Farewell Terry Spinks - An Olympic Golden Great
Terry featured in our 'Olympic Golden Greats' exhibition, Sponsored by Manfrotto, at John Lewis in the Stratford Centre.
In fact he made it to the private view, along with his Cousin Rosemary and her husband Terry, who have cared for him for many years.
I cannot claim to have known the family well but they are Lovely kind people, who's kindness and generosity are sadly no longer the norm in society.
In fact their deeds hark to days gone by.
Terry is said to have given most of his money and possessions away - while he was out on a cold night he gave away his fancy coat to a homeless person.
Think of that for a moment if you will.
Rosemary led a long campaign for him to receive an honour from the Queen, an MBE is normally the order of the day, but it took a hard fought campaign before he finally received one in 2002.
Lucinda and I shot him at the atmospheric West Ham Amateur boxing club, which has changed little since Terry trained there for the 1956 Olympic Games.
We wanted to shoot on the Phase One DF with P65+ with a very shallow depth of field, F2.8.
To light him, and the club.
We used 3 Elinchrom Quadra's.
Key light on Terry from camera left, with a Chimera small soft box
Back light on Terry from Camera left, with a Chimera extra small soft box and a grid.
One light in the far distance on camera left to light the background.
We used my BIG Gitzo 5560SGT and its remarkable height to be half on and half off another boxing ring to get the right angle. This tripod has made the difference on so many occasions because you can put your camera in extreme positions in a very stable way.
Here is Lucinda with Terry and his cousin Rosemary.
It was a special day.