A veteran paparazzi photographer spent years taking snaps of some of the world’s hottest celebrities, before being laid low by an unexpected illness and being forced to reinvent his career.
James Ambler first picked up a camera as a teenager, as a way of proving whether he or his friend looked cooler while skateboarding.
Within years, he would be shooting photos in the mountains of Nepal, and in refugee camps in Thailand. Then, after a period working for London news agencies, he landed in
At the top of his game, Ambler, now 43, brushed shoulders with countless stars, travelled the world tracking down hidden film sets, staked out honeymoon resorts, and even befriended Angelina Jolie
But when he was nearly killed by a blood clot at just 28 years old, he found he could no longer keep up with the frenetic pace of the job.
Proposing to his now wife in Central Park proved the inspiration he needed to make a switch, and he started to put his covert talents to work photographing other people’s proposals.
His services took the city by storm, and over the next ten years, he shot proposals for everyday people all over the world, appearing on Shark Tank and the Today Show in the process.
Then, at just 40 years old, Ambler was struck by another health scare when he was suddenly diagnosed with colon cancer.
James Ambler first picked up a camera as a teenager, as a way of proving whether he or his friend looked cooler while skateboarding
A shot of Angelina Jolie Ambler snapped around the time she gave him a ride home
A shot of Prince Harry Snapped by Ambler. He worked for paparazzi agencies in both New York and London
Now, after beating it with rounds of chemotherapy, he has turned his focus on spreading awareness of the illness and men’s mental health surrounding it. He recently launched a website showcasing his career’s work, which he hopes will show people that ‘photos can make a difference.’
Ambler grew up in Wantage, Oxfordshire, where there was little more to do than skateboard and listen to music. One day he and a friend began debating who ‘looked cooler’ while skating, so Ambler stole his father’s camera and a roll of film and the friends set about shooting each other.
From there, the spark was lit, and Ambler began taking a camera with him everywhere he went, honing his craft.
‘Any time I went out, I had a camera on me,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘I loved the mystery behind it, because it was non-immediate. You’d have to sit and wait to get the film developed.’
He took photography classes in school and got the itch to travel while looking at the work of professional photographers. So when he saw an advertisement for a charity trip to Nepal, he raised the funds to participate and spent two weeks hiking the mountains and photographing the beautiful Himalayan country.
When he returned to school, his photography teacher told him his work belonged in National Geographic and that he should make a career out of shooting the world.
Ambler began pursuing a degree in photography, and joined his ophthalmologist father on a service trip to Thailand, where he was providing cataract surgery for Burmese refugees. Ambler photographed the camps and his father’s work, and the results formed his dissertation.
In school and in Thailand, Ambler was inspired by the work of Vietnam War photographer Larry Burrows, and decided he too wanted to be a war photographer.
He started off working for news agencies in London, but quit by the age of 25, after feeling burned out by the pace of the work, and the difficulty he was having breaking into the war photography circuit.
After tending bar for a year, he got back into photography with a gig shooting celebrities in London. During that time he trained his lens on Kate Moss and Jude Law, Gwenyth Paltrow and Coldplay, and he was sent to film sets and movie premieres on a daily basis.
‘Back then it was this huge cat-and-mouse game,’ Ambler said. ‘You were just playing hide and seek for the day.’
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk
