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//

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.

 

Clare Teal at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts

I recently photographed Clare Teal at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead.
She had her band that consisted of Pianist, double bass player and drummer-together they were fantastic!

Clare is a fast moving lady on stage, lots of head movement etc so it was a little tricky to get all the images of her sharp, basically i had to catch her at the right moment, the image above is a prime example.
Most of the images i took were of her but i also took some of the band all together on the stage and some individual ones of the band members where possible.

I tried not to move round the theatre too much as i don't like to be a distraction to any audience members, so i only moved between songs during the applause and sat or stood still without taking any pictures when she was singing a few very quiet songs.

It was a fantastic polished performance by a group of musicians that obviously love what they do.

Martyrs and Kings:Live@Charborough

Martyrs and Kings-a band i have shot a few times before (see here) came down to Live@Charborough to record a live recording and video,
They are a great young band playing mature music, in this instance with acoustic guitars.
All the lads have great chemistry to them, as you can see from the behind the scenes images above, and really enjoys themselves when they are playing.
They finally nailed it on the fifth take and relaxed in the control room while Roger (bottom left at desk) worked his magic with the buttons....

The Herberts: Live@Charborough

Live@Charborough had the pleasure of The Herberts coming along to record a track and video recently, they are an eclectic bunch that plays eclectic music.
Towering front man is Will, along with Nisha on backup vocals and a great band behind them.
We went through a few takes to get the best sound and vision, with me taking some behind the scenes images between filming.
I'm scheduled to get some promo images produced for them soon as part of their deal.
You can read more about The Herberts here

Flash on location

As someone who likes to use flash on location shoots, i thought i would show how important it is when shooting on a sunny day.

Above is Odette, who you may have read about in a previous post here
We went to a local lake for a shoot on a very bright day so i used flash to balance the bright sunlight that was falling on the scene from behind Odette with a flash to light Odette back up to the background exposure.

Tho two images were taken milliseconds apart, the left image has no flash firing as it hadn't recycled from the previous shot so Odette is a perfect silhouette, the second image is perfectly lit as the flash had re-charged and was able to light the scene.

If i had no flashes, then i would have had to expose for Odette and the background would have nearly blown out to white as the difference in the foreground and background exposure was too great.

So that's why i always bring flash to location shoots, it guarantees good images whatever the natural lighting is doing that day.....

The Sha La La's:Live@Charborough

One of my favorite bands that i have photographed came down to Live@Charborough on a Sunday afternoon for a video and audio recording, they brought an original 1967 Hammond Organ with them for the authentic sound, along with two extra members on the brass section, it all added up to a fantastic sound.

They recorded 'Twentyfive', a real favorite of mine, it's a great tune, written by lead man Darron (left in top image)
The second image shows some behind the scenes shots as they performed for the video, and with Roger in the control room listening back to the track.

To hear more about the Sha La La's click here

Alex Mckay and friends:Live@Charborough

Above with his friends is Mr Alexander McKay, i did a previous blogpost on him here
He came along to the Live@Charborough studio with Ellie and her Cello and and Chris with his slide guitar.
What a fantastic sound, they recorded one of Alex's songs called 'Winter', i got some of the usual behind the scenes and performance images while i helped film them. The cello, guitar and slide guitar created a fantastic sound, there was a great atmosphere in the studio as they completed a few takes to get the perfect recording.