About me
Portrait photographer Jay Brooks originally studied Film & TV Set Design at Wimbledon College of Art but transferred his attention to photography after a road trip taking pictures across the USA.
His original theatrical studies left a lasting impression on his photographic style and method of working. Jay’s keen interest in choice of location, acute attention to detail, storyboarding and use of props create unique environments for his portraits.
His cinematic style and ability to draw a seam of, often dark, humour from his subjects has made him a popular choice across the worlds of advertising, TV, film, theatre and music. His characterful celebrity portraiture has graced the covers of some of the UK’s most respected publications including The Guardian Weekend Magazine, Sunday Times Culture and Time Out.
Jay has a continuing relationship with BAFTA, having worked on the TV Awards in 2010; in 2011 he shot portraits of the UK’s finest Screenwriters to accompany a series of talks they were giving at The Barbican and for inclusion in the BAFTA archive.
Jay’s also works regularly for The Old Vic providing promotional and poster images that appear across the national press and in tube stations and other sites around London. He worked on several shows in 2012 including Hedda Gabler, Kiss Me Kate and the award winning Constellations with Rafe Spall and Sally Hawkins.
In advertising, Jay has shot campaigns for Adidas Footlocker, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile, Southern Comfort and Red Stripe.
Jay still finds time to work on his personal projects; recently completing a series on sea side Clairvoyants and travelling around the UK covering tradition-based Dance Events ranging from the conventional to the decidedly off-the-wall!
Jay is also proud to have two portraits (Hayley Attwell and BAFTA screen-writer Peter Morgan) in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery.
Projects
- James McAvoyTrafalgar Transformed has announced that BAFTA winning actor James McAvoy will return for the last instalment in their season; The Ruling Class by Peter Barnes. Jay Brooks recently worked with the creative team to produce the poster and press shots for the upcoming show. McAvoy will star in the black comedy as Jack, ‘a possible paranoid schizophrenic with a Messiah complex, who inherits the title of the 14th Earl of Gurney after his father passes away’. The Ruling Class will open at Trafalgar
- NigellaNigella – one of those rare beings who are so famous they only need one name – teamed up once more with Jay Brooks to shoot a feature on ‘her life through food’ for The Guardian Weekend. Subtitled ‘I eat, therefore I am’, the feature is timed to coincide with the launch of Ms Lawson’s new book ‘Simply Nigella: Feel Good Food’. It, the feature not the book, charts the development of Nigella’s tastes from the discovery of the avocado in the 1970’s to the rediscovery of the pomegranate in the present. Nigella, the food and the feature in general all look fabulous but the star of the show has to be the 1980’s beige leather jacket! See above. Stylist (clothes and props): Mika Handley. Home economists: Anna Jones and Emily Ezekiel. Stylist (food props): Wei Tang. Hair and makeup: Tricia Woolston using Sisley Skincare, Charlotte Tilbury and Redken. Assistant: Nadia Atinbas
- Dad’s Army The MovieDad’s Army the movie will, as it says on the poster, be ‘reporting for duty’ in February 2016 but the poster images shot by Jay Brooks are out now. In the roles of Captain Mainwaring and his men it features an extraordinary stellar company of British acting talent including Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtney as Corporal Jones and Michael ‘Dumbledore’ Gambon as Private Godfrey. It even has Catherine Zeta-Jones as Private Pike’s mum! As Jay remembers, the shoot was a big day out in Bridlington. ‘Catherine Zeta-Jones was first, followed by a delivery of guns, replica of course, but eight World War Two rifles with their own munitions expert. Next was Bill Nighy and a box of moustaches followed by Toby Jones, some tin hats, some leather boots, Michael Gambon and the camouflage. Tom Courtney, Daniel Mays and Blake Harrison quickly joined the party, followed soon after by Bill Paterson and the binoculars. By noon we had 8 great British actors all under one roof and an armoury big enough to mount an invasion of a small English village.’ Dad’s Army is a Universal Pictures production and opens on February 5th next year
- This Is England 90Jay Brooks and the cast of This Is England 90 suffered an acute attack of action painting for Shortlist magazine. Thomas Turgoose, Vicky McClure and Joe Gilgun got splattered in a Pollack styled nod to the cover of the first Stone Roses album. Why? Because the series is set against the background of ‘Madchester’ and the rave scene so Stone Roses are, unsurprisingly, a big part of the soundtrack. This is England 90 is the last installment in director Shane Meadows legendary saga of growing up working class in England in the 1980’s which began with the feature film set in 1983. Although he never planned to make a TV series out of his most successful film, once he’d started doing so, he knew he wanted to get to the 90s. He had a vision of an opening shot of someone putting an ecstasy tablet on to someone else’s tongue. ‘Yeah that does happen.’ he told Miranda Sawyer in The Guardian. ‘There are four episodes in This Is England 90, and the summer episode is when the E thing kicks off. It’s not cool, though. At one point I thought, Yeah, I’ll hire 50,000 extras and get a proper rave going. But then I thought, No. In real life, the first time I went to a rave I got lost and ended up at a Pagan festival by mistake. And This Is England is like an antidote to cool, it’s like, this is what actually happened, and it was a bit wank.’
- Wired: King of the Fountains, David BraceyWired commissioned Jay Brooks to photograph fountain maestro David Bracey getting appropriately wet in the fountain in Granary Square in London’s Kings Cross. Bracey is the director of The Fountain Workshop, a London based company that has created cutting edge fountains bringing joy, excitement and wet feet to public spaces around Britain and across the world. Their commissions can be seen in a number of British cities as well as, amongst others, Copenhagen and the UAE. The latest commission is the gamification of the fountains in Granary Square. The 1080 water jets have been programmed to play the classic arcade game Snake using a smartphone app. Playtime is between 5pm and 9pm if you fancy an early evening soaking.
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Work history
Photographer
Skills
- Art Photography
- Picture Editing
- Lightroom
- Portrait Photography