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30 Mar 2021
Portrait of Aimee Spinks Advertising Photographer

How to be a unit stills photographer

Hey there! If you’ve landed on this page looking to hire a unit stills photographer, head on over to my unit stills portfolio here. If you have arrived here from my ‘ask a stills photographer’ article, great! For even more in-depth knowledge on how to become a unit stills photographer, register your interest for my book or my exclusive 1:2:1 mentoring sessions below and I’ll be in touch! If you haven’t read the article, I absolutely recommend you check it […]

29 May 2020
A person relaxing with one foot propped up on a radio

I’m on the Radio!

Earlier this week I was very kindly invited for a quick chat with The Electric Crush presenter, Judy Rosenfeld-Wisniewski who interviewed me as part of a segment on her show. Judy is such a great interviewer and in under 20 minutes we had covered everything from the business of stills, my experience on the set of Outlander, what it was like to work with Charlize Theron on The Old Guard, and much much more! So grab yourself a brew and have […]

06 Sep 2018

I’m the Future Face of Arts and Culture!

Unit stills photographer, Aimee Spinks wins the award for the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Future Face of Arts and Culture 2018!

05 Jun 2017

How to prepare for your actor headshots

How to prepare for your actor headshot session… Your actor headshots are a key marketing tool for your acting career, so it’s important to prepare yourself in order to get the most out of your session. Here are some things you might want to consider: Think about your casting type. A good actor headshot is not only eye-catching but also successfully conveys an actor’s casting type. For instance, if you typically play edgier, authoritative or confrontational roles, you may not […]

14 Jul 2015

Actor Headshot Photography with Jenny Jenkins

During last week’s actor headshot photography sessions, I had the pleasure of working with the brilliant Jenny Jenkins: an actor and director based in Stratford-upon-Avon. She has a wealth of classical performance experience having worked for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and toured with Heartbreak Productions, most recently as Rosaline in Love’s Labours Lost. As a director Jenny runs Bright Particular Productions who’s most recent work includes a site specific performance for Royal Shakespeare Company PILOT Sites. Jenny can be found on […]

08 Jul 2015

Actor Spotlight: Sam Malley

Today’s actor spotlight is on Sam Malley, whose actor headshots I took last year. Whilst working with Sam on his actor headshots, I found him to be full of energy with a strong sense of professionalism throughout the whole session. Sam is a diverse young actor who isn’t afraid of a challenge and whose previous roles have varied from the heart throb to the villain. Though a particularly strong screen actor, Sam also has extensive stage experience with recent performances […]

27 May 2015

Got a DBS (CRB) Certificate?

Earlier this week I had a phone call from the picture desk at ITV for one of the most last minute jobs I’ve ever taken on. It seems they had had some difficulty finding a unit still photographer who has been CRB (now DBS) checked. I found this very surprising as I’ve been involved with so many productions with child actors and participants that it seems like such an obvious thing to have. Perhaps I’ve just found myself working with […]

20 May 2015
Vieux Carré Theatre Photography

Theatre Photography: Vieux Carre

One of my favourite bits of theatre photography that I have done so far has come from photographing the performance of Vieux Carre at the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham. This was yet another great performance from the actors at the Birmingham School of Acting and it was accompanied by some lovely staging which always makes the photography pop even more. Below are the wonderful actors who took part with links to their Spotlight page, followed by several shots from the […]

30 Apr 2015

The Broken Heart

Some of the most challenging theatre photography I have done was in capturing a performance of The Broken Heart at The Old Rep theatre in Birmingham. The lighting was extremely dark and in some cases, entire scenes were lit by nothing but candles. As a theatre photographer it is important to be able to overcome challenges such as dimly lit shows which often simply comes down to your equipment. Luckily I was armed with fast lenses and a Nikon D3s which […]

29 Apr 2015

The Falling Stills

On Friday, Carol Morely’s The Falling was released nationwide to cinemas and boy didn’t we all know it! I was taken by surprise at the brilliant advertising and marketing efforts that had gone into getting it to screens and getting it an audience. Since I started my career as a unit stills photographer, I have kept a list of targets to act as milestones and mark my progression over the years. On Friday, two more of those milestones were achieved: […]