Personal

// Laced Martinis Through The Ages

Cocktail trends through the ages; but shot as crime scenes. I’d always wanted to be a crime scene photographer – an itch scratched by this exercise in world-building, shot in my East London studio with Oliver Blackburn. Historicity, CSI, and poisonous martinis: what’s not to love?

1960s-styled cocktail crime scene for "With LSD (MK Ultra), 1962": a coupe glass with an olive, surrounded by numbered evidence markers and fringed blankets on a burnt-orange surface

// With LSD (MK Ultra), 19622024

The scene: California. Big Sur maybe. 1962. A retro antiestablishment counterculture figure who was, perhaps, getting a little to close to the truth. Poor sap.

Candlelit Victorian-style still life for "With Arsenic, 1892": a crystal decanter, pocket watch and toppled glass surrounded by numbered evidence markers on a damask tablecloth

// With Arsenic, 18922024

A lace draped, 19th Century, gentlemanly conspiracy is afoot. Whitechapel, perhaps, or a Hampstead reading room. Whatever did happen to Captain Mahony? Who would possibly want the old war hero dead? And who else was drinking with him that night?

Futuristic neon-lit scene for "With Target-Specific Genetic Dysregulators, 2032": a martini glass, shattered glass and holographic numbered evidence markers under blue and red light

// With Target-Specific Genetic Dysregulators, 20322024

The year is 2032. The near future is a stereotypical, unimaginative and frankly unavoidable dystopian nightmare of extreme capitalism, surveillance, post-truth propaganda and technological distraction. Our crime scene has already been tagged and scanned by the drones. The victim was fringe antiestablishment; nothing loud but he was on the books. He was well-liked around here. So who poisoned him? And who around here can afford a subject-specific gene-tox like this? And why would you sully such a delicious microprotein martini? Doubly murderous.