Happy Days.......



In July 2012 i was asked to cover the 'Happy Days' Festival in south west London for the Splashlight magazine, this was the third job of the day, first job was second shooter at a Wedding in Stokenchurch to help out a friend of mine, followed by a Jubilee Party near Gerrards Cross, then onto the festival itself.

The saving grace of the day was the fact that Level 42 were playing that night, along with Billy Ocean on the line up.

Iv'e been a big Level 42 fan since they first started and their music has been a soundtrack to my life so i was really pleased to get to see them and photograph them before they went on stage and during the show.

Technically it was the usual thing, many different coloured lights, on and off all the time-a photograph nightmare!

I started by underexposing my shots as the camera was trying to read all the dark tones and overexposing everything, Mark King (top image) had a great blue backlight on him sometimes and was lit by warm tones from the front, Billy Oceans's lighting was all over the shop and he was moving around quite a bit, in and out of the lights so i just crossed my fingers and kept shooting.

There are so many things to think of when shooting live music, Firstly-composition, with someone moving around the stage you have to choose the moment to shoot so you can get the subject against a good background and without a microphone stand in front of their face.

Secondly, expression- getting the shot at the right moment is crucial-capturing the look on the performers face is in my view paramount, as their expression really conveys the emotion they are feeling while performing.

Thirdly, timeing- pressing the shutter at the right time sounds easy but when you have a performer who really moves about it can get very tricky so you have to almost pre-visualise the next move by listening to the music which sounds a bit obvious but when your shooting a concert you tend not to notice the music too much as you are concentrating on all of the above!

Last, but definately not least.....EARPLUGS!

Usually the Photographer is right at the front, between stage and audience and the speakers can be only a few feet away so earplugs are a must otherwise you will have ringing in your ears the rest of of the night!

JodyRule shoot 2

Regular followers of this Blog may remember Jody (above) from a previous post.
Jody had requested some more images of himself as he had a magazine interested in doing an article on him and needed some newer images.

He is a regular at Jagz music venue in Ascot so we decided to do the latest shoot there. We started of on the stage as he needed the Jagz logo in the image which was on the back wall, then we went downstairs to the nightclub which had some fantastic orange walls and old leather sofas (a Photographers delight of a location)

For the bottom image i set up a couple of flashes, one to either side of the camera with an umbrella on the right and flash and a grid on the left hand flash that concentrated the light on his head and shoulders, some shots had a light behind the glass bricks in the wall with a blue gel on for effect.

Most of the images i have taken of Jody before have had his guitar in the picture but for these it was just him.

The top image was in the same area of the nightclub, but at the bar area, just one flash in an umbrella at a low angle, the padding on the bar looks great and the lead in lines take your eyes straight to Jody.

The deep reds and bright oranges are at a contrast against the cool blue of his T Shirt, hat and jeans

So many things to think of when planning an image-location, colours, lighting, composition etc.

On another note, i seem to take a lot of images in bars/clubs etc, mainly due to the decor lending itself to my style i suppose?