Lowlight: Driving round the M25 every night!
Fill in: The whole two weeks squalling rain clouds threatened every night. We were lucky for nearly every night as we only had two songs to get our shots but for Simple Minds the heavens opened on us as Jim Kerr wailed 'Come in, come out of the rain...'. Thank god for Stormjackets - that is raincoat for camera. I just got soaked...
Two weeks, two songs per night, and 200mm lens on 2x converter as we were so far away!
Working for Redferns/WireImage/Getty I got some amazing access for this series, backstage for Jools Holland, James Blunt, Alfie Boe and Australian Pink Floyd as well as exclusive views of the venue. Brief was plenty of concert shots and portraits backstage. It was all very rushed as I only got a minute or so for the portrait (and light was changing all the time as the sunset), then had to do the backwards run as the bands walked to the stage. As they went to go on stage it was a mad dash round to the front to get the first two songs.
I got to shoot from the roof of the palace which was a bit hairy - especially going up the bannisterless, narrow stone spiral staircase with two hefty DSLRs swinging from my neck.
Tech Spec: As we were miles away because there was no photo pit, so I had to put on the 70-200mm on a DX body (bringing it to equivalent of 300mm) and then shove a 1.7 x converter on it to get it to about 400mm. Even then it was full length shot only. Luckily light was good or I would never have got away with this set up. but if light is good then this works well as the lens is less unwieldly then a 300mm F2.8 and I still have the zoom facility of the 70-200mm. You have to be spot on with the focusing for this as the set up is not the best for razor sharp images.
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