On 6 November, the prime minister’s office called me to ask if I’d like to photograph Boris Johnson leaving 10 Downing Street on his way to see the Queen to ask her to dissolve parliament, which in turn would fire the starting gun on the general election campaign. Since that day, I have been on the road with the prime minister without a break. The first full day took us to Hampshire, Teesside, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Derby.

Johnson makes his way back onto his battlebus after visiting Wilton Engineering Services in Middlesbrough on 20 November

It’s the eighth election I’ve covered, beginning with the surprise Tory victory in 1992. During that campaign the then prime minister, John Major, carried a soapbox in his battlebus (as he also did later in 97) and pulled up in town squares and city centres, seized the microphone and campaigned to anyone who would listen. This was a throwback even then to the days before politicians had social media or even television but instead had to physically go to voters.

Johnson in 10 Downing Street on the day of his audience with the Queen, which marked the formal start of the general election

Today’s campaigning is done through mobile phones and the internet. The soapbox has been replaced by the selfie. Politicians no longer address the electorate in the flesh but through TV cameras. In the past month I have travelled the length and breadth of Britain visiting factories, hospitals, schools and shops, and these locations provide a backdrop to local media interviews in which the prime minister can say he is in your town, city or village.

Above: Johnson visits Coronation Candy in Blackpool on 15 November

Right: Johnson visits Rodda’s Cornish Clotted Cream, near Redruth, on 27 November

Far right: Johnson on a tug boat in the port of Bristol on 14 November

Johnson during a visit to David Wilson Homes in Bedford on 21 November

The pictures we get are controlled and usually very carefully choreographed. Don’t get me wrong, Johnson is a dream to photograph, as a former newspaper journalist he is acutely aware of our needs and will always accommodate us. We get good pictures and often too many! We’ll regularly attend three to four events each day producing many colourful and amusing snaps.

Johnson talks to aides while flying to Scotland on the first day of the election campaign on 7 November

Above: Johnson travels to Telford in Shropshire to unveil his party’s general election manifesto on 24 November. Above right: Johnson boards a train at St Pancras station in London bound for a day of election campaigning in Kent on 6 December

Johnson leaves the station at Castle Cary, Somerset, November 14

But these are visits he’d do during a normal working week as prime minister. The difference being, we are doing lots of them. These are not images of a politician campaigning in the traditional sense but of a politician producing a strong enough image to grace the page of a national newspaper to go alongside that day’s announcement or story.

In four weeks I’ve seen two unannounced walkabouts (two more than the previous incumbent) and, of course, I’d like to see more. The randomness and unpredictability is great fun for a news photographer but hugely risky for a politician with too many things that can go wrong and so are kept to a minimum. This is true for all the party leaders.

14 November, Somerset: clockwise from top left: shaking hands during a walkabout in Wells; Johnson visits a bakery in Wells; he leaves the station at Castle Cary, meets pupils at West Monkton primary school in Taunton

Photographers are guilty of compliance with helping them get their message across. Speeches and Q&As are always heavily branded with the party’s message and we have little choice but to include this in our pictures and as the Press Association’s chief political photographer, I will always photograph what’s in front of me without any bias or agenda.

But I can’t even photograph the prime minister getting off his battlebus without showing their core message of “getting Brexit done”. We are being used to get their message across. It’s frustrating but I don’t blame them, I’d do the same if I was in their shoes and could get away with it.





Paul O’Rourke, who served with the Royal Irish Rangers, looks on after meeting Johnson during a visit to a veterans centre in Salisbury on 3 December

Boris Johnson and Lee Cain, director of communications, head to the Kent Event Centre, Maidstone, on 6 December

Left: Protesters outside Wilton Engineering Services in Middlesbrough as Johnson visits while on the campaign trail on 20 November.Right: Johnson in Plymouth, Devon, on 28 November

So I’m constantly looking for these unguarded and unplanned moments. They are few and far between but with experience and a keen eye, you can spot them and hopefully produce a far more natural photograph. I think the public can see through the choreographed photo ops and stunts.

Johnson visits West Cornwall community hospital, in Penzance, on 27 November

Here I have chosen pictures which are not the main photo opportunities but the moments in between the moments. The prime minister with his shirt hanging out, demonstrators locked out of a campaigning visit etc

Johnson visits the Royal Welsh Showground, in Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, on 25 November

Today’s campaigning photographs are not of politicians knocking on doors and canvassing voters but of posing for selfies and these are pictures of leaders and their advisors like. They show adoring supporters desperate for a picture with their chosen party leader. But many are not fans and probably won’t even vote for them but merely want a picture to post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to show their mates in return for “likes’.