Travelling light....

 

What's this? I hear you ask...

I recently attending an event at The Houses of Parliament on behalf of a charity for sick children, I can't show any images as it was a private event, although it was attended by a few MP's and Dignitaries.

 

Anyway, back to the question, the above contraption is my rolling camera gear cart, I use it a lot when travelling as it fits a lot of gear in such as lights, stands, cameras, lenses, etc.

Security is very tight at Parliament, I had to take everything out of the roller case and put it through the x-ray machine, even the light stands, even though they are just made out of light aluminium!

 

Anyway, I managed to get through security and photograph the event for a couple of hours until I had to pack it all up and head home from Waterloo in the rush hour.

As well as carrying all my gear it makes a handy seat on the train when all the proper seats are taken!

Tom in the Park

 Above is Tom, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and Husband of the lovely Camilla (see previous post)

Tom requested a shoot after seeing Camilla's final images, so we headed out to a location in Windsor Great Park on a very hot evening.

I used a couple of lights for most of the shots, underexposing the evening sky to get a rich blue and then re-lighting Tom to the correct exposure.

There was some very old trees which looked good in the images, so we utilised them in various shots as Tom wanted a 'natural' theme to his shoot.

 

Below is a behind the scenes shot of Tom on a tree with my flashes lighting him and part of the tree behind him-a very simple set up but looks great in the final image.

 

 After a couple of hours we headed home happy in the fact that we had a wide variety of images that Tom can use for promotion such as flyers, posters and maybe a CD cover in the near future.

Camilla

 

I met up with Camilla on probably one of the hottest days of the year to create some images that she can use for Press and PR purposes.

We started out at an old disused garage but then went on to a open grassy area for the rest of the shoot in the sun.

 

I placed Camilla in the shade so she didn't squint  against the sun and lit her from the front to balance the exposure against the background, without being lit she would have been almost a silhouette, I also lit her from the side to put a rim light on her hair and left arm.

The best thing to ask a musician to do when having their picture taken is just to play, as any feelings of self consciousness seem to go as they concentrate on their music leaving me to capture the best image possible.

 

Later we went to some very ornate gates to shoot some more images in front of the stone column, the lighting was roughly the same but due to the slightly different angle the sun itself rim lit Camilla's left side.

 

Colour is very important in an image so when Camilla got out a rather beautiful wood guitar that had a lovely colour I was really pleased as the orangey/red of the guitar contrasted nicely with her blue jeans and the green background.

 

After a few hours in the sun i headed home for a very welcome cool drink.

The Cornerhouse Pub

 

 

Now, some of you eagle eyed readers might spot the room in the top image has been used before here when I took some pictures of Nathan Virica, yes it's the top room in the Cornerhouse Pub in Windsor.

Once a month a comedy club is held there, hosted by Dave Chawner (taking the floor, top image)

I took some images there of the various comedians and some of the audience that could be used for their PR needs.

 

As usual, pubs tend to have gloomy interiors, even though it was a bright evening I had to light the interior with one flash that basically lit the room up to a usable exposure- I usually find that flash is needed to either bring up the exposure in a dull interior to get a usable image or to create a lighting effect.

 

Bottom image is Tom Holmes, although there was a reasonable crowd at the comedy night, a good trick to make crowds look more than they are is to shoot through heads and shoulders, that makes the image 'claustraphobic' and indicates a crowded venue.

 

So, if you fancy a laugh, pop along to the Cornerhouse Pub first Wednesday of each month, you might see me with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other,  cheers!

Salena Jones

I recently photographed a performance by the amazing Salena Jones at Jagz in Ascot.

i was amazed at her voice, especially as she has been singing for 50 years with all the Jazz greats all over the world.

Suprisingly for me, i didn't use flash, usually stage lighting doesn't flatter the performer too much and i had to be careful to take pictures when Salena was facing the light directly (see above) other times though the single stage light gave a moody dark feeling to the other images. She has used some of the performance images on her site, so if you want to find out more about Salena, click here

DivaBand!

DivaBand are a 7 piece Funk Band covering all the great 70's hits and ''Putting the "oooh" back into Boogie''
I recently photographed them before one of their rehearsals.
I found myself back at Jagz in Ascot, in the orange room again, it was a great backdrop for the electric blue costumes. I set up various shots, some of all the band, some of just the girls, and individual shots of each band member on a white background that can be put together just like the 'Trainspotting' film poster.
After the shoot we went upstairs to photograph them rehearsing on the main stage, they had their own lights but i had to use some flash to illuminate the whole stage.
For more info about DivaBand, click here

Nathan Virica

 

 

I recently shot Nathan Virica at an old pub in Windsor, we used the upstairs function room as it had some white walls, patterned wallpaper (see above image) and lots of space.

We spent two hours in total, setting up shots with flash in different parts of the room so he had a good range of images to use for promo purposes.

After the first shoot, we stopped of at an old disused garage and did some more shooting until we gave in to the cold and Nathan got on the warm train to head home.

Caddy Cooper

Caddy asked me back from a previous shoot with Vivacia to do some 70's style images for her as she is involved with a 70's style band called Diva. After moving all the furniture to one side i set up a grey background with a couple of flashes, one to light Caddy and one to light the background and the side of Caddy as you can see from the bottom image.

She had a couple of changes of clothes-both in 70's style and we captured a good range of images that she can use in a number of ways.



Vivacia

Vivacia is made up of Christina, Caddy and Elaine, their music is described as ''a scintillating fusion of Blues, Jazz and Acoustica''
I photographed them recently in a pink walled room in an old house near Maidenhead for a set of images they can use for press and promotion purposes. The room had lots of instruments on the wall so we moved some furniture and slotted the girls into the space carefully aligning them to the centre.
One flash through a huge umbrella did the trick of lighting them and the wall that was right behind them, later on i did some image of the girls on their own with their instruments where i used a small umbrella as a main light with a small softbox as a 'kicker' light from the back side.
The whole shoot took about two hours including moving furniture.
Although the walls had a fantastic pink hue, i do like this in black and white, i'll deliver most of the images in colour with a few monochrome ones that i think will work without colour.
In all it was a great evening, the girls had dressed up for the shoot in black which looked great against the pink walls and the instruments on the walls just added to the image- a fantastic room to shoot in.
To see Vivacia on Youtube, click here.

Jagz NYE

Well, here we are at the end of 2012.
I popped down to Jagz in Ascot to take a few pics of the festivities and a drink on NYE, the band 'Revolution' was playing a great set and everybody seemed to be enjoying the food and music.
As you can see, not the brightest room as far as light goes for photography, if this was a paying job i would have lit the stage as well as the area in front and matched the colour temperature of the stage tungsten lights with the flashes, but......i was 'off duty' so i just took some shots.

A big thank you to everybody that has become a customer of mine over the year and anybody that has helped me in any way, best of luck for 2013!

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?