Will Franken

Will Franken is a character comedian satirist mimic and actor based in London, he came to the studio to create some images for his promotional items for the Edinburgh Festival.

Each of the images were to be cut out and placed on a design so I put a sheet up in the background so the designer would have a grey background to show the edge of the character.
I set up a key light and a fill light on Will so he was lit fairly equally.
We spent about 15 minutes on each character with Will doing a quick change between each one.
As you can see the second image down was used as the main image for the flyer.

You can read/see more about Will here

Ian Todd: Live at Charborough

The great Ian Todd came to Charborough today to record a live video.

He recorded two live tracks to video and we did a few images in the studio

The set was dressed quite simply with some Ikea lights but Ian was lit from behind with a light with the barn doors nearly closed, and then from the front with the same lighting setup to create a dark vignette which allowed the Ikea lights to be seen.

He brought a beautiful old Eko guitar with him to dress the set, see bottom image

Candy Gigi at the Cellar Bar

As a regular at the Cellar Bar for the weekly comedy run by the Comedy Company, I have seen and photographed many stand up Comedians-all very funny, some hilarious, and the odd one or two acts that are, well, odd!

One of those was Candy Gigi Markham-delightfully nuts but funny with it.
She came on and immediately started to plaster her face with lipstick then spray cream, then nursed a large clump of celery before eating it and spitting it over the front row (note: do not sit in front row)

I managed to capture most of the act as she was moving about very quickly, she mentioned to me that I could get some great images of her due to the nature of the act and she managed to look over to me a few times to make an image with eye contact (top image)

Hopefully you can see the Candy Gigi experience somewhere soon.....or read more about her here

Beware This Boy:Live at Charborough

'Beware this Boy' came down to Charborough studios to record a live video a few weeks ago, they have a very earthy english sound-a bit folk rock maybe?
I took plenty of images during filming, a black and white montage is below.....

Off the Radar: Jagz open mike

I recently photographed 'Off the Radar' live at Jagz, they were appearing at the Platform open mike evening.
They had a quirky very individual sound and were a great bunch of musicians

Richmond and the Groovalution Live at Charborough

Below is Richmond and the Groovalution, they came to Charborough Studios to record a live track and video with some behind the scenes images as well.....



I arrived at the studio as the band and some helpers were just finishing dressing the set, after my retinas calmed down due to colour overload we arranged the band and did the first take.

Here are some more images from the day....

Odette, walls and lights

A videographer friend of mine wanted to film me doing a shoot with a musician for his portfolio, so we decided to approach the fantastic Odette who has graced this blog a few times before.

We all met up one Sunday afternoon in a local business park-not the most glamorous location on first viewing, but when you learn how to use a location suddenly the most mundane wall or stairs can become interesting with the right angle and some lighting.....

Our first image is a wooden wall that houses the bins for all the local businesses, I had great slanted beams that drew your attention to Odette, especially when I used a grid on a portable flash aimed at her face witch left the light to fall off  from the centre.

Second image down is a staircase that is just behind the wooden wall in the first image, I changed the lighting to a flash with an umbrella box to camera right pointing down to Odette who was sitting on the steps, I used the lead in lines of the hand rail to guide your eye into the image.

Third image down is a metal wall that is to the right of the stairs, I liked the juxtaposition of the smooth wall and the grasses with Odette slightly to the right of the image.

Fourth image is the same location but with Odette over to the edge of the frame so it could be used as a flyer as it has some empty space for text to go over if required.

Fifth image is in the studio against a white background, it's a simple portrait of Odette with her guitar, lit with an umbrella box directly in front of her and angled down to get some shadows under the chin.
Many thanks to Odette for the shoot as it was a cold November day and she dressed for summer for the images!

Charlotte Campbell

I had a chance of photographing the lovely Charlotte Campbell last week-she was on as support for Paul Carella and his band at the Kingston College Theatre.
She has a great voice and a charming personality and really interacted with the audience, she is currently recording her album, certainly someone to look out for....read more about her here

Ian Todd

Below is Ian Todd, captured here mid song at Jagz open mike, he sings some great melancholy blues songs and has a fantastic image.
To hear more brilliant artists performing for free! nip down to Jagz on Tuesday evening, grab a beer and relax, come and say hello to me-i'm the one at the front with the camera....

Instruments at peace....

Occasionally during breaks in filming or photographing in the studio, i like to look at the instruments laying about.
I saw the cymbals on this drum kit catching the reflections from our video lights, so with a long lens to compress the image i took a few shots and turned them to black and white.

In this image, one of the guitarist had laid his guitar down on an amp to go to listen to the latest take, i liked the composition of the two crossed guitars against the black backdrop so i took a couple of images.....

Paul Carella

Paul Carella and his band came down to Charborough Studios recently to shoot a video with us.
They recorded a brilliant new song called 'Electric to Touch' and the team was there to film it
They are a great bunch of blokes-all very talented and professional, i took some behind the scenes images as you can see below...

A few weeks later Paul had his EP Launch at The Kingston Theatre, the Charborough team went along for a night out..... Paul was supported by the lovely Charlotte Campbell and the the fantastic Caddy Cooper

Ella in the studio

I did another shoot for the fantastic Ella Martini at Charborough Studios recently, we did a few full length shots on a white background and then concentrated on head and shoulders shots against a grey background with a flash over Ella's head to emphasise her cheekbones
Second image down is a newspaper piece on Ella with my image used very nicely
Read more about Ella here

Ethemia

Whenever i'm photographing live acts I try to look out for the shots that show the relationship between the artists, whether it's a smile or just a look.
Below are Ethemia who I photographed recently, they shared many smiles on stage during their performance and I managed to capture a few, they obviously loved performing together and as I spoke to them after the gig it was confirmed as they spoke of their journey together and their passion for the music- a fantastic couple with some great songs....
Click here for more about Ethemia

Troy Anderson or Louis Armstrong at Jagz

Introducing Mr Troy Anderson.....who could well be Louis Armstrong in another life, he did a fantastic impression at a recent performance at Jagz music venue in Ascot

Comedy in the Cellar

I love Comedians......they are so expressonate.
Most Friday nights you'll find me at the Cellar Bar at South Hill Park taking pictures of the Comedians in between laughing, i love to capture the best moments when they are on the small stage.
Below is Tom Rowson, great bloke with a fantastic deadpan humour, next one down is Laura Lexx- a very funny little lady who was bouncing round the stage, followed by a double act called 'Raygunslookrealenough'-barking mad, musical and very funny....
Tech bit-all taken using the stage lights at a high iso, about 250th of a second, F4

Max Dickins artwork

Below is the flyer that comedian Max Dickins has had produced for his show at Edinburgh this year, it features one of my images of him from a shoot (write up is here) that I did a while ago.

As you can see it has been through some editing, the Groupon logo has been put on, the background has been colourised and a sun flare added on the right (even though the sun was on the left during the shoot!)

It's always good to see my images being used in print and still gives me a small thrill whenever I see them.

The Maidenhead Festival, X Marks the Rock at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts

I recently covered the 'X Marks the Rock' part of the Maidenhead Festival at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead.
It was a hot night with lots of bands and solo artists playing in three different parts of the venue, i ran between each act getting images for the centre.
There were also artworks on show that had been created by children which had an underwater theme-hence the huge orange octopus on the window image
Each act was fantastic and played to a good crowd, below is a few images from the night....

Ella Martini single artwork

Regular readers of this blog will certainly know Miss Ella Martini by now, as she has made an appearance here a few times all ready,
We got together at the studio to create an image that can be used for her next single release (today!)
Basically it was a pure white background with some tall black boards either side of Ella to stop the light spilling on to her from the background, she was lit with two lights, key light from top camera right and the other was a fill light low camera right. The reason for the fill light was because Ella wore dark clothes and without the fill light the clothes wouldn't have any detail in them on the shadow side.
Below is a favourite image from the day....

Below is the final edited image, converted to black and white. The image was then re drawn by hand to produce the final image at the bottom, it just goes to show that sometimes the photographic image may not be the final image that is used.

Ella's new tune, 'Dealing with this' will be released on iTunes on Monday 18th August
You can order it from her site at http://www.ellamartini.com//