An afternoon with Alex Salmond

In October 2017 we spent an afternoon photographing Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland. He had not long finished a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe with his own show, Alex Salmond Unleashed, so the red velvet curtain behind him felt about right. He died in October 2024, and this post, started well before then, has sat in my drafts ever since. Here it is, finished.

Here's a man we photographed whose political career was not without controversy.

I say "photographed" - but my time with him also involved getting my butt whipped at a quick game of pool. Always enjoyed the game - never been any good at it...

After the shoot we discovered our photos were to be used for his (then) upcoming show on the Russian channel RT, which was later suspended when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

We had signed away the licence to the photographs before the shoot even took place, although in such cases there's almost always a last-minute question or wrangle about who owns the copyright. That's something we never compromise on. We tend to keep our prices as low as possible for our "two hour shoot" and rather than increasing them to allow the client to fully own the rights to photos, we will always insist on keeping our costs the same for everyone - and the copyright under our own belt. If you want to pay to "own" the photos (rather than to have a "licence") then we aren't the photographers for you.

I hope, dear reader, you take these photos for what they are: innocent portraits captured over a drink or two with Alex Salmond. On a personal level I found his charisma really engaging, and he was a far better pool player than me. It was a privilege to photograph him.

Alex Salmond died on 12 October 2024, aged 69. Whatever you made of his politics, few people have worked the political stage quite like him: quick-witted, combative, mischievous, and never happier than in front of an audience. He sang opera as a boy soprano long before politics, and sold out the Edinburgh Fringe after it. I'll leave you with my favourite frame from that afternoon: a showman to the end, and never one to miss a curtain call.