Ali Gordon

Castell y Gwynt | Castle of the wind


Sorry it’s a long quote to start off with today.

When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill, When the funds are low and the debts are high And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don’t you quit. Life is strange with its twists and turns As every one of us sometimes learns And many a failure comes about When he might have won had he stuck it out; Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—You may succeed with another blow. Success is failure turned inside out— The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell just how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit— It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.”


I was recently working with Lacoste on a campaign for their new fragrance Matchpoint. The fragrance campaign focused around the idea of your “Matchpoint” moment and part of this involved me talking about a recent Matchpoint moment experience. Below are the images from that day!

This trip to South Wales had been planned for a while but we were aware with the global situation that we would have to change as the guidance changes. Luckily we were able to go and get some great content. This didn’t come without its challenges though.


One day was set aside for climbing one of the peaks and we purposefully looked at the day with the best weather conditions to do this. Half way up this peak we had beautiful conditions and clear skies then suddenly turning into grey skies, overcast conditions, light rain, then heavy rain and finally torrential rain and wind. The conditions completely betrayed us and we had a Matchpoint moment. Having got so far and committed so much it would have been easy to turn back and just submit to the conditions, calling the day a washout. The alternative option (the one that we took) was to persevere and make the most of the situation. We did what we could.


Eventually getting to the top in terrible conditions, our kit soaked and us drenched to the bone, we had a little clearing in the weather that enabled us to shoot and made the decision to persevere worthwhile.


Truth is that the likely outcome was that it would have been pointless carrying on and we would have wasted our time however this matchpoint moment focus made me realise that our options were to either persevere or to call it for the day which means that even if we did get to the top of this peak and couldn’t get any content it would have been the same outcome as the other option of calling it a day. Anyway, it’s funny how your mind can work in convincing there isn’t a reason to persevere.

Stay safe


Jacket – HERE 

Jeans – HERE 

Boots – HERE

Lacoste Fragrance ( Press Product ) – HERE