Greg Williams has 173,000 photos on his phone, but this is one of his favourites. Honeymooning in Mexico, he and his wife, Eliza Cummings, had enjoyed a massage in their hotel, and stepped into a large, round bubble bath for two.
“We were messing around with the bubbles,” Williams recalls, “and when she lifted her hand up to her mouth like this, it looked just like she was holding a cup of tea. It felt such a glamorous, timeless moment, and there are frames within the frame, like the window, and the engagement ring – a black sapphire – which even mirrors the shape of her face,” he says.
Understandably, he didn’t have his professional camera to hand – he was stark naked – so he grabbed his iPhone, and took one quick shot. With over 30 years’ experience as a photographer, predominantly of celebrities (he also teaches an online photography course), he’s used to working at speed.
“I never want to give the subject a chance to get bored,” he says. “And I’m not being self-deprecating, but luck plays a big part in photography, too. Sometimes you just capture magic.”
All that said, his subject is no stranger to the camera’s lens; Cummings is a model. Williams thinks he caught something a little different, though. “Fashion photographers are looking for something from her, and she’s giving it to them, but here, she’s giving something to her husband,” he says. “This is not a portrait of Eliza Cummings: it’s a portrait of my wife.”
• Greg Williams’ online photography courses can be found here: https://skillsfaster.com/
