Editorial

One in a million sock puppets

| david

At the beginning of the summer Tatler Magazine asked myself and Jessica Dance to collaborate to produce their luxury watch shoot for the October issue. They had the idea to create sock puppets to wear the watches, so Jess created the 8 characters to star in the story. It was a busy days shoot with a lot of watches to feature but with the watch and puppet wrangling skills of the Tatler team it all went smoothly. When we came to the end of the shoot we worked out that at one point we had around 8 million pounds worth of watches in the studio that’s definitely a studio record!

David Sykes Tatler sock puppets 1

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images © David Sykes 2016 All rights reserved.

Hallo!

| david

Last month I was asked by Monocle to shoot their May cover.
Richard Spencer Powell came up with a great idea to illustrate their ‘Survey on the best villages and hamlets to set up shop in’,by using Playmobil figures to represent the different trades, I had forgotten how good they were the attention to detail is fantastic! I’ll be adding those to Poppy’s Christmas list as soon as she’s old enough. I’m convicted we also did the worlds smallest beer shoot for the shot of the hand holing the beer stein, We wanted that authentic look so we used real lager in the tiny plastic steins I had to use a syringe and a staple blade to get the frothy head on top!
Another fun cover all in all!

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images © David Sykes 2016 All rights reserved.

desktop delights

| david

Last month I shot a great feature for Monocle Magazine on things to sharpen up your desk. They found some fantastic products to make your desk the envoy of the office.
Suffice to say all the items we shot were lovely and I wanted to take them all home!

As well as that I shot my regular inventory shoot with lots more lovely products.

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images © David Sykes 2016 All rights reserved.

Pallets full of ideas from Monocle

| david

One of my favourite Monocle shoots of the year is the annual Christmas Gift guide, we always have lots of fun sorting through and shooting all the great products the team find for the gift guide.
This year there were quite literally pallet loads to work with. There are some great products in the guide the one I was most tempted by was the new star wars toy the Sphero BB-8 great fun to play around with in a big studio (I’m a bit of a sucker for all things tec and Star Wars!)

xmas gift guide 1

xmas gift guide 2

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images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Stylish Comfort Food

| david

At the beginning of the year myself and Jessica Dance were asked to collaborate on a cover shot for the London sylist magazine.

The theme was Comfort food so we shot Bangers and mash and some beans on toast. The shots looked great and the cover went down very well to the point where it went viral the following week!

Stylist cover

stylist title page

images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Sizzling success

| david

Sorry it’s been so long since my last blog post it’s been a rather busy 3 months.

At the end of the summer my second cover for Monocle magazine was on sale and again it featured toys! This time is was sylvanian families.
It was a fun days shoot getting the models to look there best!

86 cover sml

images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Flying Robot Cat

| david

Earlier this Year monocle asked me to shoot the cover for the Japan special. It was a fun one to shoot it was a vinyl figure of Doraemon a flying robot cat from the future!
It looked great on the news stands and was one of their best selling issues ever, so I was delighted and honoured to have been a part of it.

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images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Tools for life

| david

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images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Last year I was asked to shoot for my favourite issue the double issue with all the inspiration for christmas in it.

This year was slightly different it was a called ‘tools for life’ taking different places in our everyday life and helping out with the best tools for each situation. As always it was great to see all the fantastic things that Josh found from all over the world.

I also shot the cover for the travel top 50, a lovely paper craft aeroplane.

Sometimes everything’s just black and white.

| david

mon book comp

monocle guide to work book-5156

images © David Sykes 2014 All rights reserved.

Monocle have produced a second book, The Monocle guide to good business, and they asked me to produce some images for a couple of the chapters.
Creative director Richard Spencer Powell wanted the pictures to be shot in black and white, which I thought was a great idea. It’s been a while since I’ve shot in black and white, so it was a refreshing change to not be shooting colour. It’s a great medium to shoot in, it’s all about textures and tones and I’m really pleased with the results.

The book looks great and if you run a business or are thinking of doing so it’s definitely worth a read.

lucky number 7

| david

grundig shelves

desk grundig

images © David Sykes 2014 All rights reserved.

It’s been a great year working with Monocle this year, and I’ve shot some great products.
For issue 72 I had to shoot a fashion accessories special which was lots of fun, at one point we had over a quarter of a million pounds worth of watches and bags in the studio!
I also shot two more shots in the series of Grundig features (see above).
Monocle celebrated their 7th year this year and I’m lucky enough to say I have had work in every issue over the last 7 years, it has been a privilege to work on such an inspiring magazine and with such lovely people here’s to another 7 years(at least)!

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images © David Sykes 2014 All rights reserved.

Bumper issue

| david

christmas gift guide 1 copy

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images © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

Issue 69 of Monocle is out now and it’s their Christmas gift guide issue.
It’s always one of my favourite issues to work on, so I was very pleased to be asked to contribute again this year.
Richard Spencer Powell came up with a great idea to use the fantastic vitso shelving units as the backdrop to display all the lovely gift ideas that Josh had found.
I love using the vitso system it really appeals to my graphic still life side, it’s super precise and adaptable to any situation because of it’s simple timeless design.
As usual we had hundreds of items in the studio to choose from and managed to fill one of the big hire studios with it all!
I always love getting a sneak peak at all the new gifts and gadgets that are around this year.

This year I also shot all of the stylish merchandise that Monocle put their name to and sell, it was great this year to shoot the products in little sets to create a Monocle house that the products live in.

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images © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

The double issue is alway a busy time for everyone involved and this year Monocle also had a tie in with Grundig for me to shoot. I’m really pleased with the double page spread image that I created for them.

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images © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

I recommend picking up this bumper issue, as always the articles are interesting, well written and if you’re struggling for gift ideas there’s something for everyone in this issue.

Drum roll please!

| david

D&AD Awards Creative Review

image © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

I was really pleased to be asked by Jessica Dance to collaborate with her on the fantastic paper drum for the ‘drum roll’ D&AD awards cover in this months Creative Review.

I’ve been working with Jess on a new personal series of work and it was great to work with her again on a commission look out for the new series to be shown soon.

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image © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

Goldbären

| david

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image © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

I was pleased to be asked to shoot another cover for Monocle magazine, this months issue is all about how the world needs the new Germans (and their sweet bear)
I had to shoot a super close up of a Haribo bear we had to hold a Goldbären (Golden bear in German) casting which meant we had to buy lot’s and lot’s of Haribo it’s a hard job but someone has to do it!
Me and Sam my assistant are still working our way through the reject bears and other yummy Haribo’s.

I also had to photograph lots of German stationary for this issue which was great for me because as I’ve always had a soft spot for some quality stationary from back in my graphic design days!

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image © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

Monocle, the gift that keeps on giving

| david

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

It’s that time of year again the gift guide issue of Monocle and this year it’s themed. All the gift ideas are from vienna (who knew they made so many cool things!).

I also shot some of the new Monocle mechanise they are selling this christmas, they have there own umbrella now and I have to say it’s probably the best made umbrella I’ve ever seen but if you’re thinking of getting me one for christmas don’t I have a tenancy to lose them!

We had lots of fun with paper and boxes this issue and I thought Richard spencer-powells choice of colours for the boxes worked so well I had to give them there very own photo.

Shooting medals

| david

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

I was asked by Bloomburg Business Week to photograph the 2012 Olympic medals.
I had to shoot them at the London offices of Rio Tinto who are providing the metal for the medals.
Once we had cleared security we were taken to a room to shoot the medals. It was amazing to get to hold something as special as an Olympic gold medal, it was a lot bigger and heavier than I expected.
I had only an hour and a half to shoot them, which is a lot less time than I usually take over a still life, but I’m really pleased with the results!

One interesting fact I learnt was that the gold medal is actually 92.5% silver, but I guess if you win one you don’t care what it’s made of!

Good luck to all the competitors at this years Olympics but as a Londoner, I will be cheering for team GB!

Last minute gift ideas

| david

All images ©David Sykes 2011 All rights reserved.

For those of of you who are looking for those last minute gift ideas have a look at the December issue of Monocle they have some fantastic gift ideas in there gift guide.

I was asked to create a Monocle version of a department store window display for each of there gift guide sections.
I always love shooting Monocles gift guide as I get a sneak preview to all the latest and greatest gifts on sale (and I have to admit that quite a few were added to my charisma list.)

So this is my last post before Christmas so I’d just like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

Monocle cover

| david

This month I was fortunate to be asked to shoot two covers for the latest edition of Monocle the first is the front cover and the second is the design directory 2011/2012 cover.
The issues main theme is “How do you jump-start Japan?” which is obviously a very poignant subject at the moment.
Monocle has produced a limited edition leather support Japan bracelet with all the proceeds going to Civic Force who are helping with the relief effort after the earthquakes. Worth having a look.

Issue 43 is out now check it out.

All images ©David Sykes 2011 All rights reserved.

Lovely Linda.

| david

Dutch magazine Linda interviewed me earlier this year see the result below. I’ve been assured by Dutch speaking friends it says nice things!

All images ©David Sykes 2011 All rights reserved.

The genuine article

| david

Last year I was interviewed by a couple of magazine Fricote in France an excellent contemporary food magazine and Zest in China a food & lifestyle magazine.
Here are the finished articles.


Fricote

All images ©David Sykes 2011 All rights reserved.


Zest

All images ©David Sykes 2011 All rights reserved.

Monocle gift guide

| david

Here is my latest work for Monocle magazine. This month issue is there excellent christmas gift guide one of my favourite issues to work on every year as I get a sneak preview of all the latest and greatest gifts and gadgets out there, and some fantastic cheese to sample!
If you struggling for gift ideas would recommend a look its a bumper issue!

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

Monocle’s got it covered

| david

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top 50

All images ©David Sykes 2009 All rights reserved.

I’m pleased to announce that this months double issue of monocle with my latest cover shot is available now.
Also above is my cover shot for the travel top 50, and I shot there bumper christmas gift section.
The cover shot is a paper craft medicine cabinet made by Japanese artist Makiko Azakami.