Ken picton: life though a lens

Ken Picton has been flying the flag for Welsh hairdressing for more than 20 years. He has won an array of business and creative accolades, including winning HJ's Wales & South West Hairdresser of the Year three times, HJ's British Hairdressing Business Awards Salon of the Year and Website of the Year and, along with colleague Paul Dennison, is the current Schwarzkopf Professional British Colour Technician of the Year. He talks to HJi about some of his favouriteimages from his illustrious career

This image is a favourite of mine as it was my first ever HJ frontcover. I love the symmetrical shape of this picture and the softflow of the hair.		With the Fabrik collection, we wanted to recreatethe feel of Italian Vogue front covers. The hair isbeautifully crafted, but remains editorial. It makesyou want to touch and rake your hands through it.
This is our signature look - todate this is probably one of themost successful images I'veever produced. As a collectionit was a real exploration ofa mood and an attitude thatwe'd never tried before. It was1970s-inspired with a modernedge. This taught me moreabout photographic work thanany other collection and tookme back to old-school photoshoot skills.		This was part of my 2009British Hairdressing AwardsWales & South West winningcollection looking at iconic erasthrough history. I wanted tocreate strong, graphic beautyimages and this graduated bobwas the signature look. Theangles created not just fromthe hair but from the model'spose and the lines in the imagework in sync together.

I love this imagebecause Automikwas a brave shootwhere we minimisedall styling and reallyshowed the craft ofhair. As a collection, itwas very much aboutthe hair doing thetalking. This imagewas the signature lookof the collection - it'sintriguing and begsthe question: how wasit done?		This shot was one of the mostchallenging I've ever hadto get right, because flashphotography was used whichproduced shadow and shade.When it was shot front on itlooked like she had MinnieMouse ears. I had to changethe shape and angle, but endedup with a beautiful Prada wave.While I'd name this shoot'most likely to make me weep'in its inception, I just love theresults and this shot inspiredfuture editorial shoots.

 This collection was four years in the making and the ideawas inspired by the AndyWarhol Marilyn Monroe popart images. The idea was toexplore a virtually identicallook and see how the colourchanged the mood of everypicture. It was designed towork as single images, butI prefer them like a jigsaw,pieced together. The journeywhile creating this collectionwas incredible and to winSchwarzkopf ProfessionalBritish Colour Technician ofthe Year with my colleaguePaul Dennison was the icing onthe cake. This is image engages the person looking at it and it had adefinite technique without being extremely structured. It wasinspired from my signature look from the Dis-go-tek collection. For more information about HJ's 2013 British Hairdressing Awards and to book your tickets, call Dan Eversfield on 020 8652 8845 or email [email protected]