Max Dickins:Groupon Man, weather and lighting

Below is Comedian Max Dickins as 'Groupon Man' a character he has created for his Edinburgh Show, these images are for his printed promo material.
More about Max and that character here, check him out, he's brilliant!

As for the shoot, luckily the shoot date was moved so we had a beautiful bright sunny day, which is ideal if you want to light someone from behind. We went onto an open area that had a steep hill as Max wanted to be photographed against a deep blue sky, if the sun was behind him then he becomes a silhouette, so i had to light him back up to the correct exposure with a couple of flashes, one on a boom arm at camera right and one lower down, camera left to fill in the shadows caused by the flash on the right.
It was very windy that day so we had to wait for the wind to be in the right direction to get the cape flowing backwards, you can see some movement in the edges of the cape which i really like.

I left a lot of space at the top of the image to allow for type to be placed-such as the name of the show etc.
As for the colours, luckily Max had brought along a costume which made up the primary colours so it was a very striking colour palette, enhanced by some post processing to make him look more 'gritty'

The location i chose is a very popular place for families and dog walkers so Max got some funny looks and many requests such as 'who are you supposed to be?', i'm just glad i was stuck behind the camera....

El Born

Well, what can i say about El Born?
If you have their music in your brain for a few days and continually listen to them on the web then they must be doing something right.
I went along to the Boiler Room in Guildford recently, what a great venue, loads of character, great staff and a brilliant atmosphere.
The evening was arranged by the unstoppable Lorraine from Success Express who's events i have had the pleasure of photographing before.
El Born was the 4th band on, the previous acts were also fantastic which made for a great night as i was photographing all of them, the lighting was a bit tricky, most of it was coming from the back which made it very atmospheric to watch but not so great to photograph as there was hardly any light coming from the front!
Si the lead singer was always on the move so i had my work cut out for me, but what a great lead, full of passion which i hope i captured in the images.
You must listen to El Born here
The fantastic Lorraine from Success Express is here

Calista Kazuko

I photographed Calista Kazuko at the Boiler Room music venue in Guildford, she was part of a live music evening put on by Success Express.
She is a fantastic artist with some quirky haunting songs, after her set we took some images by a wall in the venue that had lots of stickers on it which looked great behind her long dark hair and pale face-see top image
You can see and hear more about her here

Alex Taylor:Live@Charborough

I recently had the pleasure of photographing Alex Taylor at Nordens Farm Centre for the Arts, which i covered in this post

 

He recently came to Live@Charborough to record a track and be video'ed whilst doing so.

I was able to get some behind the scenes images between filming.

 

Alex is a really amazing performer, he uses a loop system to record guitar and vocals as he plays, then replays them during the same song as well as slapping the guitar so it eventually sounds like there are a few people performing instead of one.