Bruce Foxton: From the Jam with The Sha La La's at GLive

I had the pleasure of photographing one of my favourite current bands alongside one of my favourite old bands at GLive recently.

The formers is The Sha La La's who were supporting 'From the Jam' featuring Bruce Foxton who was the original Jam member (top image)

I got plenty of images of 'From the Jam' but the one i really like is the top image of Bruce Foxton with the 'From the Jam' logo behind him- he has a very proud look on his face which seems to echo his longevity.

But, before they came on The Sha La La's gave a blistering support set, with many songs from their new EP (which i shot the cover for), a great night, thank God for earplugs!

Shooting for publications: Be more negative!

A slightly misleading heading i know, but when shooting for a publication it's always a good idea to have some negative space where text can be placed, preferably on a fairly plain background to make the text readable.
In the image above i purposely left some negative space for that reason.

The subject above is the great Alexander McKay, a fantastic musician who i have photographed a couple of times and helped film at www.charboroughmedia.com.
Technical info: one flash through a white umbrella, camera right.
Location: a small booth at the Troubadour Club on the Old Brompton Road, London straight after a gig.

BBC Introducing: Saltwater Sun and The Parades

I recently photographed Saltwater Sun and The Parades at the Purple Turtle in Reading for the BBC Introducing spot, a couple of great bands that had their own styles.
The lighting was a bit tricky, as in not a lot of it and the fact that the BBC Introducing logo was being projected over the bands which gave them a real sickly green/blue colour cast-yuk! So I ended up with noisy green images....oh well...not a lot you can do about that apart from, add more clean light, don't project anything onto the performers etc, I suppose the colour lends a certain charm maybe? maybe not........ Great music though!

Babyhowl at Charborough Studios

Berkshire's Baby Howl came into the studio at Charborough a few days ago to film a small part of their forthcoming video, I was helping out with the filming and getting some behind the scenes shots.

After all the recording was done I got the lads to give me 5 minutes to get a quick portrait of each of them. It was a very simple set up, one flash in a very small softbox at 90 degrees from the camera with a black 'flat' behind them image converted to mono with some high pass sharpening and a bit of contrast, all together it makes for a moody shot which suites their music I think.

I have shot them before in a few different locations for their promo images when they were a 4 piece, you can see that blogpost here


Check them out here, along with a recent interview and music on BBC Radio Berkshire
for BBC Introducing

The Comedians....

Whenever i'm photographing Comedians during they're act I'm always struck by two things-how quickly they move on the (very small) stage bearing in mind they are just 'talking' to an audience and how much they use they're free hand.

Below are some of the comedians i have photographed recently-each one using they're hands to emphasise a joke, top downwards is Ninia Benjamin, Jen Brister, Edd Hedges, and Matt Richardson

As for the photos.... very red tungsten light colour balance, a high iso, wide aperture and a high shutter speed to capture the movement.

Live at Charborough: Andy Morritt

We recently had the pleasure of filming and recording the great Andy Morritt at Live@Charborough.
He sang a very soulful song called 'Lost in Oblivion' whilst playing piano, after a few takes we did a small shoot in the studio against some black 'flats' with him sitting on a monitor and one flash in an umbrella to camera left pointed down at a steep angle.

I also took some behind the scenes images, this is the view from my camera during filming...

Pete Heat

I recently had the pleasure of photographing Magician Pete Heat at the Cellar Bar comedy night.
He took the cellar by storm, his act included of a card trick with a loaf of bread (top image), a mind reading part that involved stripping off to his under ware (bottom image for the ladies!) and some great magic jokes in between, and he came across as a nice guy, i had to stop taking pictures for a while due to laughing....
If you want to read and see more about him, check out www.peteheat.co.uk

Pre planning a shoot

Ok, i know what you're thinking, why is David showing us an image of a dark cellar instead of a new Band or Singer he has just shot for promo purposes as usual?

Well, i do a lot of work for the National Trust, photographing events, places and people, and i was asked to go to Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire to photograph the Christmas decorations in the main house and also to shoot some editorial portraits of the Director General - Dame Helen Ghosh DCB.

As her time was limited, i got there early to scout the different locations i had been asked to shoot her in. The first location was the 'Cellarium' a very dark and cold cellar that was used to keep the wine cold back in the day, it has very low ceilings and some beautiful stone arches with hardly any ambient light apart from this one window seen in the above image.

So, what can i do?

I got an exposure for the ambient light coming through the window (not a lot!) and then set up a flash pointing towards the spot where Dame Helen would be standing, when she was ready i asked her to stand in the exact spot so the flash lit her and and the room correctly while the window showed up in the exposure.

I took some more pictures of her in the same area but without any window light, using two flashes, one to light her and one to light up the rest of the room, we shot in there for about 15 minutes then went into relative warmth of the Abbey house to continue shooting in the other locations on the list, an hour later we had covered 6 locations and Dame Helen went off for a well deserved hot drink.
It's very important to have your shots planned out and the lighting ready in place to go as many people are time constrained and it's best to make the whole shoot as quick and as painless as possible.

I would love to be able to show you the final image but it technically belongs to the National Trust so i'm afraid i can only show the set up shot, but no doubt it will appear in a National Trust publication some time this year.

Anyway, back to shooting bands......

Will Franken

Will Franken is a character comedian satirist mimic and actor based in London, he came to the studio to create some images for his promotional items for the Edinburgh Festival.

Each of the images were to be cut out and placed on a design so I put a sheet up in the background so the designer would have a grey background to show the edge of the character.
I set up a key light and a fill light on Will so he was lit fairly equally.
We spent about 15 minutes on each character with Will doing a quick change between each one.
As you can see the second image down was used as the main image for the flyer.

You can read/see more about Will here

Ian Todd: Live at Charborough

The great Ian Todd came to Charborough today to record a live video.

He recorded two live tracks to video and we did a few images in the studio

The set was dressed quite simply with some Ikea lights but Ian was lit from behind with a light with the barn doors nearly closed, and then from the front with the same lighting setup to create a dark vignette which allowed the Ikea lights to be seen.

He brought a beautiful old Eko guitar with him to dress the set, see bottom image

Candy Gigi at the Cellar Bar

As a regular at the Cellar Bar for the weekly comedy run by the Comedy Company, I have seen and photographed many stand up Comedians-all very funny, some hilarious, and the odd one or two acts that are, well, odd!

One of those was Candy Gigi Markham-delightfully nuts but funny with it.
She came on and immediately started to plaster her face with lipstick then spray cream, then nursed a large clump of celery before eating it and spitting it over the front row (note: do not sit in front row)

I managed to capture most of the act as she was moving about very quickly, she mentioned to me that I could get some great images of her due to the nature of the act and she managed to look over to me a few times to make an image with eye contact (top image)

Hopefully you can see the Candy Gigi experience somewhere soon.....or read more about her here

Beware This Boy:Live at Charborough

'Beware this Boy' came down to Charborough studios to record a live video a few weeks ago, they have a very earthy english sound-a bit folk rock maybe?
I took plenty of images during filming, a black and white montage is below.....