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My claim to fame with the BBC

My claim to fame with the BBC

A week last Thursday, about 9.30 in the morning, the phone rang with a surprising comment from Stuart Haywood… Who told me that the BBC wanted to ring me, more specifically the production team from the TV show ‘Have I got news for you’ regarding the photo I’d taken of him in the nude… as the photo was my copyright as I’t taken it..

Ok, I responded in some bewilderment..

Is it alright if I give them your name and phone number he asked, Yes… I said again in some bemusement

Five minutes later the phone rang again, a woman from the production team of ‘Have I got news for you’ who wanted to use my photo for the filming that night, and did I give permission for them to use it…Yes I did I said… she said that she would send me an email with a form I had to sign online to confirm I was giving my permission.. and just as an aside I asked if I would get a fee for it.. and she said I would, the basic fee, IF it made the final cut..

Within the hour she had sent me the email and form to fill out online, which was me selling the licence for them to use it on their TV show. When that was done I then rang Stuart Haywood to ask how all this had come about, because I knew I hadn’t done anything to make it happen, it was obviously something he had done… and he said he’s written an article for a local newspaper (as he does quite often and has done for many years) about on the day of the Kings Coronation, whilst King Charles was being crowned, in the royal crown jewels Stuart (who has become a naturist since I first drew him a few years ago) would be watching the Coronation on TV at home, naked exhibiting his family jewels… which amused me as a comment, and I could see how ‘Have I got news for you’ got hold of the story.

The next day was Friday (28th April) and I sat and watched avidly the viewing of ‘Have I got news for you’…only to be disappointed that my photo of Stuart wasn’t on it.. ..ok, it obviously hadn’t made the cut after all, never mind…

I was busy with various things over the weekend and the start of the week…

And then on Wednesday I had an email from the woman from ‘Have I got news for you’ to say that I could send my invoice in as my photo had been used… it turned out it made the cut for the following Monday showing on the ‘Have I got a bit more news for you’ (1st May)… so I quickly rang Stuart to ask if he had seen it, yes he had he said… good, I’ll watch it now then if he had seen it.. and there it was an edited photo of the photo as it was for TV. and I was able to get a screen shot of it

So that was great news to see, my photo of Stuart, and also meant I could send my invoice in for them to pay me (its not a massive amount, but certainly nice to have).

And certainly a very amusing claim to fame for me this week!!!

And for those of you who want to see the original photo, here it is…

I've been an artist all of my life, and my paintings now hang on walls in Europe, USA and Canada. I'm working on getting them on the other continents! My wide range of artwork has been exhibited nearer to home in the East Midlands, with the Guild of Erotic Artists at Beaumont Hall Studios in Hertfordshire, and at "Erotica", Olympia, London. I have also been featured alongside my work in the Guild of Erotic Artists book (volume 2). I love to create dramatic interest in my pictures, whether it’s to paint an unusual landscape, or just to utilise dramatic lighting in my figure drawings or strong colour in my animal portraits. Delighting in the spontaneous tendencies of watercolour adds an interesting and distinctive look to my paintings, some of which are purposefully ambiguous, enabling the viewer to use their own interpretation of my artwork. I also love to hide images, and humour within my paintings, whether it’s a secret message, or an erotic couple hidden within a landscape, or even an erotic landscape where the couple are camouflaged as the features of the land itself. I am equally happy painting in oils, acrylics or watercolours and love to draw with pencil or ink. I have also developed the very effective method of drawing using white pencil on black card which creates dramatic pictures by just picking out where the light catches the body and leaving the rest of the image to the imagination, in darkness. I can also utilise many different styles, whether it is realistic, abstract, surrealistic, erotic, fantasy or camouflage art where something is hidden within the painting. I'm just passionate about my art, whatever I paint! But, it doesn't matter how many landscapes or pet portraits I paint, its always the erotic stuff that people are interested in! I started blogging to share some of the strange conversations I have with the people I meet. But its evolved into far more than that now.

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