A shot at redemption

Stelios (September 10, 2011). Reproduced by kind permission of, and © Shot By Shooter 2011

I've known D since I was at school. He was always the coolest person I knew. He was the year above me at Glasgow University, during which time I really got to know him; he always had great taste in music and a sharp sense of style. He lived in Milan for a while and then London; we shared a flat for a while. I went to his first exhibition of photographs in Hoxton: supermodels, popstars, catwalk waifs. These days he takes street portraits. When I started my street fashion blog Sydney Spy, it was inspired by D's incredible photography. His blog, Shot by Shooter, is so far above the rest, including the over-rated The Sartorialist (the man takes a lovely photo, but often seems to lack any connection with his subjects and all too often seems fixated on superskinny fashion victims). D's photographs, on the other hand, reveal so much about their subject, with the eyes often almost inadvertently seeming to open up a plethora of questions and answers, that sometimes it's almost hard to look. D chooses his backdrops carefully and sequences of photos taken over several days can refer wittily to each other: the most recent sequence has yellow as its theme, whether subtly picked out in Felix's dress or Eric's scarf, or foreground, background and centre stage in Kate's case. D's use of light and shadow is so subtle that it's clear just by the texture whether it's summer or winter.

Over 250 people follow Shot by Shooter, but rarely does anyone comment: I think this is because D's photographs are so peerless, there's nothing more to be said.