2015 UK General Election

As the nation gets its collective head around the rather surprising result to the 2015 general election, I thought I should spend some of my well-earned time off to put together my highs and lows of the campaign trail for your delectation. From foxes to lambs, and Brian May to Nigel Farage, it was certainly an eclectic period, and that was without a certain Royal spawning session in the middle.

The one thing that has stood out head and shoulders above all else during the election has been just how controlling each of the parties' media teams were when it came to publicity and photo opportunities. With the newspapers and websites filled with images of grinning people taking selfies with their leader of choice, you may have been led to believe that each party's election tour was an endless stream of random walkabouts and face-to-face meetings with the general public. No. No, it wasn't.

Schedules and itineraries very quickly became a valued commodity as parties seemed to decide on a whim which publication or agency could be trusted with the knowledge. Those who'd paid the very large sums for a seat on the election battle bus were still very much under the strict control of the press team. Over the weeks, I witnessed a number of stand-up rows between members of the media and party PRs about ridiculous rules and stipulations at events, with one party media representative scolding a press photographer like a dog for trying to take an arrival photograph. Overall, it's safe to say that if you ever want to be put off voting for any of the parties, spend some time trying to take photographs of their leader.

The intelligent among you (Who am I kidding here? If you're reading this post, you're clearly in the mental elite) may have noticed that I'm going to try my very best to remain as impartial as I can during the round-up. After all, it's all about photography here. This may become trickier as I continue though.

Due to Agence France-Presse still failing to shell out on pre-cognition cranial chips for the staff, a lot of the election period saw journalists chasing random stories, due to the polls predicting all sorts of claims. In hindsight, it's quite a kick in the teeth to see the pictures of David Cameron firing the starting gun on the election outside Number 10, and the shots of him making his victory speech outside number 10. That was an awful lot of running around, polling, discussion and effort for essentially exactly the same photograph. Whatever your politics, after all that effort, you can't help but hope the culmination might give you something new to photograph.

It almost seems ridiculous to say this now but for some reason, everyone thought that the election was going to be a really close thing. Polls for all outlets were claiming wild predictions, even including a Labour win, but most predicted a very long drawn-out process, as the hung Parliament attempted to function. Due to this speculation, the media was covering every side with interest as no-one knew who could end up holding the power that would help a Government to finally form. While the majority of the press focused on Scotland, in London it was mainly about UKIP and even hirsute rock stars.

One thing that I remembered very quickly upon setting out on my coverage was that everything happens very quickly. The consequence of this is that unless you are given the luxury of more time or are feeling particularly gung-ho, the beautiful prime lenses tend to stay in the bag. This is a result of rarely being able to prepare for environments and situations, meaning a range of zoom lens will keep everything covered. My early attempts to keep the Nikon 24mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.4 lenses in my belt pack also fell by the wayside, as you also need to be ready to move, and move quickly. It goes without saying that the 300mm f2.8 that I was carrying for the first few days was consigned to the cupboard pretty rapidly.

During the election, I found myself primarily covering the Conservative party campaign, either on the Tory battle bus or chasing David Cameron between photo calls. Thankfully, I did manage to tick off the other main parties at various points. It's always satisfying to have a more complete picture at the end. During this election, the parties spent a considerable amount of time outside London. In 2010, it seemed as though it was nearly all spent rushing between various speeches and stunts in the capital, but this time there were seemingly long stretches of time where you would have been forgiven for forgetting that there was an election about to take place.

Due to a deal made between AFP, AP, Getty and Reuters, coverage from the Conservative battle bus was split into weekly chunks with me being chosen by AFP to take the first week. Life on the bus may not quite be what people think as during my week, I never travelled with the PM at any point, only ever meeting up with him at the planned events. Due to limited space, the media on board was small in numbers but still managed to include TV crews from Sky, ITN and the BBC, plus room for a couple of journalists and a total of three photographers. Remembering how to edit, caption and generally operate normally while facing backwards in a moving bus takes a day or two, but after a while, it's life as normal.

Election events are all about theatrics, no matter how small. Whether it's the use of props, choice of clothing or behaviour, it's all carefully considered. For the media, it's up to us to decide how much of the spoon-fed material we're prepared to accept and cover, and which moments the party would prefer us not to shoot, risking potential "sanctions" from the press team. It's a fine balance and one that you have to learn through your own experiences.

A good example of just letting the picture speak for itself was on the final day of my time on the bus, when we visited a farm near Spelsbury specialising in raising lambs which have been rejected by their mothers. The photo call was clearly very considered and planned by the media team, but probably due to Cameron's rural upbringing, he was very comfortable handling the lambs so he didn't seem out of place. The pictures provided ammunition for supporters through the mountains of metaphors ("caring for rejects", "down-to-earth", "not afraid to get down in the dirt" etc etc) while also proving a goldmine for satirists and meme-creators. In the latter version, it's safe to say the lamb didn't come out of the deal too well. Also, it's not often one of my photos makes it into a colouring book!

Working for a news agency, it's important to provide content for clients of all political persuasions so whatever the group, you have to provide unbiased images. That doesn't mean the pictures should be safe PR-style pictures, but that you create photographs that show all opinions on a story. During a single event, it can produce both satirical imagery and strong leadership symbolism and it's the agency photographer's responsibility to provide both. The reason I say agency rather than newspaper is that over the final weeks of the election, it's been perfectly illustrated that most newspapers have a political leaning in one direction or another, so will only use images that support their own beliefs.

Locations were equally planned with lots of hi-vis jackets being worn by all sides ("Oh, he's so hands on") and visits to places that allowed a variety of interpretations. The conservatives seemed to spend a lot of time visiting breweries, in a possibly predictable anti-Farage manoeuvre, Tory Chancellor George Osborne hopped predictably from business to business, and the Liberal Democrats chose a nightclub to launch their manifesto. *Big fish, little fish, Increased Capital Gains tax*

Another convenient coincidence for me was that I was able to re-shoot a portrait that I had taken of David Cameron nearly five years to the day later, to create a combo image, showing what a term leading a coalition government does to someone. In his case, it was a marginally greater access to pies.

Aside from a few key moments, the rest of the campaign period was a stream of rushed events, restrictive media access and unimaginative photo calls. The only justification that I could think of for the lack of imagination was that the election was assumed to be so tight, none of the parties were prepared to risk looking stupid if a stunt or appearance went wrong. The unfortunate bacon sandwich picture of Miliband caused so much damage, despite being a photo of someone simply eating. The lovely Kirsten Mavric shoots weddings and, as any fool knows, you don't shoot during the meal as it only produces ugly pictures.

As the campaigning reached its conclusion, attention was removed somewhat from the loquacious bods in suits to make space for a little addition to the news. I would go into more detail but there's very little to say compared to last time. A woman gave birth and showed the resulting infant to lots of people on stepladders.

Back on the trail and as polling day neared, the papers lost all sense of impartiality and Facebook became a battlefield of quotes, memes and opinion.

Then May 7 finally arrived and those who had spent way too long on the story saw the glimmer of light as the story reached its conclusion.