The Birds
Devon, United Kingdom – 2020
There is a famous scene in The Birds, when Hedren – alone in a tiny boat – is first attacked by a seagull. That was the moment I wanted to recreate. The special effects in the movie are now somewhat mocked, but for 1963, he did one hell of a job in creating terror. Like Spielberg with Jaws a dozen years later, his limited post production toolkit did not detract from his creation. Jaws famously made 50 times its cost of production, whilst The Birds only made four, but they are both classics of the screen and they do unequivocally stand the test of time.
For our recreation, I wanted as expansive and layered a narrative as possible. Why be lame? There is a lighthouse 18 miles out to sea from our home called Eddystone. It was first built in 1698, over 70 years before people first settled in San Francisco and I rather liked that. Over and above that, it offered a special backdrop if it were to come off. It was a long shot – the English Channel is not friendly and getting a tiny wooden boat out there would be challenging, even before dropping our very own Tippi Hedren into it.
The last piece of the jigsaw was getting the seagulls. I want to thank Ian Perks – the Godfather of the trawling fleet in the busiest fishing port in England, Brixham – for arranging the trawlers to gut their fish on location rather than back at base. “Build it and they will come”.
At about 6.10 pm on a glorious mid-June evening it all came off. The benign weather made the feared English Channel a mill pond, the birds came and Bella Di Lorenzo, in her tiny rowing boat, was a fearless superstar.
AVAILABLE SIZES (Framed):
LARGE
- 71” x 107”
STANDARD
- 52” x 76”
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your artwork. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
South By Southwest II
Hitchcock often used new talent as his female lead for his films – Tippi Hedren being a case in point and we followed his lead in this series by casting Bella Di Lorenzo from London.; She did a great job and this image with the plane is so powerful that we wanted to show it. We know that we are deviating from the script of ‘North by North West’ and the specific prompt, but there are no rules in art. The photograph is striking – as is she.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE
- 180.3 × 177.8 cm
SMALL
- 132.1× 129.5 cm
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your artwork. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Rocket Man
La Paz, Mexico – 2021
I have always wanted to find an excuse to call a photograph Rocket Man and I doubt I will ever find a better opportunity.
I prefer to photograph with the sun between 9am and 3pm to my 6pm, but to shoot directly into the lowering sun is too much. The boat captain had that directive when considering his constant repositioning. In brief moments of time like this, it would be disingenuous to suggest I had much say in the matter. It is more a case of winging it and hoping for the best. We just got lucky.
Camera autofocus has improved so much over the years and the Nikon flagship – the D6 – is ideal for capturing this sort of sudden explosion from below, but the mobula ray behaviour tests it to the full. It remains the most challenging of technical tests and for every hit, I had many misses. The quiet serenity of the Sea of Cortez was punctuated by splats from the rays and expletives from me.
This was the angle I was looking for – head on and high. The ray needed to be pin sharp and this time I got him. Rocket Man indeed.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE
- 180.3 × 180.3cm
SMALL
- 137.2 × 137.2 cm
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your artwork. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Bodega Bay
The second from my series that is a play on Hitchcock’s masterpiece – The Birds. The photograph places British models David Gandy and Bella di Lorenzo in a banged up 1961 Sunbeam Rapier with the Atlantic Ocean as the backdrop. I know the area well and the image was easy to preconceive, but damn hard to capture.
The topography of the coast here in Devon is not dissimilar to the film location of Bodega Bay in northern California and I found a road location that would work well with the morning light. I wanted a big sky and a layered narrative, so I knew long before we shot that I would be working with a wide-angle lens from the car bonnet, with limited depth of field. I rather liked the fencing behind as well – so reminiscent of the opening scene in Jaws – 2 iconic horror films rolled into one.
David is a total professional and Bella is an intelligent young star who can assume a role quickly, so the problem was always going to be the gull. They are not shy in this part of the world and regularly dive bomb our dog. But getting seagulls to dive bomb Bella – in the way they did with Tippi Hedren in the movie – was a challenge, especially in a limited time period.
The answer was to shoot twice and remove the models from the second shot and indeed the photographer. There was still much to do in terms of the gull’s trajectory and the placing of the remote-controlled camera positions. We learnt quickly, however, that seagulls can be very focused when a piece of bread is brought into the equation.
The eye to eye contact is bang on – better than we could have hoped for and I think everyone did a very solid job. It’s a wrap!
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE
- 71 × 79 in (180.3 × 200.7 cm)
SMALL
- 52 × 57 in (132.1 × 144.8 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your artwork. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.