Seimon Pugh-Jones, ACG Combat Photographer

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Regular readers of Armchair General Magazine will have noticed the unique and exclusive recreation photos that appear in every issue.  Intricately posed, with historical accuracy being a key feature, these photos are created by Armchair General’s very own resident Photographer – Seimon Pugh-Jones.

A resident of Wales, Seimon worked for the UK Ministry of Defence as a photographer for eleven years.  In addition to this, he has worked behind the scenes on the Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan and as an advisor and stills photographer for several documentaries with the History Channel.  He’s also been on the small screen, it was during his work for the TV mini-series Band of Brothers that he was invited to play the part of a Combat Cameraman, and he appeared in episode seven of this popular series.

So how are the photos for ACG produced and what makes Seimon tick?  We took some time out to find out for ourselves, and here’s what Seimon had to say, interspersed with some of his favourite pictures…

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Dale Dye and me, on the set of Saving Private Ryan

On Being a Combat Cameraman

I had three major ambitions in my life: One was to work on a war movie, second, to fly in a P51 Mustang, third, to have a book published before the age of 40.

The first came true after a costume designer friend (Joe Hobbs), invited me to work on the World War II drama Band of Brothers. On the first day of filming I turned up at 4am on a cold crisp April morning at North Weald airfield. I was to give Joe a hand with dressing the actors in parachute harnesses.

By 8am, that was all done. Then Joe asked me if I could advise him on what World War II GI cameramen would have worn and used.  My answer to Joe was…

"It’s all in the back of the car, mate!"

Next thing… I’m dressed in costume, complete with severe GI haircut and have the job as an “actor” mixing with Donny Walberg  and Dave Schwimmer. I just happened to have my 1930s 16mm Filmo with me… and some film stock.  I wandered around during the takes shooting film and acting the part of a World War II cameraman and between takes, like some obsessed extra.

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