Dafydd Jones

In 1981 I photographed an early show of the Comic Strip.- Performing in a theatre next door to the Raymond Revue Bar in Soho..- the small room was lit by a one light. An angry Alexei Sayle bursting out of the darkness in his too-small suit was terrifying. There was a deadpan Scottish comedian Arnold Brown. Youthful French and Saunders, Performance of The Comic Strip, Boulevard Theatre, next to the Raymond Revue, Walkers court , Soho. London. 1981

Photographed during 2006

CPhoto magazine launch hosted by Elena Foster. Serpentine Gallery. January 14 2006. London.

Events Photographed during 2007

Photographed y Dafydd Jones in 2011

Evgeny Lebedev and Graydon Carter hosted the Raisa Gorbachev charity Foundation Gala, Stud House, Hampton Court, London. 22 September 2011.

Candida and Rupert Lycett Green's fortieth wedding Anniversary, Mill House. Uffington. 31 May 2003.

Action Against Cancer 'A Voyage of Discovery' fundraising dinner at the Science Museum on Wednesday 14 October 2015.

Archive Photos 2002-2006

Annette Worsely-Taylor. 1987.

David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks. Book launch for Citizen by Charlie Brooks. Tramp. London. 1 April 2009. An invite arrived through the post to a book launch for Charlie Brooks's book the Citizen from Freud PR. The name of Brook's rang a bell . I knew he was someone in the posh horse world. Curious that Freud's had invited me.- I'm not one of their normal roster of tame photographers. On arriving I learnt that Charlie Brooks was the boyfriend of Rebekah Wade the editor of the Sun. I'd met Rebekah previously. The Sun was one of the first newspapers to publish Maciej Dakowicz's pictures of Cardiff. When I'd complimented her on this she's known exactly who I was talking about and said something about how telling they are as a picture of England. .- She seemed a very good editor. Outspoken Ex-Sun editor Kelvin Mckenzie was there. Simon Kelner, Peter Stothard, Also Will Lewis who at the time was editor of the Telegraph afterwards to go on to work for News International.. I was told that David Cameron ( then leader of the opposition ) was expected. - He duly arrived along with George Osborne. Several photographers were there and an attempt was made to herd us into the downstairs entrance area of the club . We were crowding the entrance so I wandered off into the party. The party was at Tramp the nightclub in St. james's which happens to be quite dark. I was using my Leica ranginder which works well at focussing in low-light. - It doesn't give off an off-putting infra red focussing beam on your subjects. . You don't miss a picture with it. David Cameron was talking to Rebekah Wade. I took a quite unflattering but strong picture where they look interrupted and annoyed.- Then David was led by Rebekah and introduced to a few people. I took another picture of this which was more balanced. Then left them alone and photographed the other guests at the party.Later David Cameron sat down with Madonna's ex-husband Guy Ritchie - This seemed to be the picture that the PR's Ie Mathew Freud had planned and it was pointed out to all the photographers to remind us to do it. A picture of this appeared in the next day's paper . .Although I submitted my pictures to the Independent of Cameron and Wade and also the interesting one of George Osborne, Matthew Freud and Rebekah Wade they were at the time unpublished. My impression was of Cameron and George Osborne paying obeisance to Rebekah. Dafydd Jones

Crufts, Olympia. London. 1987.

Dangerous Sports Club Ski race, St. Moritz, March 1983.

KEVIN SESSUMS in his apt in Tribeca, Manhattan. June 1989.

The first few time I went to Hollywood I covered Swifty Lazaar's party at Spago's in Beverley Hills overlooking in LA. Irving 'Swifty' Lazaar was a tiny but forminable character.. He used to leave the dining room constantly to examine the remaining place cards to check out who had the nerve to miss his party.. He would poke me quite hard with his cane to try to control my picture -taking.He was accompanied by a body-guard who stuck right by him the whole time. Along with Elisabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson the newly appointed editor of Vanity Fair Graydon Carter was a guest at what was to be Swifty's last party.- I think this was where he had the germ of the idea of having his own Oscar night party. A year later Swifty sadly died and Vanity Fair began holding their Awards party. Graydon asked Annie Leibovitz to photograph but sitting down for dinner she didn't take many pictures. Maybe she thought it was beneath her. By default afterwards most of the pictures published were mine. . Meanwhile the LA photographer Alan Berliner shared with me his useful supply of beef jerky. At 10.30 p.m. Graydon was nervously smoking and waiting outside to see if the stars would arrive after the Academy Awards. and the lacklustre Governors Ball. - To relief all round they did..- the limos seemd to be in a jam all the way from downtown LA..- Vanity Fair laid on more of a spectacle outside for the media with topiary and branding. ( the branding even on the floor ) Also plenty of space for the press. Some guests seemed to spend more time doing interviews and posing for pictures than enjoying the party.- But that is part of what the whole thing is about. But once there was the LA establishment, money-men, screen-writers, film stars, PR's , a few selected journalists all enjoying themselves. The press machinery has always fascinated me. One of my favourite images here is the manic journalist facing the camera. As an experiment I did my first ever panoramic picture of the scene at the Vanity Fair party. It felt like an Eureka moment when my computer worked through the night to stitch 18 pictures together. One of my more memorable pictures was the one of Mick Jagger looking miserable. First Mick was sitting by himself looking bored, and then Madonna crossed the room to sit down next to him. She started talking and he became quite animated. Then Tony Curtis came along and sat down at the same table and started monopolising Madonna. - Jagger was on his own again. I was upset when the magazine didn't use this picture. - Each year the number of photographers covering the party increased exponentially. Each photographer given access seemed to bring an assistant who also took pictures. It should be easy but I find getting a decent meaningful picture of a party incredibly difficult.

I'm looking through my Oxford pictures again. Re-considering some and thinking about printing in the darkroom. . The edited selection of these pictures can be seen in my book: Oxford: The Last Hurrah. ACC Art Press.

I have a backlog of pictures. This folder is a collection of images I want to revisit.

Panoramic photographs of restaurants in London. Late nineties.

The Serpentine Gallery Summer party over the years

In 1988 Tina Brown invited me to New York to cover parties for Vanity Fair magazine for a month's try-out. I travelled light – just 2 rangefinder Leicas with 3 lenses, a light meter, a couple of tiny Starblitz flashes and one Metz flash. I arrived at JFK in the late afternoon and was met by a driver who took me to the Gramercy Park Hotel. The magazine already had a stuffed diary of parties and events for me to photograph, starting with a book launch that evening at the Royalton Hotel....