Author Archive
My Personal Favourite
…. from last Saturday’s live band shoot. This is the guitarist from Tenyson. When I get his name I’ll edit this.
Tenyson Guitarist
Live Band Work
There is some aspect of any kind of work that has the potential to be fun to do. At least that’s my theory. In photography there are all kinds of work I don’t particularly like. Event photography is one of them. Weddings come into that category and so does shooting live bands. But ….
I’m finding that aspect that I like. And without going into it in any detail I’ll just put up a few samples from the “Smoke on the Water” live outdoor concert that took place on Saturday as part of the Saint Hill Arts Festival.
2190
This is 2190.
Naked Bass
Naked Bass
The Press Gang
The Press Gang
Press to Meco
Press to Meco
Tenyson
Tenyson
Blu Monkey
Blu Monkey
Drummer: Roger Nunn
As mentioned a week or two ago Roger Nunn wanted some promo type images. I’d been looking forward to this session for a while and had dreamed up a few scenes. On the day the weather wasn’t kind and it was also quite late in the day when we began.
We started on a roof in the heart of the City of London.
Looking south towards the Thames.
Looking north. Yes that is St Paul’s Cathedral.
Looking west toward Blackfriars. It was quite tricky getting Roger on to that platform. I told him I was insured but he still took a little persuading.
Roger is basically a nice guy but looking like one isn’t always called for. So we went for a sinister kind of thing here.
And lastly the sulking in an alley type look which is compulsory for all rock musicians. In this case Roger wanted coffee and there was none to be had.
We Interrupt This Programme…..
I don’t do weddings. But I did this one as a second shooter. I won’t explain how it came about as it probably isn’t of much interest. Suffice to say it happened last Friday and in spite of all the reasons I don’t do weddings I had a great time. The couple, Bernard and Sibila, were married at Sidcup Registry Office and held their reception at the Holiday Inn in Bexley.
At the end of the day my feet felt quite abused but it was a good day. Here are some samples of what I got.
Thank you Bernard and Sibila. It was a privilege to share your day and I wish you great happiness.
Showing “No Mercy”
Friend and Press Gang drummer Roger Nunn came over today to pick up some prints and to show me the cover of the Press Gang’s new album which now has the title “No Mercy”.
The first hundred sold will be a special limited and numbered edition which is a lot larger than the normal CD album. It looks great and I’m very pleased with the way it’s been printed. After the first hundred it will only be available as a regular sized CD cover.
Front cover
The inside spread shows individual shots of the band. The background image came from a library but was processed by yours truly.
Back cover.
You’ll notice Roger’s hands are filthy in these pictures. He’d been painting today. I could have asked him to clean up first but would that truly be rock and roll?
Back to Rock and Roll
Recent posts have drifted away from Rock and Roll so this is to get the blog back on track. Louise was fun to work with. This was shot on the roof of her flat somewhere near Holloway in London one evening about a year ago I think.
I’m about to move and I’m not entirely sure where I’m going yet but will likely arrive there within the next day or two. I’m aiming to do a lot more work along these lines in the near future. So if you’re any kind of artist reading this and you like what you see let me know.
Josh Again
Just because it’s a cute picture really. I have a few bookings that involve children coming up so you can expect a few more in the weeks ahead.
This was made about a year ago and may have even been posted before. But I like it.
Don’t ask me to be your next motivational speaker
Call me cynical but I can’t stand those positive thinking standards such as “this is the first day of the rest of your life”. It’s a true enough statment but there’s something altogether wet about it in that it’s quite close to being a useful truth without actually being one by itself. The speaker acts as if he has said something profound. My reply is usually something like, “Yeah but did you know that without Tomorrow there can be No Future?” Or if it’s a politician I’d ask, “Do you intend to put the Great back in Britain?”
This is a scene that is about a half mile walk up the road from ARTS House. I call it the Plawhatch Lookout but that isn’t it’s real name. This was shot just over two years ago and processed early this morning. One of my pet hates is to see framed pictures with captions beneath them. I have a voice in my head that shouts captions should not be needed if the image is good enough. But in this case “A new day” came to mind and that reminded me of another pet hate of mine; motivational speakers who say things like the above.
So I’ve decided to call it “You’ve a whole new day to screw up”. Could be the begining of a whole new series.
Shoe Box Cover
This also came out of the other night’s one light shoot. Sort of. Well the face did. The rest is entirely fabricated.
There is no client for this. I’ve just been exploring different ideas for where I’m interested in going which is currently CD and book cover type stuff. A little more “out there” than yer average PR type shoot. Unlike similar work where there is a client this was quite straightforward. No one looking over my shoulder or asking for “tiny” changes that will “only take five minutes”. This was pretty much just for fun.
I’m really liking not being limited by the word “photographer” and therefore being free to do things photographers seldom get a chance to do. Planet building and galaxy spinning for instance.
Sometimes It Happens
…. and a piece of kit stops working. In this case the second flash I was to be using on this shoot just refused to work correctly. Fortunately the other one still worked fine. But this totally changed the mood I was going for and the look I had wanted was no longer possible with what I had to hand. I had intended to go for a wild man of the woods kind of thing but with limited time and a cold model I decided to go for something completely different.
The shoot is just the first step for just about every image I make where I intend to make a scene with a character rather than a portrait. Shoots don’t usually take very long when props, make-up and all that stuff is at a minimum, compared to the next stage which is the processing, after editing down the images to the ones I want to work further on. These are tweaked in various ways until I end up with the final image. Someimes it takes a few minutes and other times several hours. The shoot lasted about 30 minutes total. The processing considerably longer.
