About Me

Not many photographers balance the creative input and capturing the moment as well as Jude does. She is also someone you want around you and your clients ... there is plenty of fun along the journey.

I feel like you are not stealing anything from me when you take my picture.

I feel like I don't need to put my lipstick on when you take my photo.

Jude captures images with a unique perspective. She looks beyond the superficial to reveal the social and political narrative that has created any given moment. The composition of her work has the capacity to be illuminating and dynamic as she continually seeks to explore an alternative understanding of her subject matter. Jude’s technical approach to photography is refreshingly pure, with clear and simple principles of execution. However she’s not afraid to experiment with form and content and she will take risks to access an image, risks that generate a breath-taking range from the grand to the intimate, sometimes effortlessly combining the two together. Jude is a photographer who will challenge your sensibilities to reinterpret your environment and she is an artist that encourages you to examine the reality of a moment. Jude’s ability to capture a profound moment, using any camera including phones, and her talent to see situations that others may have missed led to her appointment as the official behind the scenes photographer of the Tour De France Grand Depart 2015. Jude's career has gone from strength to strength as she continues to document high profile events and people, as well as more intimate social projects and she continues to capture the very essence of every adventure that comes her way.

Jude spoke of her journey into sport photography, and her experiences as an official ‘behind the scenes’ photographer of the 2014 Tour de France. Jude’s presentation was absorbing. She immediately engaged the audience in her story, which was complemented by powerful and compelling images chosen from her photography portfolio. The feedback we received was that Jude’s presentation was the highlight of the evening and that it challenged and captivated the audience in equal measure.

As President of British Cycling my work has brought me into contact with many photographers whose work can be found across cycling specific titles. During this time I’ve come to appreciate the evocative and thought provoking style of image that is as much about the art as it is about the action. Whilst the weight of the paper doesn’t always guarantee quality it’s been good to see the development in recent years of several cycling magazines that use exactly this style of photography. The outcomes are for me the type of reads that are an occasion rather than a catch up. With this as a background; my first contact with Jude Palmer took place in 2013, she had recently been appointed by Welcome to Yorkshire as their resident photographer to chart the development of the upcoming Tour de France Grand Depart and its impact, not just on the cycling community but the wider population of Yorkshire. As commissions go; I understand it was loose in its brief and massively wide in its scope, recording as it did the rising tide of public interest around the Tour’s arrival. Uniquely, as an embedded photographer Jude had access to many of the behind the scene’s events including the many support promotions that Welcome to Yorkshire steered on the lead up to the Grand Depart. It would have been all too easy to have simply created a pictorial diary but I came to appreciate that this wasn’t Jude’s style. Armed with a significant portfolio of photos she set about the task of laying down a piece of work that was not only about the Tour but also about the social impact, in a way that is rarely captured in cycling journalism. The resulting book “The Grandest of Grand Departs” is a publication that for many years I will continue to read to take me back to the occasion, as much as to the event, as I feel that it should rightly hold a position as a social chapter for our sport. Since her work was completed on the Grand Depart I have kept in touch with Jude and know of her work within cycling teams and more recently with another behind the scenes commission for the Rugby Union World Cup. I think it’s fair to say that Jude is only at the beginning of her media journey but I believe that she has the talent to be a considerable asset to those who have an eye for her undoubted flair.