A series celebrating the talent of our friends in the Londonist Flickr pool. This week, Kris Wood, aka Kris Doubleyou, shares some of his favourite London shots.
xLondonist Behind The Lens: Kris Wood
Last Updated 30 November 2012
I fell into photography almost by accident. After finishing a degree in Advertising a matter of days before the recession kicked in I returned to London jobless and without a lot of prospects.
Thankfully, my Photoshop skills helped me get a job as a retoucher and image processor for the Trinity Mirror Southern, a group of regional papers covering Surrey and West London. At the paper, I was lucky enough to work with some fantastic photographers, they may not be household names but their work really inspired me to pick up a camera.
Initially I would just wander between London and my hometown of Staines (now the ludicrously named Staines-Upon-Thames), trying to capture images I could work with in Photoshop, but, partly thanks to the wealth of different things to capture in this city, I began to try and take actual photographs, eventually going on to cover some events for the paper as a fully fledged press photographer.
Shortly after this, I found myself working at Channel 4, in the heart of Westminster, creating bespoke picture content, helping the Picture Editor manage all of the picture requirements for the channel and even doing some video work. Again, it was the people I was working with that really helped me grow, ironing out my bad habits and teaching me a whole new set of skills as we travelled the country shooting everything from interviews and set tours to Paralympic taster days.
Nowadays, I’m the Channel 5 Picture Editor by day and a freelance photographer/retoucher by night; I’m also a member of the UK Picture Editor’s Guild and was a judge for the UKPEG Awards 2012. I do a lot of personal projects too, which tend to focus on portraiture, but every so often I like to throw something new into the mix and pound the streets of London with a new lens (the newest being a Samyang 8mm) or a new camera hack (the last was a DIY 12 Stop ND filter made from welding glass) and capture as many photographs as I can using just that basic set up.
The benefit of hindsight has taught me that I owe a lot of my career to this city, where else could you cut your teeth photographing non league football and scout troops and find yourself working with celebrities and sports stars less than five years later?
For more, see Kris's website and his Tumblr Fisheye & Chips.
Rifle through the Londonist Behind The Lens archives here.