One-shot portraits of creative people in Hastings Published duration 31 July 2019

In an era when amateur photographers can keep taking a shot, deleting and trying again until they get something they are happy with, what happens if you limit yourself to just one opportunity? Would you capture it?

Photographer Tim Willcocks did just that when he produced a series of portraits of creative people in Hastings and St Leonards on the south-east coast of England.

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Michelle Mildenhall, artist

Artists, designers, musicians and journalists posed for the photographer, as he set out to take just a single shot of them with his medium format film camera. He found his subjects by putting out appeals on social media, leading to more than 150 people contacting him.

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Lorna Hamilton-Brown MBE, knitting evangelist

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Vile Electrodes, electronic band

"The decision to shoot allowing [only] one shot was deliberate," says Willcocks.

"I have nothing against digital photography, I shoot digital when the need arises, but it does tend to make the photographer shoot many images of the same subject, and then the job becomes an editing one."

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Hannah Caney, illustrator and artist

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Mark Daniels, artist and writer

"For me, the true craft of photography is at the front end of the process, not the back... It's a personal view, but it certainly seems to resonate with the creatives I've photographed, and people who view the images."

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Elvin Emily (Emily Holt), designer

"It's about spending time to get to know the person, form an understanding of who they are, why they do what they do, what they care about."

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Ian Land, photographer

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Nadene Ghouri, journalist, author and screenwriter

Willcocks lives in the area with his family and loves what he sees as the cultural richness, feeling a close affinity within the creative community.

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Helen Bryant, artist

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Kim Christian Wan, artist

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Toby Barelli, musician

image copyright Tim Willcocks image caption Rebecca Youssefi, artist