Check out the behind the scenes video at www.elleuk.com

La Rochelle Aquarium
























Sunday 29 August 2010

Holy Zucchini!!





I am no gardener, but when the Brooke family returned from holiday we found this beast lurking in our vegetable patch, and I'm sure it can't be normal. The children were astonished, and are used here for relative sizing purposes. My good friend Mr Natty is a keen horticulturalist and I am sure he will be mightily impressed by this prize courgette. Well done Mrs Brooke for cultivating such a whopper.

The Independent on Saturday





Matt Brooke photographer hat on: here is some menswear editorial I shot for The Independent Saturday Magazine. A mix and match tailoring story. Styling by the delightful Mr Lee Holmes, grooming by Mr Matt Raine (Mr Natty himself). Digital and lighting assistance by the flying Finn, Mr Petri Haggren and the dapper young chap in the smart clobber is Mr Tom Warren. Post-production courtesy of the tremendous chaps at Mullis Morgan.

Bar Vitelli, Savoca, Sicily

On a recent location scout I was delighted to stumble upon Savoca, the village where they filmed the Sicilian scenes of The Godfather. It was a very odd experience as I had, only two weeks previously, turned on my television in a French hotel room and found this exact scene being played out. Incredibly the bar is preserved virtually identically to as it was when the movie was filmed almost 40 years ago. Maurizio, our local production guide, assured me it would have even had the same wooden chairs and tables had the owner, Maria, not sadly passed away last summer. By all accounts she was a very engaging character who ran the bar with a passion until her last days, making her famous granita lemoni everyday. Her nephew now runs the bar, and I suspect it is very similar still to how it was, save for the generic new rattan chairs and tourist t-shirts. A nicer touch is the video running in an ante-room of Maria describing her village and love of la campagna. It is a lovely spot, quite apart from its Hollywood history, and I can vouch that the granita is still ottimo. Although, Maurizio disagrees.


The granita machine


The late Maria, in her bar


There are plenty of movie stills framed inside the bar






The bar today




The original tables were like these typical Sicilian ones here



Tuesday 10 August 2010

Ortigia



Most original use of scaffolding I've seen.

Gatwick







There's no evidence of Eero Saarinen or Norman Foster at Gatwick. What a depressing airport.

Friday 6 August 2010

Spigaou Bike



Loving this. Saw it in Provence last week. Check out www.spigaou.fr

Daks - Autumn Winter 10







Here's the new Daks London campaign I art directed for AW10. Nice to be working with Mr Phil Poynter again, with styling by Cathy Kasterine. Our models are Sigrid Agren and Ollie Edwards. Looking forward to SS11 already!

ELLE Emily Blunt September Issue



Here's the new cover of ELLE, where I am now Acting Creative Director. We shot this in New York with Matthias Vriens McGrath back in June. Emily was lovely and looking great in all that lace. Look out for the 25th Anniversary issue next month!

Tom Eckersley



Spotted this nice example of Eckersley in Odéon, Paris. The man was a genius... see more here
http://www.rennart.co.uk/eckersley.html

Brasserie Lipp Typography

Nice Trunks







Lover's Lock





On Pont des Arts young (and maybe old) lovers and friends attach these padlocks to the fences to proclaim their ties - until some official from the council turns up with his bolt cutters that is.

Paris in the rain



More Scotland


A cracking Joke Shop


Love this GB sticker, unfortunately the company that makes them has gone under, so they didn't have any.