You were working on several campaigns at the same time: did you and Nigel discuss the look of the shot in detail? Or were you both pretty much on the same wavelength?

Graham Ford: ‘That summer of ’85 I was also working on Benson & Hedges with Graham Fink, Silk Cut for Paul Arden, Volvo for John Horton, Atora and Clarkes for Nigel, Hennessy for Guy Moore, BMW for Kathy Heng and Citroen for Dennis Lewis. I was very busy!

Nigel would have drawn a loose layout which the agency and client would have approved in principle – art directors could actually draw in those days – and we’d discuss the detail with the stylist and modelmaker. When we had everything ready on the set we would progress together, a process of discovery using lots of Polaroid.

Art directors like Nigel knew what they wanted, and they understood photography. There is a long journey from sketch to billboard, as everything had to be made by hand, assembled, lit, brought into focus, and distilled onto one sheet of film. Nigel knew my style, we trusted each other and knew we could make this work.’

Are you the kind of photographer who works everything out on paper, or do you prefer to evolve the shot until you’re happy enough to go ahead?

Graham Ford: ‘Both. I would calculate distances, sizes and lens angles, and I would set up a test and plan as much as I could beforehand. Don’t forget, the models were real and couldn’t be changed after they were made, and that sometimes took weeks. The pack had to fit the bowl, the table had to fit the set. Having got everything working in front of the camera, I could then be more free and inventive with the lighting and composition and look for those extra touches that added interest and atmosphere.

I set aside one week for this shoot, but the planning and model-making began a few weeks before and I needed to commission the model-maker well in advance. Everything was a team effort, Nigel and I both did the briefings together. Terry Kemble made the miniature model pack and fixed it in the bowl, I decided to use glycerine instead of water, because it doesn’t create bubbles, would not attack the model pack, has a high refractive index, and would not evaporate.’

— Read the rest of Graham Ford’s B&H Goldfish at sprks.com

Photo: Graham Ford, Art Director: Nigel Rose, Model-maker: Terry Kemble. Shot in Graham Ford’s studio in wonderful Westbourne Grove, London, 1985.
This feature © Ken Sparkes. All Rights Reserved.

—

The Bennison Fabrics 2012 calendar just has been released and it looks terrific. Like the previous calendar we wanted to showcase the fabrics in an eye-catching way and create images that would be remembered. So, we thought a childhood theme would do the trick, nostalgic but with a twist. Jude Massie-Taylor suggested Fairy Stories, I liked the idea of Nursery Crimes. We combined the two themes, went to our desks and began to sketch.

Our Mary Poppins sketch left quite a lot to the imagination, which is fortunate because our original intention to find a suitable rooftop location was doomed. With time running out, I had to think of something else.

We photographed Kim standing on a tall chair while she tried to hold the umbrella and look as though she was airborne at the same time. I had snapped the Battersea Power Station photo just a week or two before, having been soaked by the storm that you see in the final image.

Read the rest of the feature: New Year Resolution: Bennison Calendar 2012

—

Photos © Ken Sparkes. Art Director/Stylist: Jude Massie-Taylor, Costume Design: Sophia Lovell Smith, Hair and Makeup: Elaine Smith, Shot at Bennison Fabrics, near Sloane Square, and other miscellaneous locations around London. All Rights Reserved.

About half way along the Sicily’s North Coast is Cefalu, and just a little further is the tiny village of Castel di Tusa which at first glance has little to offer; a bar emitting pop music and the whiff of a typical café kitchen, a few fishing boats pulled up on the harbour front, a coach of schoolchildren. Except it happens to be home to one of the most extraordinary hotels you are ever likely to check into. Atelier sul Mare is the brainchild of Antonio Presti, who had the insane idea that guests would travel miles off the beaten track to a hotel that allowed you to stay and sleep inside a piece of art.

Sixteen or so of its 40 rooms have been created by an international collection of artists who have been given the freedom to push the boundaries of what constitutes a hotel room to the very limit. We chose the Pasolini Room (also called the Prophet Room) by Dario Bellezza, Adele Camria and Antonio himself. The black metal door is covered with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s poetry, cantilevered so we can knock it down should we want to, and opens into an impossibly narrow, pitch-dark corridor which requires us to turn our wheelie suitcases sideways. The room is large and all walls and ceilings are plastered with straw and mud. It shouldn’t work, but it does! The effect is at first perplexing, then strangely comforting …

Read more about Atelier sul Mare on sprks.com

—

Atelier sul Mare, via Cesare Battisti 4, 98079 Castel di Tusa, Sicily.
T: +39 0921 334 295 W: ateliersulmare.it
Words & Photos: © Ken Sparkes All Rights Reserved.

We’re not sure what to call it: is it a classy caravan or an ultra-chic pad with wheels? The distinction is the m-house’s raison d’etre and it’s greatest obstacle. Tim Pyne wanted a house on a bit of Essex estuary but was told he could only have a mobile home. Something on wheels, below a certain size, which arrives on site in no more than two big pieces. The planning laws do not, however, say that it had to be flimsy or look tacky so, together with Michael Howe of mae architects, he has produced a 2-bedroom, 900 sq foot designer home that is totally complete and can be assembled in a day with minimal planning permission.

‘This gives a good idea of the space in the living area. A lot of people try to plan homes into shells which are 3 meters wide, and frankly, it doesn’t work – it feels miserable. Someone needs to tell our housebuilders that. Do you know they actually make special 90% scale furniture for show homes to make them look bigger? Incredible.’ …

Read the rest of the m-house feature on sprks.com

—

Words & Photos: © 2011 Ken Sparkes. First published June 2006. All Rights Reserved

Anyone who has lived or stayed in South Kensington knows that you don’t have to hop on the Eurostar to get un petit peu de Paris. For years we have read articles about how proliferously French cafés, restaurants and boutiques have been popping up on the local high streets of South Kensington, Chelsea, North East Hackney and Islington. Well, they could hardly resist De Beauvoir town. We’ve all become quite accustomed to walking into nice restaurants and being greeted with “Bonjour, Monsieur/Madame…” or listening to the conversation next to us on the tube trying our best to remember the little French we learned in school. Le Monde sits happily next to The Times on the top rack at the local store in the tube station. It is far easier and more common to get coffee and croissants than an English fry-up on your way to work. And let’s not forget our undying love of Marion Cotillard.

But there it is: you will soon see signs around London carrying the Olympic Logo and French writing. With English subtitles. Don’t worry, you haven’t been beamed to Paris; France has come to you.

The Olympic Games were revived by Monsieur Baron Pierre de Coubertin in the late 19^th century and thus the IOC, was based in Lausanne, a primarily French speaking town in Switzerland so French became the official language. We must point out at this stage that his inspiration came from an annual Games tradition originally held in the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Seriously! Us Brits do really start the ball rolling with most things.

Check out our Francophile Favourite South Kensington properties.

Words: © 2011 Victoria Bond Elliot. All Rights Reserved. Via Accommodate London

It never rains but it pours, or so it seems. I have used Flickr as an online scrapbook for many years but Yahoo, who own and run Flickr, seem to be have left their prime photo site out in the rain recently and it can’t communicate with PayPal for Pro account renewals. That means all but the most recent photos have disappeared, including photos linked to Bennison email campaigns and any links to sets or collections I’ve emailed to friends, colleagues or clients. Apparently they are still there, but we can only find them by searching for the right keywords. ‘Oh well, plenty more fish in the sea’, I hissed, and went in search of an alternative.

500px was founded by photography fanatics Ian Sobolev, Oleg Gutsol and Evgeny Tchebotarev and looks very much like a site for people who take photography seriously. The site is attractive, is easy to use. It lacks many of Flickr’s bells and whistles and currently has only a few integrations, so probably kinder to people with time-management failings. I uploaded a few photos to see how the portfolio section worked, linked my profile, tinkered with the settings, logged out and went to do some proper work.

My GMail notifier started flashing. I had mail. Lots of it. This rain-swept umbrella picture had 11,500 views, 42 pages of votes and comments, and became Editor’s Choice soon after. The 500px community is enthusiastic, engaged, active and there are some very good photographers on there…

Read the rest of the 500px mini-review on sprks.com

—

Words & Photo: © 2011 Ken Sparkes. All Rights Reserved.

You’ve decided to let out your property for short-term holiday rentals while you head for the sunshine, and the agency is sending over a photographer to do some spiffy pics. As a rent-virgin, you are not sure what to expect and perhaps a trifle uneasy about splashing photos of your intimate sanctuary all over the interwebs. However, the success of your rental, and therefore the exoticness of your own holiday, is in direct proportion to the attractiveness of your property, so how to you make the most out of what you’ve got? I’m a partner at posh London agency AccommodateLondon.com so I thought some practical guidance would be useful:

Q: By spooky coincidence, we booked your photographer to come on laundry day. Is it okay to leave the house festooned with knickers and damp tracksuit bottoms?
A: No. Unless you have booked a super-model to wear them, please hide all extraneous undergarments and clothing.

Q: We restored all the original Victorian fireplaces, so how do we show them off?

A: Don’t leave them empty. Empty fireplaces are mainly large, black, fire-damaged rectangles so they look best with a lit fire in them or piled up with logs. Second-choice would be a big vase of fresh flowers, something arty or something antique.

Q: What is the best time to photograph my pad?

A: Daytime… daytime during the summer. With gentle sunlight caressing all your beautiful bits and a gentle breeze sending a sensuous shiver through your curtains. Not nighttime, not on a dark winter’s day, not when the world has turned to grey. Not when you’re not in the mood for it.

Q: We are packing for our annual holiday and we’ve got the builders in, but you can kind of picture what it’s like under the dust-sheets and suitcases.
A: We can picture the chic interior underneath, but our cameras have no imagination whatsoever.

Q: We have a huge media centre, game consoles, gadgets galore and computers in every room, so that’s going to look great, no?
A: It’s probably going to look like the Robert de Niro scene from Brazil. Try to hide all the wires neatly, including the rat’s nest that always tangles the telephone and answering machine. Perhaps play a movie on the TV so it looks attractive. If all your gear is made by Apple and B&O then you may smugly ignore all this.

Q: Oh dear, so what about all my kitchen appliances?

A: We should keep the important ones and the good-looking ones. Hide the rest. If you have spent the equivalent of the Eurozone bailout with Boffi or Mila, you probably don’t want to display all the brightly coloured cleaning products either. If you have really good quality pots and pans, let’s show some of them. Most posh kitchens seem to have a bowl of lemons in them and if you have lemons, we will use them.

Q: How do we make our eye-wateringly expensive stainless steel kitchen appliances shimmer like new.
A: Clean thoroughly with a degreaser, rinse, wipe dry, then apply a thin coat of Baby Oil with a kitchen towel, and polish. Also, consider temporary removal of the children’s’ crayon drawings, calendars and Val d’Isere fridge magnets so we can see that your refrigerator is a Smeg.

Q: I’m dreading the next question… bathrooms?

A: You are right to be worried; the ‘smallest room’ can be the biggest pain. So, get rid of all the clutter, the rubber ducks, toys and neon pink toothbrushes. Keep nice stuff, posh fragrances, Jo Malone candles and bath oils. Towels must be clean, neutral or an accent colour, and possibly rolled up in piles rather than draped over the chic Bisque radiator. Show the world that you have new toilet rolls, and keep the toilet seats down.

Q: There is a bit of mould in the shower, but you don’t really notice it unless you are sitting down.
A: Granted, penicillin is usually a damned good thing, but it should be nurtured in petri dishes, not in our domestic interiors. Please try to get rid of it.

Q: The dining room is gorgeous, but it’s a bit of a domestic backwater. How can it be brought to the fore?

A: Easy, just get rid of the kids’ homework stuff and deck it out for a dinner party. If this strikes you as a bit of a hassle, just pretend that you are about to have a dinner party and place tasteful stacks of plates, cutlery and tableware ‘in preparation’ for a glitzy affair.

Q: The spare room is full of boxes now but will be re-decorated and furnished. Can we work around that?
A: Yes. You can tidy the room, perhaps put a bed in there temporarily, and explain the situation to potential clients. Or we can postpone the photography until the property is looking it’s best.

Q: This all sounds like hard work! Surely the agency or the photographer is responsible for all this, isn’t it their job?
A: The photographer will try to achieve the best results for you, but may have limited time on each property. You could demand that he arrive early with a selection of household cleaners to give the whole place a thorough going over and just see what he says to you.

Q: I’m sure you can Photoshop all the horrible bits, can’t you?
A: Photoshopping will cost you from £40 per hour and can transform a scruffy spare room into a palatial boudoir. However, we want to show what the interior looks like in reality, so we shouldn’t do this. Ever.

Q: Is there one styling trick to rule them all?
A: Declutter ruthlessly, put the best bits back very neatly. Then position one item at an arty angle.

Words: © 2011 Ken Sparkes. All Rights Reserved. Written for Accommodate London and conceived whilst dismantling a kid’s novelty Disney bed which the property owner had insisted was perfectly suitable for a grown man. Top photo: Tracey Emin – My Bed (courtesy Saatchi Gallery).

When she first saw this old, derelict textile factory in the centre of Barcelona, interior designer Cristina Rodriguez wasn’t even fazed – she knew that eventually it would be her home, and how right she was…

This was once a buzzing, thriving factory where people came to work day after day to produce fabrics and textiles. The huge space could have been daunting but, instead of feeling negative about it, Cristina plunged into a whirl of ideas and thoughts about how to make this vast area into various living zones without adding partitions or walls.

When she first designed it she was very particular that it should be a continuous space. The bedroom for example, is cleverly concealed behind the chimney and is only cut off from the living area by heavy curtains. Cristina has deliberately kept as many of the original features as possible like the brick walls and columns and where she has had to replace things she has tried to keep everything as authentic as possible. The wooden floor is made up from old railway sleepers and the windows, although brand new, are based on the old wooden ones but with an enamel covering.

Everything is based on industrial design. The sunken bath is made of polished concrete and is reminiscent of a Moorish bathhouse where Cristina and her family can relax as well as bathe. The fact that the whole house has no vivid colours and is very neutral means that you can walk from area to area and continuously feel at one. ‘I wanted to make this one large space that we could live in together, eat, sleep, bathe and work. It is very important that everything blends into one so I couldn’t have lots of colour otherwise it just would never have worked as it does. I love the tranquillity – the negative colours work here perfectly and it isn’t necessary to break it up.’

The L-shaped floor plan has two areas – the private one that is the main sitting area, bed and bathroom plus a guest room and then there is the kitchen, dining room and chill out space. Where Cristina has been particularly clever is in her design of the furniture. Often in such large spaces the furniture is totally out of proportion, but everything here is definitely on the large side and the scale of the high settees, huge lampshades and fabulous Indonesian kitchen chairs work really well.

Particularly fun are the swing and vast steel interlocking rings that are not just eye catching but are Cristina’s personal touch. ‘It’s rather like having a signature, I just wanted to make everyone smile when they walked in!’ Everything is very geometric – the straight lines of the furniture, the way the kitchen and dining room tables are aligned but Cristina likes it that way ‘It gives expression to everything and a sort of silent elegance.’

After being in the apartment for a while you do unwind – you feel that the furniture doesn’t invade your space – there is room to breathe and certainly on a stiflingly hot day in the middle of summer it must be a lifesaver to retreat back to this cool, calm scene.

Cristina Rodriguez-L’Atelier.
cristinarodriguez.com.es T: +34 93 200 14 56

I will be posting more photos on sprks.com  in the next month or so. If you would like to use any of these photographs, please contact me for more information. High-resolution images are available, including many more not shown here.

Photos ©2004 Ken Sparkes All Rights Reserved
Words: Lynda Clark.
First published in SPACES issue 07

Mention their names among the growing number of foreigners who are making Marrakech their home, and they will inevitably be greeted with nods of recognition and smiles of friendship. For the Europeans who have settled in Marrakech are a close-knit bunch, united by shared appreciation of the Moroccan way of life. In their ten years in Morocco, the two designers have become regular fixtures of the Medina. But, if the locals have grown accustomed to Fabrizio and Alessandra, you cannot help but wonder what they would make of their creation; the Ministero del Gusto.

Hidden in the exuberant bustle, the Ministero del Gusto is to be found in a small alley hidden behind a near invisible opening by one of the main arteries of the Medina. But, as soon as you step inside, there is no mistaking that this is something altogether different. The Ministero is not so much a home as a showcase for their design talents, it is an indication to potential clients of just what a unique space Fabrizio and Alessandra could create for them.

The first thing that strikes you is the incredible open courtyard in the centre of the building, where the sun shines down through the small opening in the roof, to cast the most wonderful and changing light upon the water beneath and the rough textured orange walls. Long wooden poles are suspended over the clear blue water and serve as a focal point, a centre of attention in this fantastic space. But, like any truly successful design, the real wonder of the Ministero is not solely visual. It is in its ability to captivate all of your senses and to affect your state of mind. The space is cool and calming, an escape from the Moroccan sun, but the infusion of light from above and the rich orange walls lift the spirits and remind you of just what a magical place is to be found beyond the front door.

Simultaneously a haven away from the frenetic hustle of the Medina and a connection to it, it echoes the rich colours and varied textures to create a space that is tactile alters its mood with the movements of the sun. One of the most captivating features of life in Marrakech is the way in which every sight, sound and even smell seems to indicate the time of day. The sound of the Adhan from the many mosques all serve as an indication of exactly what is happening outside in the city.

Upstairs, the views down onto the small pool are just as breathtaking but here other features of the space also compete for your attention. The fireplace is certainly unique and when the fire below is lit the whole top floor can be wreathed in smoke. The real treat, other than Alessandro’s enviable collection of vintage fashion, has to be the bathroom. The deep leather bath is filled from above by a tree trunk and conjures up images of standing beneath a waterfall in the open.

Showering in the open is also an option on the rooftop with its wonderful views across the neighbouring rooftops. The roof of the Ministero del Gusto is a large sun drenched space where the vibrant orange has been bleached to perfection; ideal for lounging, enjoying the weather and engaging in a bit of neighbour watching.

Ministero del Gusto, 22 derb Azzouz, el Mouassine, Marrakech, Maroc.
ministerodelgusto.com T: +212 44 426 45

If you would like to use any of these photographs, please contact me at sprks.com for more information. High-resolution images of these and more are available.

Photos ©2004 Ken Sparkes All Rights Reserved
Words: Carla Bower.
First published in SPACES issue 07 ©2004 Polygon Publishing Ltd