A Day (or three) in the Life of shots in Kinsale

Thursday 27/09: Arrive in (genuinely) sunny Kinsale. Haven't been here for over a decade and had forgotten how beautiful the town - and the river it sits besides, the Bandon - is. Let's hope the sun lasts. 

My home for the next few days. Comfy bed, decent shower and the breakfast was cracking... what more can you ask for?

Friday 28/09: Lots of really good talks took place across the festival. This image is from Ben Jones's presentation, WTF is Blockchain?. He used this image (which he took in Kinsale. It was in the window of a tattooist in the town) to demonstrate how the blockchain could be beneficial to artists of all persuassions in being renumerated for their hard work.

If you've got young kids then the chances are you have read them one of the Oi books (Oi Frog, Oi Dog, Oi Cat and the newly published Oi Duck-billed Platypus). My kids love them so I was excited to hear former ad man-turned children's author, Kes Gray, talk about his journey from advertising to author via an almost career-ending addiction to ideas (seriously!). He also demonstrated his admirable ability to flick biscuits, hence the Cream Crackers on the table.

I dunno, you wait for one former shots staffer and then four come along at once. It was something of a reunion at The Spaniard pub on Friday afternoon as some of the old gang got together. Left-to-right; Laura Swinton, former shots snews reporter now editor of LBB; Lyndy Stout, former editor now editor of 1.4; Amelie Lambert, former advertising exec and now head of sales at Picasso Pictures; some tall bloke; Attilio Gianfrancesco, former advertising exec and now exec producer at Mind's Eye. And as you can see, the sun is still shining. 

Saturday 29/09: In the penultimate presentation of the festival Mark Denton talked about the power of puerility. He had many, many examples of how being silly can reap huge rewards and, of course, there were none more pertinent than his reference to his cover image for the shots 150th issue a few years back. 

The festival's presentations were rounded off by Uncommon's Nils Leonard whose powerful talk mentioned how people in the ad business need to embrace risk. This quote, he said, from Oasis's Noel Gallagher, summed up how the industry should not be afraid to throw caution to the wind.

Talks finished and the awards announced, it was time for some grub, and what better place to eat than the local fish and chip restaurant? Cod and chips all round for, left-to-right, John Pallant, Neil Dawson, Mark Denton, Juan Coello, Zoe Brooks, Clemence Duranton and Charlie Shrager.

Sunday 01/10: For reasons unknown, myself and Morgan Whitlock from The Sweetshop thought that getting a flight back to London that left at 6am would be a good idea. We were wrong, as this picture taken at around 4.45am attests.