Highlight: A private rendition of the theme tune from Top Cat..played by a 7 year old!
Lowlight: Trying to set up a shoot in a room stuffed to the brim with black grand pianos!
Fill in: The portrait was for Yamaha of a Child whizz-kid. A seven year old who is already a grade 8 piano player.This shoot for Yamaha was at the famous Chappells of Bond Street.
Curtis, the child whizz-kid, managed to last the shoot without getting bored longer than most musicians I know and his mum Hayley knew exactly what she wanted which was also pleasantly unusual for a musician, as they are obviously not usually visually oriented people.
Tech Spec: Shot with natural light, at 1600 ISO on D3 at F5.6, 1/125 second on 28-70mm zoom. Although I had brought lights, the room had huge windows all along one side making a great daylight studio. Also the logistics of setting up lights crammed to the brim with big, black, highly polished, expensive and reflective pianos did not appeal, especially as the shop was open and people were browsing. I used two pianos to act as a dark frame and to keep people from wandering into shot, and a silver Yamaha keyboard to break up the darkness (Hayley and Curtis were both dressed in black). There was a sale on and I managed to take down most of the posters, but a few tags on the stools and pianos had to be cloned out in Photoshop after. Ideally I would have put a hairlight behind the subjects, but room did not permit.
Highlight: What better way to spend the day - A dashing, photogenic opera singer, me and a camera....
Lowlight: ....and location lights, a 6ft reflector, tripod, spare camera body, three lenses, three changes of clothes and a laptop to hump around!
Fill in: Thank God for loving partners (and strong ones). My long suffering partner came to lug the gear up hill (Primrose) and down dale (Soho).
Sometimes you just have to thank your lucky stars. I mean I'm not getting any younger, but here I am with a talented, good looking opera singer staring deep and meaningfully into my eyes....okay, okay into my lens but a girl can dream can't she? Kevin was polite, professional, enthusiastic, cheerful and stripped down to his smalls in the middle of the street and he was paying me...AND he can surf (as I said, I'm not getting any younger but I am getting shallower)! One couldn't fail to get a great shot of this guy. He's single girls so form a queue...
Okay to business - the brief: get some casual shots for Kevin's official headshots and website. One shot had to be chosen immediately and sent to a client for use in a programme that day so after the shoot we went to a coffee shop to look at the whole shoot unedited. This always makes me nervous as I hate people seeing my naked work as it were, but since Kevin had done a strip in Soho in broad daylight it seemed a bit churlish to say he couldn't see the pix straight away.
Tech Spec: All done with natural light and a Californian Sunbounce - the best reflector on the market and great for location work as it doesn't collapse in the slightest breeze like the usual reflectors. Used 70-200mm wide open for those lovely blurred backgrounds and the 24mm-70mm for full length.
Highlight: A local, one day festival. So much easier than trekking down to Glastonbury to sink in the mud and breathe in the dust.
Lowlight: It rained. And Rained. And Rained. And I did not have backstage access! I pouted, and threamed and thtamped my foot tho I did.
Fill in: This was a late breaker and seemed like a great idea at the time but Hampton Court had totally wiped me out so I really was on my last legs.
The word festival was a bit hopeful for what amounted to one stage and two tents with a handful of stalls selling chips and funny hats. But had it been sunshine and smiles this little offering from Clapham would have actually been a pleasant, dandy affair. But it wasn't. In fact it did not stop raining so everyone huddled under the tents sipping tea and being very British and bloody minded about the whole soggy affair.
As it was, I had a marvellous time taking photos as the lighting for the tents was superb and the acts were pretty interesting too. And it was good to get close up to Razorlight again.
The Agitator, Johnny Flynn, The Cribs, Yelle, O Children, Noisettes
Tech Spec: Pushed to ISO to 3200 for tents, 200 for main stage. Shot mainly on F2.8 around 1/250 second. WB set to daylight. My main piece of equipment was The £50 Storm Raincoat for the camera. Discussed the design of this with a fellow snapper and we cam to the conclusion that cutting the sleeve off a raincoat would probably serve just as well and be a lot cheaper. I am currently in the process of fashioning a hood to go with it so the back of the camera is also protected - unless someone else has got there first.
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Highlight: Two weeks at Hampton Court Festival - champagne, fireworks, and music.
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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Highlight: A private performance by the classical guitarist Milos.
Lowlight: He only played one song - but it did last 20 minutes...
Fill in: This exclusive performance was for a private international showcase and as a complete philistine, it was a wonder I was even allowed in the same room as this Guitar virtuoso.
The brief is to get snaps of who is there preferably with the artist and the performance itself, however this is not as straight forward as you imagine. Exclusive is the word so you can't be snapping away from where ever you fancy waving your arse at a room full of VIPS. You have to pick your spot and stay there - out of the way. It is also usually acoustic, so the camera shutter sounds like a dustbin lid clanging. for this performance despite the song lasting 20 minutes I was only allowed to shoot the first minute.
Tech Spec: This is a quick switch situation so although photo opportunities are few and far between, you need two cameras ready to go. One for grab shots in a darkened room. I tend to push up the ISO to 400 to make the most of any available light and shoot on 1/30 second at F4. This blurs the background. The other for very low light - ISO 1600 or more and aperture wide open. I use a 50, 85 or 135mm prime as they open wider and are less obnoxious than a whacking great F2.8 zoom. Luckily in these situations, the artist does not move much so if you haven't got it in the bag in the first minute you really aren't trying or are just being greedy.
