It was four days before Christmas, midday and I had just finished my last shoot of the year. Time to go to Devon to see my family for a well earned break.

My phone rings.

“Charlie, are you still in London?”

“Yes”

“Can you photograph will.i.am this evening with his brother Carl?”

And so it was, no going to Devon for me on that day. And the waiting began. You see we didn’t know anything more at this point. Where would we be photographing them, when would we be meeting them or even if it was going to happen or not. We knew nothing really, but we had hope.

So I prepared for the shoot, got my gear together and positioned myself and my assistant in a cafe in central London. We waited hard by drinking coffee and talking about photography.

Finally we got some information: we would be photographing them at 8pm. It was 7pm… not much time. So we quick footed it with all my gear over to the hotel, and started harassing the poor lady in charge for a room to photograph Mr i.am and his brother in. After some serious persuasion we got an amazing suite for out shoot, moved in and got set up just in time. The nerves started to kick in… What would he be like? Would he be friendly or not? How long would we get with him?

But you can’t be nervous forever and after an hour we still had no news of him, and no idea if he was actually going to turn up or not. So I prepared some more, did a few more test shots of my assistant and decided that everything was still ready, just like it had been an hour ago. Another hour passed…