David Collins
This week interior designer David Collins died from skin cancer aged just 58.
You can read more about him in his obituary in Vogue
His magic touch transformed some of the biggest named bars, restaurants and hotels won him a place in the coveted GQ man of the year awards.
I was asked to photograph him at the Wolsey in one of his creations.
He was a high flyer but a really nice guy, witty and funny too, with a fine understanding of the important part that light and lighting plays in the ambience of a special venue, in fact we talked extensively about this.
So even though he was not a photographer he really 'got' lighting.
This shot was far from easy.
Lit with multiple lights in a busy high class restaurant, there were understandably lots of conditions we had to abide by.
I recall it was one Elinchrom Ranger bounced off the ceiling, another with a Chimera medium softbox as the key light, with one more concealed with a snoot lighting the wall behind him to give the little glow.
Not that this matters one jot, but I know some will want to know.
Skin cancer is something that many of us in the UK do not take seriously enough, not enough sun we think...
Well we are wrong.
As the video I posted earlier this week said, we should be more aware of the potentially harmful effects of the sun particularly in the beautiful weather we are having.
Rest in peace David.