On the face of it, shooting a sales conference after party doesn't sound the most inspiring of commissions. But in my opinion, these kinds of shoots are pure gold.

Just after the Christmas break I was asked to document a couple of separate shoots - at London's St Pancras Renaissance hotel and the other at Grosvenor House - I became the Artful Dodger with a 50mm lens: moving nimbly around the cliques of conversation, pilfering pictorial moments.

For a photographer who is at his most stimulated when shooting people, the opportunity to float around the periphery of a bunch of people who totally ignore you is manna from heaven. And so the stage was set for my first commission with new client, Marriot Hotels.

Monochrome embraces the feel of these moments perfectly and uses the low lighting to its advantage. My aim in these kinds of situations is to capture the feel of those wonderful old-fashioned black and white images which fill coffee table books and used to make poster shops so much money. Whatever happened to Athena, anyway?

Below, as usual, are only a few from the overall commission. Click any thumbnail to enlarge...