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?

Corporate Headshot

As well as photographing Actors, i am also called upon to produce Corporate Headshots.
Above is Sir Ian McGeechin OBE, who at the time was ex Director of Rugby for the London Wasps and a very well known figure in the Rugby world.

He was making an inspiring speech to businessmen on behalf of Archer Mathieson at a very early breakfast event at Twickenham Rugby Club, i got there at 7am to set up lighting for his speech and to take some general images of the day.
I wanted to get a picture of Sir Ian with the company logo to tie them together visually so straight after the speech i moved one of the banners away from the stage, put a seat near it, moved the two flashes in position, took some test images, and.........................waited.

Everybody wanted to speak to Sir Ian after his rousing speech so i couldn't get near him for 5 minutes, but i knew they would want this image so i managed to get through the scrum (rugby joke!) and asked him if i could have 5 minutes of his time?
He was very happy to have his photograph taken so i spent a couple of minutes composing images until i had a few variations.

Lighting details are-one bare flash back camera left, one flash in a shoot through umbrella camera right front.

He was a very charming and friendly chap who knew the power of a good photograph!
Later we went into the corridors with employees of Archer Maithieson for some more images with some of the staues of rugby player to keep the theme of rugby in the images.

light set up in the dark and final image

Above is Scott, you can read about him on the previous post.
This top image is a quick illustration of the lighting setup for the final result of the image bellow.
As you can see, one flash on the gates and one flash in a grid onto Scotts' face with a very slow shutter speed to get the fading evening light. The flash on the gates also gives a rim light on Scott's face camera left which is handy as i didn't have a lot of time to break out a third flash as the sun had allready gone down and it was getting very dark, in fact we took the last shot in total darkness!.
These gates are one of my favourite locations, they are at the bottom of the 'Old Mile straight' at Ascot Racecourse-right next to the road with plenty of parking in a side road nearby.
As with many locations it's best not to use them too frequently as it's not too good to see them in every shoot, iv'e started taking images on my IPhone of locations that can be used in the future so i have a small library to choose from.
As for the images from this day, i supplied him with colour and a few black and white ones for choice

Studio shoot

Above are Rappers Scott (top) and Lee.

They came along to Fine and Dandee studios in Wokingham, Berkshire at the weekend for some promo shots for CD artwork and general PR images.

After setting up backgrounds and lights we talked about how they want to be perceived, i always ask that question as i usually have a preconceived idea of what subjects should look like.

If you said to me what does a Rapper look like then i would imagine someone with a angry face snarling into the camera making lots of 'Gang' signs with their hands-a stereotypical look!

But Lee and Scott were very different-with an almost laid back style which suited their music

I thought i'd keep the lighting dramatic by side lighting them, especially as Lee had a baseball cap on which meant the light had to reach up under the brim of his hat. We used a grey background with a light shining across it for some images and also with a gridded flash with a green gel on to make Lee's red baseball cap really pop out, most of the images had a rear/side light to bring the dark side of the body away from the background

The very top image of Scott was shot against a pure white background, with just one flash facing him-very simple and clean. I placed him on the right side of the image so it could be cropped square for a CD cover with some added text-something you have to keep in mind when shooting for covers.

So after 4 hours of shooting  in the studio, moving lights around, and about 400 shots later we packed up and headed home to make a selection of images to hand over to their Manager.

Kieron Garrett



Kieron Garrett is an accomplished Jazz and Classical Pianist who wanted some images that would help him convey his character.

We met up at a pub that had some fantastic furniture and wallpaper that i could use in the images, and set to work with two flashes, both flashes had grids on them that put a pool of light onto Kieron's face and a pool of light on Kieron and the wallpaper- a very moody look.

The flash on the wall had a blue gel on it to give it that 'Jazz Club' look, and the one on his face had a opposite amber gel on it to get the 'correct' colour on Kierons skin-very simple to do and very effective.

The whole image was done very quickly thanks to having an initial idea for the shoot, a suitable location and some cool furniture.

You can find out more about Kieron here