INTERNATIONAL photographer Tom Murray is set to bring a touch of Hollywood chic and New York pizzazz to the city of Oxford.

He has recently returned to the UK after working in New York and Los Angeles, where his list of portrait sitters included Elizabeth Taylor, Dustin Hoffman, film-makers John Huston and John Schlesinger as well as fashion giants Calvin Klein, Pierre Cardin and Ralph Lauren.

But now the former Sunday Times Magazine photographer, who has worked alongside Snowdon and Norman Parkinson, is taking on a new challenge at Oxford photographers Gillman & Soame.

He is convinced that Oxford can rival the big city studios of London, Glasgow and Manchester and aims to give Gillman & Soame a national reputation for studio work to match the company's prime position in schools photography and graduate portraiture.

"I returned to the UK to be close to my parents, who are both getting on in years," he said. "Oxford is a wonderful city for a photographer."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.