Derek Bremner Photography

Website Redesign...

2011-07-11T21:36:00.004+01:00

Over the last one month I've shot three festivals and while doing so I was thinking that I wasn't really happy with my website. It was ok as a portfolio website but the problem was that all my new work was going on to Flickr and my blog is here. All of which was directing people away from my website.

I wanted to make a site that I could make the focal point of what ever I'm doing.

I think I'm going to use this blog and Flickr less and less while moving everything on to the new site.

I'm still going to be using Twitter and Tumblr as a place for announcements of my work so it would be cool if anyone that follows this blog followed me on those sites.

You can click the screenshot to be taken to the site.

Download Festival

2011-06-22T22:17:00.002+01:00

Just over a week or so ago I shot Download Festival. There is so much to say about the weekend that I don't really know where to start or how to get it down (so I've been putting off writing this despite desperately wanting to do it). I'm finding it hard to know what to write.

Download was very much a weekend of extremes... I felt extremely scared, overwhelmed, happy, humbled, proud and frustrated with myself. I was pretty much jumping in at the deep end and I didn't really know if I was ready or good enough but the opportunity was too good to pass up and it out weighed my anxiety and self doubt/loathing.

It wasn't just a case of shooting a festival, I was shooting the festival as part of a team of photographers doing the official photos for Download. There was a level of quality I needed to deliver and as one of eight photographers, I felt going in as the weakest link.

I like to plan in my head how things are going to go and I couldn't really do this as there were so many unknowns going in. I also felt like I was going to be pushed (for the best) out of my comfort zone by myself and by the team.

From the minute we got to the festival site we began working, going out and shooting people and atmospheric shots. This is the sort of thing I've always wanted to do but shied away from because of my anxiety and fear of people telling me to get lost. I didn't really have a chance for the anxiety to kick in because I just had to crack on and deliver. I also had the mental back up of doing it for someone and something.

Normally these types of situation go like this in my head (similar to the Rolo Tomassi situation)...

"Can I take your photo?"
"Urrr what for?"
"Um.... just for me"
"No"

or I worry that if I try the sneaky approach I'll get...

"Why are you taking my photos? Don't do it."

As I was taking photos for Download it gave me a valid reason for doing it. People didn't need to know or care who I was because they'd know who I was working for. It's an amazing confidence booster and a massive difference to if it's just me. As well as doing crowd shots I pushed myself to do some band portraits.

I learnt a lot leading up to the festival and over the weekend. The other photographers were incredibly supportive and seeing everyone nailing amazing shots was inspiring. It made me want to take better photos (I totally thought it would have the opposite effect).

I'm happy with a good chunk of the photos I took, there's a load that I think could have and should have been better but it's given me a lot to think about. I really need to carry this standard of work forward and need to work on my focusing and shot selection. There's not really any excuse for putting up photos where the focus is off. Seeing your photos online full size really shows the flaws in them and I want to cut those down.

Some of the highlights were Japanese Voyeurs (as usual) on the Friday and Letlive., Trash Talk, Versaemerge and Your Demise on the Saturday.

I just hope this is the start of some good things happening rather than just a one off.

You can see the rest of the photos I took by clicking here. It's worth checking out the rest of the photos as there are some superb shots in there.

I'm sure this post is pretty garbled and missing lots of thing I probably should have said but this is what I can think of. I have some concerns about how I've been shooting which I may come back and address but I'm going to see how the next few things I shoot go.

I'm really hoping I can carry the positiveness I gained from Download through with me. The real test will be the LRG Roller Derby season championship bout. I want to do more portraits and as they will be just for me, we shall see how it goes (or doesn't as the case may be).

On a more positive note..

2011-05-30T22:09:00.002+01:00

That last blog post was a bit of a downer but I thought I'd put up some stuff which was a bit more on the positive side.

I've officially caught up on all my editing which I'm really happy about and I've managed to upload it all.

Hearts Under Fire - Islington Academy

MiMi Soya & Scarlett Girls - Facedown

London Rollergirls Season 3 Bout 6

Miss Led - Big Chill House

I photographed Miss Led painting a section of The Big Chill House in Kings Cross. She worked on it over two weeks at the end of April. We talked about the idea of doing a video and although I can't film anything on my camera I thought about editing a series of photos into a stop motion video. It was a lot different to shot. I spent less time thinking about each individual shots and tried to shoot a bit looser. I'm fairily happy with how it came out and I know how I would do it differently if I do it again (which I would like to do). Miss Led has another edit of the video with some shots of the finished rooms but I'm more interested how the work gets done than the finished pieces.

Miss Led - Big Chill House redesign from Derek Bremner on Vimeo.

Rolo Tomassi & my anxiety

2011-05-30T19:34:00.003+01:00

I'm just about getting back on my feet and getting on top of all my photography work. I managed to get a load of stuff I shot at the start of the month finished today. It means I can relax a little as it's not nagging me in the back of my mind.

I've been shooting a lot of shows over the last few months for Photo Pit and I've been pushing myself into situations I would never have gotten myself into because I want it to work and I want to be a better photographer. For the most part, it's been good and I'm glad to be pushing myself but it has backfired on me.

I was on Twitter a while back saying how much I wanted to shoot Rolo Tomassi playing at the Relentless Garage and they tweeted me back saying to email them and they'll see what they can do. I emailed and asked if it would be possible to go down and photograph their day (load in, sound check, backstage etc...) and they said that if I wanted to, to just come down and find them around this time.

So on the day I got all my stuff together and went to the venue but the band were running late so I just waited out the back. When Rolo Tomassi arrived they turned up at the same time as the two other support bands. There was probably 15ish people around who were all unloading vans and bringing the stuff into the venue. It suddenly dawned on me that I didn't know which one of the band I had been emailing (as it was a generic band email address). I assumed it was James but I couldn't really see him around to approach and when I did he was with a group of people. I thought about introducing myself to someone else in RT but I was overcome with anxiety and a feeling of dread.

All I could think about was the fact that if I spoke to someone else they wouldn't have a clue who I was and why I was there. The longer I stood there and the more I felt like a massive dick and a weirdo and the worse the feeling of dread got. It's the worst sinking feeling you could ever get.

I struggle really badly in social situations with introducing myself to people in general but if I think they aren't going to have a clue who I am then it becomes almost impossible. Once I get that sinking feeling and anxiety I start thinking:

"How the fuck am I going to achieve anything if I can't do something as simple as say hello? How can I expect Photo Pit to be a success if I can't grasp basic human contact?"

"Why would they know or want to know who I am? I'm not a good photographer, I am a nobody and won't ever amount to anything. I had an opportunity that I consider to be a big one and I've fucked it. I doubt I'll be able to work with them."

I go over all the other times I've been in this kind of situation and think of them all as failures, which brings out every other form of failure in my life. I start self loathing really badly and start getting really depressive. It all becomes one big downward spiral and I just feel so low. At that point, the biggest thing that runs through my head is the fact that I have to get out of this situation as fast as possible.

I started to have a panic attack and had to leave. Thankfully Ben Gibson was in Central London and was shooting the show in the evening so I bailed and went to meet him. I was even lame enough to have a little cry on the tube on the way into town. Ben did an amazing job of cheering me up and calming me down without even realising he was doing it.

It was after this that I realised that most people don't realise how hard some things can be for people or that someone can struggle with stuff that is just natural like social interaction. I'm sure most of this just reads like "BOO HOO" but it is what it is.

The show itself was amazing, Rolo Tomassi absolutely blew my mind and I am incredibly grateful for them sorting me out with a pass and for the opportunity I kinda screwed up.

The show itself was pretty hard to shoot which you can read about on the Photo Pit blog as well as see more photos from it.

Back from the dead

2011-05-20T13:08:00.002+01:00

Is this thing still on?

It's been over three months now since I've updated this thing and I've only put up three blog posts this year. The longer I left it the harder it felt to come back and update it. So much has happened that I just didn't where to start and it was starting to make me anxious thinking about it.

I do want to make an attempt to update this more regularly but maybe not to the extent I was doing so last year. Maybe fewer updates but longer and more detailed? Who knows.

I've also started to think about shifting the focus of my blog slightly. I've written about it a few times but I suffer from depression (I hate saying that, it sounds so cliched) and have (at times) severe anxiety. This majorly impacts my life and my photography. When I have bad spells which happens a lot, I struggle to find outlets for it. I used to moan and whinge on Facebook but stopped because I was worrying too much about what people thought about me doing that. I moved it to Twitter and now regularly whinge and moan on there. The problem is I feel like on Twitter and Facebook it has no context and just looks like I'm all "WAH WAH WAH I HATE MY LIFE WAH WAH WAH". There are loads of 'friends' on Facebook and followers on Twitter who I'm sure won't want to read that so on here I can vent and rant which will do me good and people have more of a choice about reading it.

So... the idea is as well as writing about what I'm up to, what I've done etc... I want to write about how my depression and anxiety effects my photography directly so that maybe people can understand what it's like a bit more. Sometimes I think people don't appreciate how hard small and simple things can be and the kind of situations I get stuck in which mentally spiral out of control. I'm not sure how well I will be able to achieve this but I'm going to give it a shot.

Kevin Smith has been doing an excellent podcast with Jason Mewes which started by focusing in on his battle with drug addiction and after explaining all the things had happened, said that the podcast was a weekly intervention to make sure Jason Mewes was ok. This is my own personal intervention.

I'm in the middle of a very weird, scary and tough time at the moment which I'll explain soon.

February Update

2011-02-19T20:08:00.004Z

A lot seems to have happened since the A Day To Remember blog. Myself and Penny are still working on getting things ready for Photo Pit magazine and I've managed to shoot a couple more shows for it as well.

The first thing I shot was MiMi Soya at the Purple Turtle which was pretty cool. They've said they are interested in being involved with Photo Pit which is great. The show was good and they were so easy to photograph.

I also got to shoot Versaemerge who were supporting We The Kings. I love VE and I've been pretty desperate to shoot them since Warped almost two years ago. They were my only regret from Warped last year. The night was pretty stressful and I could have done better with the photos but I'm happy with some of the results.

About two weeks ago I spent the evening with the Fuel Girls again at Proud in Camden. It was a good night and it's always nice to spend time with Teta, Vanessa and Leonie. They are a good laugh and awesome ladies. The lighting was pretty strange and the photos are pretty hit and miss but I really like a few of the shots of Teta and Leonie while they were doing their hoop routine.

The other photos of the Fuel Girls from the night are here.

Last Saturday was the first London Rollergirls season 3 bout of the year and it was great to get to be there again. Both bouts were so close and really hard hitting. There were some pretty big slams and I was pretty lucky to get a shot of Kamikaze Kitten flying although it could have been sharper.

The photos of Ultraviolent Femmes vs Harbour Grudges are here and the photos of Steam Rollers vs Suffra Jets are here

The day after the Roller Derby I went to photograph Miss Led who was being filmed doing a painting for a new Lynx campaign. It was a long day and it was lovely getting to watch Miss Led working again. We've been talking about working more closely together and I'm hoping this is the first step. I did feel a bit weird though as the person who was filming the day (Martin, from Stitch That) was very talented and professional. He had a lot of ideas of things that could be done with the video and I felt the total opposite. I felt very unproffesional and amatuerish. I was extremely worried about how the photos would come out and if they would be good enough.

You can see the video here...

There's more photos of Miss Led here and you can read more about the campaign here.

As well as doing all of this I've had to work at my day job. Between work, going out photographing and editing I'm shattered at the moment. It's been hard trying to get the photos sorted and online quickly. I feel like I'm falling behind. I've got a couple shows next week and I think I need to more organised before and after the shows.

A Day To Remember & Photo Pit Magazine

2011-02-08T13:46:00.003Z

It's been a busy week(ish) since I last updated here. Myself and Penny launched our project 'Photo Pit Magazine' and it's been quite intense getting our site up, sorting out email addresses and trying to organise passes.

Things are slowly starting to fall into place and we are making progress. The website is still a bit rough around the edges but we just wanted to have something up to try and get people aware of what we are doing. I wrote this on the Photo Pit blog which hopefully makes what we are doing a bit clearer:

We are aiming to create a music based art photography magazine. It may not be what people expect but I think we've got a concept which could really grow.

"We want to cover and promote the bands, events, festivals and club nights which we are passionate about as well try and showcase a different side to music photography. I want us to create photographic editorials which will push ourselves to create better images. We love music are going to attempt to convey the whole experience of being at a show and if we can do this you won't need to read a review. The photos should tell you everything you need to know.

We want to be at as many shows as possible and will be blogging about what we are up to along with images a head of the release of each issue."

Last Friday was the day we shot our first shows for this. Penny shot Facedown and I made my way to Brighton for A Day To Remember. I was pretty stressed as it was out first show, having to rush to try and make sure I got down there in time to make all the bands, also stressing incase something went wrong with the passes. I was also worried what would happen if I couldn't deliver on the photos. I got through the support bands (Bayside & Pierce The Veil, who were both amazing in helping to sort out a pass for me) but I was told due to having too many photographers (SEVEN!) that I would only be able to shoot one and a bit songs. When ADTR came on I just tried to shoot as much as possible and I feel like that screwed me up a bit. As I thought I was going to get kicked out any second that my focusing was off a bit and I screwed up a lot of potentially good shots by making simple mistake. The photos overall weren't bad and it was a relief to get the first show out the way.

We are still trying to spread the word about Photo Pit and we've got a long way to go but I feel a bit more positive.

I had a good meeting with Penny at the weekend.

After spending January with nothing to shoot, I'll have shot four things in eight days by the weekend (which may not sound like a lot but with a full time job and having to do editing, it feels like a lot). I photographed Fuel Girls on Saturday and am at MiMi Soya tonight. I've also hopefully got the next London Rollergirls bout this Saturday. Hopefully I'll have news of some other exciting shows soon too. Fingers crossed.

Bayside

ADTR

Click here to see more photos from the show on the Photo Pit Magazine website.

New year. New plans. New fears. No photos.

2011-02-01T14:17:00.002Z

Last year I felt like I made real progress and I think I took more photos and covered more events/shows last year than I've ever done before. I was quite proud of that but this year is off to an incredibly slow start.

I didn't shoot anything in January which made me feel kinda shitty but I've been trying to plan, arrange and get some things started.

I'm hoping to be doing some work with Miss Led soon. She's got some great projects coming up and I can't wait to get started things with her. She is constantly a big source of inspiration and positiveness that I need.

My website went down for a while due to my hosting running out and not being able to afford to renew it but Andrew Kendall did me a massive favour and helped me set up a site on his Digital Photo Gallery website. I'm pretty happy with how it looks.

Check out my new site here.

I guess the big reason I haven't touched my camera much is my project 'Photo Pit Magazine'. Penny Bennett and I started talking a few months back about our frustrations at not being able to regularly shoot shows because we weren't working for anyone, so we decided to try and start something ourselves. It's taken a lot of conversations and thought about the best way to go about things and we are slowly starting to get into a position where we can start putting stuff out there.

It's been hard though because I feel like I'm hitting all the walls and closed doors I had when I wasn't working for anyone and for every step we make I feel like there's something else which keeps us from moving any further.

We have a lot of ideas and things we want to work on/happen. Our website is almost up/ready (just waiting for something to resolve with the web domain) but I am just starting to feel like this is all going to come to nothing. I am worried that we won't be able to get anything released or we will struggle for content etc... I worry about letting Penny down and I worry about all the people I've been contacting about this thinking it's bullshit or a waste of time. Part of me deep down wants to fold now and not go any further as I'm genuinely shit scared about this. I'm not going to though, I guess it's easier to crash and burn than to give up now. I have a LOT of things I'm worried or fretting about. It's taking a lot of planning and sort things out for the next few months which I'm not very good at. I want us to expand our team but it's another person to try and keep in the loop and keep up with what they are doing. Everything feels like another spinning plate and I'm waiting for it all to drop.

Mark Gamble has been a massive help with the design work for Photo Pit and he's also been incredibly supportive.

Hopefully at some point I'll have some new photos and something from Photo Pit Magazine to show around. Fingers crossed.

It's going to be a strange year.

Photo Pit Magazine coming soon (hopefully).

Edgar Wright

2010-12-30T23:20:00.004Z

Earlier this year I had the privilege of meeting Bryan Lee O'Malley which was great as I was a big fan of the Scott Pilgrim books. I also really enjoyed the movie and it was probably my favourite movie of the year (which meant I was pretty excited when I found out Edgar Wright was coming into Forbidden Planet). I've been a fan of Edgar since Spaced was on Channel 4.

The photos from the signing really aren't the best signing photos I've taken. It's a shame as Edgar was great, really nice and chatty with everyone and I wish I could have done that justice. I would love to photograph both Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg together signing. I reckon it would be pretty interesting.

I've said before that I struggle to keep signing photos different each time I cover them and I really struggled with this one getting the exposures and colouring right.

The signing got me thinking about how I would like to try photographing on a big film set and document a films production.

It's kinda weird thinking this was the last set of photos I will have taken in 2010.

The other photos from the signing are here.

Gallows - Two Shows/One Day

2010-12-24T18:05:00.004Z

Gallows announced a while ago that they were going to play Grey Britain in full at the Electric Ballrooom (and they also announced shortly after that they were going to do Orchestra Of Wolves in full at the Dingwalls on the same day). I was looking forward to the show and the more I thought about it, the more it felt like an incredibly important show/day.

The band have been through it all since the release of Grey Britain ranging from parting ways with their label to playing some of the biggest shows they've ever played (supporting RATM) and I felt like these shows (especially the Grey Britain one) was the end of an era. There had been a lot of rumors and talk about them splitting up and I was thinking that if they were going to split, this would be a good time to do it or it would end up being a statement that they aren't going anywhere. One of the other special things about the GB show was the fact they would be playing with a string section.

I've always wanted to try and shoot the whole experience of a show and shoot more than just the live performance and I desperatley wanted to try it for this. I emailed the guys and pitched it too them and they seemed happy to let me come down which I was over the moon about.

On the day I joined them pretty early on for their first soundcheck and tried to shoot as much as possible. I didn't really feel comfortable shooting backstage in their dressing room as this was really the first time I've properly spoken to most of the band and didn't want to push things too far. The day must have been quite stressful and tiring for them and I didn't want to shove a camera in their face while they were trying to relax and calm down. That was a pretty big regret for me.

I found the Dingwalls show pretty hard to shoot. There was no barrier and the crowd were going apeshit. I got stuck on one side of the stage (by Steph) and didn't feel I could get over to the otherside to cover Lags and Stu so I don't feel there's as much variaty as I would have like. The show was superb though.

The Electric Ballroom was going to give me a lot more freedom to shoot as there was a barrier and I could move about a lot more. In my head I had a lot of things I wanted to try and do as well as places/angles I wanted to shoot from. The show seemed to fly by and I tried to do the things I thought about but it wasn't as easy as I had hoped and I didn't feel like I was nailing the live stuff as easily as I have in that venue before. I missed a few things like Richard Carter coming onstage for 'Black Eyes'.

They had said all day they wouldn't be doing encores and I was at the back of the stage as they were finishing 'Crucifucks' and Steph mentioned they had decided to do 'Orchesta Of Wolves' but would I take a photo of the five of them onstage before they played again. I was absolutely shitting myself. I was panicing about the photos not coming out and having blown a massive moment for them. I got up on Lee's drum stool and just shot as much as I could hoping SOMETHING would come out ok.

While I was taking the shot I just had a realisation that this is what I've always wanted to do and this was what I had dreamed about doing. It also felt like I was part of something great. I went back into the pit to shoot the last song and felt incredibly overwhelmed and emotional. If you'd have told me six months ago that I would have been in this situation I'd have laugh at you. The GB show was truely stunning and the band over the day were amazing to be around. They've all been incredibly supportive and I still feel on a bit of a high.

It may seem silly to some people and shit loads of other photographers are in this situation all the time but this sort of thing doesn't happen to me. The band, the music and taking those photos meant the world to me and it was one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

As a whole I love a lot of the photos I took but I do think I could have done better and I could have done more but I'm hoping from this I'll get the chance to do this again and it could be the start of something good.

I really want to thank Frank, Steph, Lee, Lags and Stu along with Clare, Paul and all of the Gallows crew. I know I've done this a million times already.

The photos from the pre/post show and sound check photos are here.

The rest of the photos from the Dingwalls show are here.

The other Electric Ballroom shows are here.

The photos are also up on Frank's website (frankxcarter.com) and (twice as many photos) are on the Gallows Facebook page.

Quick post about the Gallows shows

2010-12-23T17:51:00.005Z

I spent Friday photographing Gallows’ two album shows in Camden. I’m waiting to see what happens with the photos before I put a full set online but I uploaded this one.

Friday is a day I’ll never forget. I’ll write about it properly soon.

Also everyone should be reading Frank's blog anyway but there's a few of my photos from both Gallows shows on there now if anyone is interested.

Frankxcarter.com

London Rollergirls Season Three - Bout Three

2010-12-12T21:21:00.003Z

Saturday was the last London Rollergirl bouts this year and it was a great way to go out. Was really happy that the Ultraviolent Femmes won their first bout of the season and Habour Grudges winning really opens things up. At half time they had a Space Hopper race which was pretty fun to watch. I was quite surprised to see they'd used one of my photos in the programmes.

I got to shoot from the middle of the track again and feel I had a bit more of a grasp on it this time but I felt I struggled a bit more than normal shooting from the outside. My camera was doing it's usual taking photos when it feels like it wants too and I got a new error message which I haven't seen before. As long as my camera holds out another week then I'll breath a big sigh.

I really want to improve by the end of the season and I'd like to be taking more photos of the whole event/more candids than I'm currently doing.

I'd like to thank (again) Erin and the rest of the London Rollergirls for being very welcoming and helpful. I really love this sport and love being (sort of) involved in it in a very small way.

Steam Rollers vs Ultraviolent Femmes

Half Time

Harbour Grudges vs Suffra Jets

More photos of Steam Rollers vs Ultraviolent Femmes are here.

More photos of Half Time.

More photos of Harbour Grudges vs Suffra Jets are here.

I feel like I'm counting down to Friday which is going to be a massive day for me. I'm pretty fucking nervous but it's all pressure I put on myself to perform and deliver. I'll write more about it soon I guess. I also want to do an end of year 'review' of sorts. It's been a big year with lots of highs and lows. Might be good for me to reflect a bit.

I've started working on a project I've had in my head for a little while now which could open some doors and be pretty exciting. It's one thing that makes me look forward to 2011.

Instax

2010-12-06T22:40:00.002Z

Despite being broke I picked up an Instax on Ebay a couple of weeks ago. It's taking some getting used to, especially getting the focal lengths right and framing everything. Some of them are ok but some could have been better. Hopefully I'll learn from the mistakes.

The rest of the Instax prints are here.

Japanese Voyeurs & Young Guns - Electric Ballroom

2010-12-04T19:33:00.004Z

I got an email from Romily (the singer of Japanese Voyeurs) saying she'd seen the photos of them I'd taken at the MAdM show and liked them. She offered to sort me out with a pass for their show supporting Young Guns at the Electric Ballroom. Recently I've felt a little weird with regards to my blog. Some days I'm proud of it, really enjoy writing it and putting it up. Then other times I struggle to find things to write and feel like it's incredibly boring and self indulgent. Things like the email from Romily make me a bit more sure and justified about the way I do things.

I'd been away with work for several days and had worked some ridiculus hours so before hand I really wasn't excited for the show but the minute I got to the venue I felt a hell of a lot better. Japanese Voyeurs were on early and they killed it. I really like them and they are great to shoot. There's something about them. The Swellers were second and were ok but not 100% my sort of thing. I've photographed Young Guns before and their singer Gustav is really fun to photograph, he has a lot of energy and covers the stage well.

I'm pretty happy with how the photos have come out and I'm really enjoying how I'm taking photos at the moment. I'm trying to shoot a bit more free and looser. I hope it shows.

Thank you to Japanese Voyeurs for sorting this out.

Japanese Voyeurs

The Swellers

Young Guns

The rest of the photos of Japanese Voyeurs are here.

The rest of the photos of The Swellers are here.

The rest of the photos of Young Guns are here.

Someone at the show I had a brief exchange that went like this:

"Who do you shoot for?"
"Me"
"Oh so you do freelance for a lot of different people and magazines?"
"No, I just shoot for me"

I feel like photography and music photography especially can be a bit of a pissing contest and unless you are working for someone it can feel like you are being looked down upon. It shouldn't matter who I work for, I do what I do because I enjoy it and it made me really appreciate the other photographers I know who don't make photography feel like a competition. The only person I compete with is myself. I am constantly battling with my confidence and self esteem and when I am happy with the photos I take (like I was last night) and get emails or comments like I did from JV (and Gallows), it justifies everything for me.

Gallows - Back To The Dives Tour

2010-11-28T18:36:00.004Z

It's been a while since I've photographed the Gallows live and I know I get nervous before shooting a lot of shows (especially before shows that might be pretty crazy or that doesn't have a barrier). This time I was more nervous after everything that went on with Banquet Records last time I photographed Gallows in Kingston.

Despite taking my camera with me I wasn't 100% sure if I was actually going to take photos but once I got there I decided that there was no way I couldn't take photos.

I'd read that the first band was meant to be Feed The Rhino but it turned out to be a band called Polar who were ok! They set up their pedal boards and microphones on the floort and played their set there which was pretty cool. I felt like I couldn't quite get the angles on the shots. TRC were the second band and it took me a while to get my settings right so the photos are a bit hit and miss but they are always interesting to watch.

I managed to get a spot at the front for Gallows and decided that this time I'd try and not stay in one place for the set. I stayed for most of the set in the middle but then moved to the edges to try and shoot Steph and Lags some more. It was a great show and I think the pictures came out alright.

Fingers crossed I'll get to be shooting their album shows and I can't wait.

Polar

TRC

Gallows

The rest of the photos of Polar are here.

The rest of the photos of TRC are here.

The rest of the photos of Gallows are here.

Nathan Fox - Signing & Installation

2010-11-27T10:16:00.005Z

After the anxiety attack, I decided not to go to Erotica and I felt pretty bad for letting people down but I just wouldn't have handled the situation well.

Instead, I decided to meet up with Nathan Fox who had done a signing at work. Nathan was taking part in a massive art installation in an office on Shaftesbury Avenue. He was working on the stairwell across five floors using a mix of paint, markers and massive vinyl stickers.

It was just him and his friend Dennis who were working on his section so it was really nice and peacefull which was just what I needed. As I've mentioned before I find artists working fascinating and I had a great time. Nathan Fox's art is stunning and it helps that he is such a nice guy too. Definitely want to meet up with him at some point in the future and photographing him work again.

Signing

Installation

The rest of the photos from the signing and installation are here.

The Saturdays & Rival Schools

2010-11-20T14:09:00.006Z

This weeks been a strange week and I'm going to try and get a load of it down. I shot MAdM on Monday and was going to see Rival Schools on Tuesday. A couple of hours before hand a friend text me asking if I wanted to come to an intimate showcase and photograph The Saturdays. They aren't my cup of tea but it's a chance that doesn't really come round often (or at all really) so I said yes. The showcase was for AOL and they had arranged a little photo opportunity before hand. I was pretty nervous as I'm not really very good or confident at taking photos of people and I was pushed for time as I had to get to Rival Schools. It was stressing me out a little because I knew I was short on time and I got very flustered and paniced. The photo could have been better but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was when I left.

Rival Schools are a band I've been listening to for nine years now (since their first and only album came out) and they are a band I've forgotten about and rediscovered a number of times over the years. Over the last few, every time I hear the album I love it a little bit more. I've been lucky enough to see them a couple of times but seeing them at the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen was the first chance I've had to photograph them live.

The photos really aren't anything special but the opportunity to take them meant a lot. The band were perfect and they are just an effortless band. Everything seems so easy and they are very understated which makes them quite powerful.

The rest of the photos of Rival Schools are here.

So MAdM, The Saturdays and Rival Schools was the first two days of the week. The same person who sorted out The Saturdays for me was also sorting out a photoshoot with Dita Von Teese for an interview she's done with her for the Metro newspaper. This was a massive deal for me and while I was stressing and nervous about it, it was something I HAD to do.

In the end it fell through and it didn't happen but I was shooting a burlesque show for my friend on Friday. I was also meant to be spending the weekend at Erotica and I had two people that wanted photographs from me. I was meant to be shooting for House of Burlesque and Tanya Tate had also said she was after some photos. Despite the Dita shoot falling through I was told I could go and photograph her doing a book signing. As the week went on I was stressing more and more about everything and I was struggling to work out how I would fit everything in and not let anyone down.

As well as all these things I did five full days at work and covered/photographed a signing for artist Nathan Fox. It really has been an insane week.

I went to the burlesque show but when I got there I just didn't feel right. I felt incredibly uncomfortable and self concious and I don't know why. I was also very busy with loud music and lots of extremely loud talking. I started feeling quite claustrophobic (it's the only way I can describe it). As it was a charity show and I had been asked to photograph it was I was putting pressure on myself to deliver some decent photos to warrent being asked to do it. As the night went on and once the performers started my anxiety was going through the roof and I was verging on a panic attack and I was starting to get into a bit of a downward spiral and I was freaking out. I ended up having to leave and I was pretty upset. I felt like I had let Deni down for leaving and not taking photos but I also just didn't feel up to being around groups of people so I decided not to go to Erotica. I think it's for the best that I take a little bit of a breather and try and collect myself a little. Everything just got too much too quickly and I felt so far out of my comfort zone this week. It's meant letting down three sets of people over the last two days but I don't know what else I could have done.

This week has made me realise that I can take some good shots but I really am not a good photographer and I think there's a big difference. I seriously lack the skills to handle pressure and social situations which can really set you apart.

Melissa Auf der Maur - Scala

2010-11-19T13:57:00.003Z

Last time Melissa Auf der Maur was over she managed to get caught up in the joys of the Icelandic volcano and her gig got shuffled about. I was also ill was having a very intense week with lots going on (similar to this week strangely).

She announced a show at the Scala and I was over the moon about this. Scala is a really laid back venue, great lighting and they have a barrier! I decided to go into the venue a bit later so I could grab a drink with friends but when I got inside Japanese Voyeurs were about to start. They took me by surprise when they started playing and I really wanted to grab some shots. I went to go get my spot on the barrier to find there wasn't one and I had to find a spot in the crowd which meant I had to duck and dive round peoples heads to get some shots.

The lighting for Japanese Voyeurs was p-e-r-f-e-c-t and between that and the band themselves, everything really felt like it clicked. I really want to shoot them again.

In almost total contrast to JV, the lighting for MAdM was a lot less intense and tended to be single colours and not much front lighting. I think some of this was for atmosphere and also they were using a projector. I like how the photos came out but I definitely had to work harder for her.

I'm trying to shoot a bit differently and a bit more free at the moment. I will be working on something that could be really exciting and it might help me to push myself a bit more with what I'm able to do.

Japanese Voyeurs

Melissa Auf der Maur

The rest of the photos of Japanese Voyeurs are here.

The rest of the photos of Melissa Auf der Maur are here.

London Rollergirls Season Three - Bout Two

2010-11-15T13:00:00.002Z

The second of the London Rollergirls doubler header bouts for Season 3 took place on Saturday night (featuring Harbour Grudges vs Steam Rollers and Ultraviolent Femmes vs Suffra Jets). I was looking forward to shooting this bout as I thought the last lot of photos were ok but could have been better.

The first thing I noticed was there seemed to be a lot more photographers this time and getting space in the first corner wasn't as easy as last time. The LRG were allowing photographers into the middle of the track to shoot from a box which they are marked out but the photographers were only allowed in and out during time outs or at the end of the period. I think I was pretty much the only one to say they wanted to try shooting from there in advance but on the day, lots of other photographers also wanted to try it too. I managed to get in for the start of the first bout and I loved it. It allowed me to get closer to the action which I've struggled to do before and it was a lot easier to track the skaters round the corner and get some good shots of them in motion. A lot of the photographers seemed new and seemed to ignore/not know/not understand a lot of the things that myself and some of the regulars had been told which was a bit weird to watch.

I'm a lot happier with these photos than before. I hopefully have more variaty in the shots and they make for much better sets.

The bouts themselves were great and extremely close/exciting.

Harbour Grudges vs Steam Rollers

Ultraviolent Femmes vs Suffra Jets

The rest of the photos from the Harbour Grudges vs Steam Rollers bout are here.

The rest of the photos from the Ultraviolent Femmes vs Suffra Jets bout are here.

Never Say Die - HMV Forum

2010-11-09T14:04:00.006Z

Photopasses are a little bit of a rare occurance for me at the moment and I managed to get one (through Livethescene) for the London date of the Never Say Die tour. It had an insane line up. The tube strile meant I didn't get in until after the first two bands but once inside I met up with three other photographers I'm friends with (Ian Arnold, Abbi London and Ben Gibson). It was quite bizarre shooting with some many friends around and in the pit. It makes everything so much more fun and a lot more relaxed. It really felt like thats how shooting shows should be.

The lighting for the venue was a bit hit and miss and that coupled with the fact they allowed flash sort of knocked me off my game. I wanted to shoot flash but couldn't get it right so I'd shoot without and then the lighting would turn shit. I'd then have to go back to flash only for me to get frustrated and switch back to shooting without. I normally don't see many other peoples photos from the gigs I shoot (if any) but seeing Ben's and Ian's photos highlighted how different my photos are (and I'm not sure thats a good thing). There's one or two photos from the night I really like but I look at them all as a whole and just think that they should have been better. That sort of line up and that sort of venue deserve better photos. I struggle a lot with shooting with flash and it's something I really need to get to grips with.

The links below will take you to the rest of the photos from the night.

The end of this year is going to be a strange one. Three potentially life changing opportunities may happen and they may not but I might right about the situations soon. Strange times ahead.

Your Demise

Emmure

Bleeding Through

Comeback Kid

Parkway Drive

Your Demise

Emmure

Bleeding Through

Comeback Kid

Parkway Drive

Movember

2010-11-01T00:06:00.004Z

Today is November 1st and along with a few people from work, I've decided to take part in Movember. The idea is meant to be that you start the month clean shaven and spend the rest of the month growing a moustache.

We all decided to do something slightly differe and grow out our facial and start the month with a moustache already rather than grow one through the month. The important thing is that it's all for charity. I thought that I look like an idiot all year round so I might as well try and raise some money while doing it.

The money raised goes towards male (cancer) based charities and while I personally haven't had anyone close to me effected by cancer, it doesn't mean I won't have someone effected in the future and I have friends who have/had family members diagnosed with cancer. It feels good to raise money and be doing something good and worthwhile. Although the money goes towards research into things like prostate cancer, I feel like any money going towards any cancer research benifits everyone.

I now have my moustache and am ready to rock it through Movember. I may try and post more photos throughout the month as I may change the style of it.

Before:

After:

There are a few other photos from the big shave here.

You can donate/sponsor me here. Any money given would be amazing and I'd be eternally grateful. Thank you to all the people who have supported me so far and (in advance) to the people that will support me.

NFL Fan Rally - London

2010-10-31T12:28:00.004Z

For the last few years the NFL have staged a regular season game in London. I love American Football but because of things like the time difference I don't always get to keep up with it as much as I would like.

One of the things I like about American Football and American sports in general is the spirit of it. Despite fierce rivalries, it brings people together in a positive way far more than most sports I feel. There's so much more to it than just the game, there's rallies and tailgate parties, people dress up and really get involved. Each game is a spectacle in it's own right.

The support in the UK for the NFL has been growing as part of that is evident in the fact that they held the first official NFL fan rally outside of America yesterday.

It was really cool to see the stage and events set up in Trafalgar Square. Although the rally was to promote the game between Denver Broncos and San francisco 49ers, there was so much support for all the other teams and the sport in general. I was proud to be wearing my Tim Tebow/Florida Gators jersey. They had The 49ers cheerleading squad and their drumline performing throughout the day as well as NFL legends and other people being interviewed. Jerry Rice was one of the first 'legendary' players I watched as a child.

The only downside to the day was I emailed the organisers numorous times about seeing if I could get a photopass and got no response. I would have loved to be able to take photos of the people being interviewed and the cheerleaders. I didn't really take many photos on the day and I wish I had taken more. I still don't have confidence in going up to people and asking for a posed photo. The other thing is they could have done with a bit more variety on the stage as the Cheerleaders, drumline and one of the other acts performed about four times throughout the afternoon.

Next year I definitely want to make it to the game.

There are a few other photos from the day here.

Sinful Sunday

2010-10-27T13:40:00.004+01:00

The very talented Knickerbocker Glories put on their own show called 'Sinful Sunday' at the Tooting Tram and Social which is pretty much just down the road from me. The place is stunning and has a great feel to it and it had the added bonus of having a really strong line up (and being free!) so I was pretty excited to check it out. I had some friends coming down. It was their first burlesque show and although I'd been building up the fact it was going to be a really good show, I was worried it wouldn't match the expectations I'd set.

The show was amazing and probably the best all round burlesque show I've been to. Miss Dolly Rose and Banbury Cross were brilliant, I haven't seen them both perform for a good few months now and it just made me want to see them again. It was great to finally see Domino Burlesk perform and Kiki Kaboom is always a joy to watch.

The highlight of the night though was Eastend Cabaret. I really wish my photos did their performance justice. They were incredibly funny and clever with brilliant voices.

I have mixed feeling about my photos from the night. The lighting was a lot better than I expected and I came away feeling like I'd nailed it. After editing the photos, there aren't anywhere near as many decent shots as I thought there would be but the ones that are useable I'm happy with. I just don't think they convey how great the show was. I did get to catch up with Miss Dolly Rose and Banbury Cross which was lovely. Banbury quite often does two or three shows in a night sometimes and I would love to cover all of those with her and do a sort of 'night in the life of Banbury Cross' (but not call it that).

It's nice to be doing more burlesque again, I really enjoy it and miss it. I do frustrate myself as it makes me wish I was working towards getting my book done but I just feel a bit directionless (and scared).

The rest of the photos from the night are here.

Retrotease presents Kitten De Ville

2010-10-26T13:27:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Mr Keith Suave, I was able to go down and photograph Retrotease Presents Kitten De Ville in Clapham. I wasn't really sure what to expect from the show and it was a venue I'd never been to before. When I got in I met Tigz, who is a photographer I met at the LBW this year. It's quite nice shooting shows alongside someone you know. We managed to get a table on the corner of the stage with a clear line of sight which was lucky, any futher back and we would have had peoples heads in most of the shots.

The show itself was good and the lighting was really nice for some of it. They had really bright white lights which was great during the bits with The Devine Miss Em who was hosting but they seemed to dim it down for the actual performances and it seemed like a bit of a waste of such lovely lighting.

Madame Galina was superb as usual and I was really happy to photograph Ruby Deshabille. I've photographed her before at the Glitter Rooms, she is stunning and so easy to photograph.

I'm going to try and get my photos from the show I was at on Sunday nailed and edited tonight. I'm really excited about these photos and can't wait to get them up.

The rest of the photos from the night are here.

Simon Pegg & Bryan Hitch - Forbidden Planet

2010-10-25T14:36:00.002+01:00

There were two signings at Forbidden Planet on Saturday which I covered. Both I was extremely excited about. The first signing was for comic artist Bryan Hitch. I've been a fan of his for quite some time and I've always followed his work. He is probably the first comic artist who truely wowed me with his work. The signing seemed to go really well and he was extremely nice. Take photos downstairs in the book department is quite easy as the lighting is fairly even. It was a pleasure to finally meet Bryan after all these years.

The second signing was for Simon Pegg. The really weird thing about this signing for me was that I still think of him as the guy from Spaced and while talking to him before the signing I suddenly was thinking "holy shit he's in Star Trek". Simon was amazing, very engaging, very funny and a pleasure to be around (he even brought Jaffa Cakes).

In contrast to the Bryan Hitch signing, the lighting upstairs is a lot harder to work with, the shop lights on one side and the sunlight from the open door where the people in the queue are coming in means that its hard to get the colours right and some of the colours on the edits look off but it's one of the areas I lack knowledge in.

These photos have jumped the queue a little bit and I now have two sets of burlesque show photos to finish editing and upload.

The Bryan Hitch photos can be seen here.

The rest of the Simon Pegg photos are here.

Your Demise - 100 Club

2010-10-22T23:37:00.005+01:00

Your Demise played their first headline show since their album came out at a special show at the 100 club. It was nice to see a show there considering the venue is faced with possible closure. The 100 club is a good venue with an amazing history. The only time I have shot a show there was Gallows a few years ago.

I was really impressed with the first band on (While She Sleeps) and they were really fun to shoot. As it was still early there weren't many people down at the front but there was three photographers/people with DSLRs and we all really stood out. It made me feel quite self concious as a photographer.

Obviously as the night went on it got busier and once Your Demise came on the crowd were pretty rowdy. There was a few stage dives and people climbing on the crowd. I tried to stick to the sides to avoid getting battered. My camera was a bit better than it has been but something is still not right. I'm going to have to get it serviced soon.

I like the photos of Your Demise but I think my photos of While She Sleeps are definitely the best ones I took that night.

A friends band was playing tonight and I was pretty excited about shooting them. Sadly I had a bit of massive gig fail, I ended up turning up to the venue and finding out they'd already been on. Whoops. Sorry Sarah!

It's been a busy few days, I've got some shots from a burlesque show and I'm shooting another one on Sunday. I'm also shooting a couple of signings tomorrow (Simon Pegg and Bryan Hitch).

I feel a bit directionless at the moment and although it's good that I'm out taking photos, I wish I was working on/towards something.

Hang The Bastard

While She Sleeps

Your Demise

The Hang The Bastard photos are here.

The While She Sleeps photos are here.

The other Your Demise photos are here.

Lunartik - Kid Robot

2010-10-16T16:30:00.003+01:00

I shot a lot of signings, events and launches for Forbidden Planet through work but Friday was the first time I've photograph an event in another store. Lunartik (Matt Jones) was previewing his new 'Mini Teas' at Kid Robot in Covent Garden (as well as launching/promoting his charity 'Custom tea tour' auction).

There were loads of his pieces on display and a big cupcake centre piece in the shop and lots of the artists that took part in the 'Custom tea tour'. The shop was pretty busy and I tried to do take some shots of the art toys and some general shots of the people and the shop. I really wanted to do some portraits of the artists but just really didn't have the confidence to do it. One thing I like about busy events is it's easy for me to just going round taking photos without people really noticing. It was nice talking to Matt and I love his work. Hopefully I'll have more of a chance to do some photography of him and his work.

I've tried to shoot more colour recently and with it being the evening in a shop I tried to think more about the white balance and made adjustments there rather than trying to sort out the colour in photoshop later. The shop has different types of lights in different partMy camera still doesn't feel right and I might have to take it in for a service nearer Christmas. I'm thinking about trying to talk more about the details of the shots life ISOs, shutter speeds etc... but I really think my technical knowledge is lacking.

I was meant to go straight from Kid Robot to shoot Hearts Under Fire in Kingston but they had to cancel the gig due to Lexi being pretty unwell.

The rest of the photos from the night are here.

You can see Lunartik's work here.

You can also bid on the charity auction here.

London Rollergirls Season Three - Bout One

2010-10-12T13:28:00.003+01:00

Saturday was the first bout of the new London Rollergirl season and it was in a new venue (Earls Court). The set up of it was much like the 'Fistful Of Rollers' bout I shot earlier in the year.

Having shot three bouts over the last year I was pretty excited for the season to start again. There's a new team this time round which means that each event will have two bouts. It was also my friend Kati's first time competing for the Ultraviolent Femmes and I was pretty excited for her.

I had the same problems I had the last time which is I think my lenses aren't good enough to shoot. I have trouble getting close enough to do the kind of shots I would like to do and due to the lighting my colours aren't brilliant. I do like the photos though.

If you haven't been to a roller derby bout, please go and check it out. It's so much fun and pretty intense. I know this is their third season but it's been so well organised and despite people being on different teams it's really nice to see everyone chipping in to raise money, sell merch and generally help out.

Big Thank you to the London Rollergirls.

Suffra Jets vs Steam Rollers

Ultraviolent Femmes vs Harbour Grudges

The rest of the photos from the Suffra Jets vs Steam Rollers bout are here.

The rest of the photos from the Ultraviolent Femmes vs Harbour Grudges bout are here.

Architects - Koko

2010-10-12T07:41:00.003+01:00

I shot my first gig in well over a month on Friday. I managed to get a pass for Architects at Koko with support from Lower Than Atlantis, Devil Sold His Soul and Norma Jean through Livethescene.com.

The gig had pretty early doors so I had to dash from work and just managed to scrape in for the start of Lower Than Atlantis, they are fast becoming a band I love seeing live. Devil Sold His Soul were pretty average whereas Norma Jean were amazing. They were so heavy. Architects were sooo good. They were pretty flawless from start to finish and I'm definitely making sure I see them again. I got to hang out with some friends too which is always a bonus!

I loved that it was at Koko, I shot there once before and remembered that they had great lighting and the venue was really on top for for this gig. A lot of people don't like it there or say the sounds shit but I really like the place. As the lighting was so good and as I was shooting for someone I decided to shoot the majority of it in colour and I'm really glad I did. Despite having some camera problems (where it would focus but it wouldn't actually take the shot) I'm really proud of these photos (especially the Architects ones.

I almost had some major problems. When I got my pass they gave me a wristband too which I just assumed was an after party thing or something like that so left it in my bag. Architects had a film crew so the photographers weren't allowed to shoot the first three songs like normal, we had to shoot songs four to six. I tried to get into the pit for the fourth song but was told I needed the wristband to shoot. I had to run from one side of the venue to the other, through the crowd to grab the wristband and then run back. I also managed to lose my photopass on the way back through the crowd as it wasn't very sticky and pretty much hanging off my leg anyway. Thankfully the security were only bothered about the wristband and didn't notice the pass missing. The lighting Architects was a little weird as they had lights under risers for them to stand. When they were on them I really struggled to get the shots exposed right and felt like I missed an oppertunity there.

I felt really good being back out taking photos at a gig, especially with a pass. I just hope the camera problems don't continue.

Lower Than Atlantis

Devil Sold His Soul

Norma Jean

Architects

The Lower Than Atlantis photos are here.

The Devil Sold His Soul photos are here.

The other Norma Jean photos are here.

The rest of the Architects photos are here.

Fuel Girl - Pacha

2010-10-03T13:03:00.005+01:00

I got asked to come down and shoot the Fuel Girls performing at Pacha. Despite clubs being a place I'm not overly comfortable in (especially when it's not my taste in music) I went down as they were doing quite a few perfomances. It also meant I got to hang out properly with them in their dressing room.

They did five performances (two fire and aerial shows and one bar show) spread out over the night. It wasn't the easiest time I've photographed them. The club was pretty busy and as the shows were shorter (but more of them) it was hard to gage how much time I had to get the shots. The fire show was in a cage and with the crowd and security I couldn't really move around much. The second aerial show was harder as the three hoops were pretty spread out and covering them all meant lots of pushing past people as quickly as possible. The lighting was ok so I shot without flash.

The bar show was pretty cool and fun to shoot.

The photos aren't as good as they could have been but I know I can do better if there's a next time at Pacha as I know what to expect.

Sorry if this is a bit of a shit update. I'm not really sure what to write today.

You can click here for the other photos from the night.

London Tattoo Convention 2010

2010-09-30T13:27:00.003+01:00

I spent Saturday and Sunday this week down at this years London Tattoo Convention at the Tobacco Docks thanks to the very kind Fuel Girls.

I've been pretty excited about this for a while as they were going to be performing more than the fire routine I'd seen/photographed before. I've been to the tattoo convention before and knew that it's fairly well lit as most of it's roof is glass. When I got down there on Saturday, I found out they were going to be doing a fashion show for Jane Doe which I was pretty excited about but unfortunatly the crowds were too big and I couldn't quite manage to get close enough to get a lot of decent shots. I managed to get a few which I was happy with. I decided as I was going to be there for two days that I would just stick to the stage and make sure I got their performances covered so that I was a bit less restricted the following day.

I decided to shoot a lot in colour as it was quite bright and during most of the routines they were in very bold Jane Doe latex. The fire show itself was great, as it wasn't part of a club night they had a lot longer on stage which meant that Teta did a much longer solo dance to start with. The stage was square and had crowds on all four sides which meant that the girls were quite spaced out in terms of positioning so it wasn't easy to cover them all.

As well as the fire show they also had Colette Morrow and The Amazing Ari doing aerial shows on ropes/silks. It's the first time I've properly photographer anything like this. I really enjoyed it, I think I was lucky with the glass roof and all the beams across it as it made for some really nice line work on the photos and contrasted nicely against the flowing silk/rope and their body positions. Vanessa and Teta also did aerial work alongside Ari (Teta and Ari also did a Tango/aerial routine).

The Sunday I shot some people tattooing and grabbed a couple of shots of Craig Burton being tattooed by Oliver Peck but I found it quite hard to make the photos varied and interesting. The rest of Sunday was spent catching the Fuel Girl shows again and try to catch it from different angles and get better coverage of some of the other girls.

I think the highlight of my weekend was the fact Nina Kate performed with them on the Sunday. I've been a fan of Nina Kate for a while and I think I met her once when I did a photoshoot for Rockworld TV about 3 or 4 years ago and I still regret not really knowing about Jane Doe or Nina Kate at the time. I would have loved to have done more stuff with them before they got massive.

As I covered so many performances over the two days, there are shit loads more photos on the links at the bottom.

The general shots of the convention are here.

The other Fuel Girls photos are here.

Burlesque Idol - September

2010-09-28T13:37:00.002+01:00

After what I thought was a pretty successful night at the Shipwrecked! show I went down to see the Burlesque Idol show at Madame Jojos.

This show was another one to highlight the inconsistances I notice in my photos. I'm not really sure why but something didn't click, whether it was the lighting or my positioning I'm not sure but I just felt like the photos were no way near as good as the previous show despite being in the same venue.

The show itself was good, the performers were trying to win a place in the Burlesque Idol final. There was a nice mix of performers at various stages of their burlesque careers. The judges kept their comments constructive and positive choosing to highlight the strong parts of the acts and things they can do more of rather than where they may or may not have gone wrong. One of the highlights though was that they had a comedian performing called Dan Wright, who I didn't realise until he mentioned it in his set that he was 'Little Cook' from 'Big Cook Little Cook' which took me back and made me smile.

One thing I've been happier about over this show and the last one is that I'm actually talking to people and making myself a little bit more known or putting a face to a name. This may seem like something small but it's a big step for me personnally. I find the burlesque scene to be far more welcoming and less intimidating (as a photographer) than the music scene.

The other photos I took from the show can be seen here.

All in all, it's been a busy 3 days over the weekend. There should be another update in a couple of days from the London Tattoo Convention.

Shipwrecked! - A Tropical Burlesque Extravaganza

2010-09-19T18:31:00.002+01:00

I haven't shot a burlesque show since June and shooting things like the Fuel Girls and looking back through old photos made me really want to get back out and starting shooting shows again.

I still really want to work on my burlesque book and I was planning on starting work on it in October but I got a message from Temptest Rose. She invited me to come down and shoot her new show at Madame Jojos. I've known Tempest for a while and written about her before as she hosted most of the Glitter Room shows.

She said I could come down early and shoot some backstage stuff beforehand (I've been dying to do this for a while). They had set Madame Jojos up with tables and chairs which was unusal for me as I've only ever seen it when it's just standing so I decided to shoot from the small walkway besides the stage as there was noone DJing up there like they normally have.

The show itself was called Shipwrecked and something I noticed and really loved about it was that it was a proper show. It had a theme that carried through most of it and with an opening performance (with Tempest Rose, Lola La Belle and Miss Betsy Rose) and one to close all of the performers joined in on stage (instead of calling them up for a bow) really helped bring everything together. I know it sounds obvious and other shows have themes but most burlesque shows I've been to feel like it's a selection of people performing one after another rather than performing together as part of an act. I hope that makes sense.

Madame Jojos is a weird place to shoot at, they normally just stick to having a bland red light for the whole performances and while they moved slightly away from this to start with by the end of the show the lighting was really stunning. Shooting from beside the stage was something new and I really liked some of the angles I was able to get (with the group performances).

I really loved the show and really enjoyed being back shooting burlesque again.

Thank you to Tempest Rose and Lola La Belle for a great evening.

The other photos I took from the show can be seen here.

Protest The Pope

2010-09-18T23:42:00.005+01:00

Living in London I always see or here about things like protests, marches and other public events happening and always want to go down to take photos and never get round to it. After shooting Pride it really made me want to take photos are more things like that.

Recently it's been hard to escape the fact that the Pope is on a state visit to London and there's been a lot of people objecting to the fact he's come over. The reasons why people are against his visit have been well publicised and there was a 'Protest The Pope' march to try and get the point across.

I went down to grab some photos but I wasn't really sure beforehand how big the event would be or if there would be restrictions on taking photos like there were for Pride (I had to get a press pass for that). Thankfully they allowed anyone to come down and take photos and I managed to get to the front to take photos of the people leading the parade as well as some of the speeches that were being given. From what was said/what I've read since being home was that there was about 10000 people taking part. I'm really glad I went and am pretty happy with the photos. I definitely want to try and get down and cover more things like this.

There's plenty more photos from the protest here.

My 'dream' list of people to photograph

2010-09-12T22:35:00.002+01:00

OK so I always see people who I think I'd love to photograph / do a documentary series of photos on. I've been adding them to an imaginary list and have finally gotten round to writing it down.

I know some of these are slightly more achievable than others and some will never in a million years happen but that doesn't really matter. It's my dream list right?

So here it is...

Zak Smith
Mandy Morbid
Steve Prue
Fearne Cotton
Tara Mcpherson
Jim Mahfood
Insa
Miss Led
Brian Ewing
Courtney Love
Davina Mccall
James Woodford
Frank & Steph Carter
Gallows
Hearts Under Fire
Glassjaw
Paloma Faith
Jamie Tworkowski (TWLOHA)
Banbury Cross
Kelly Osbourne
Lindsay Lohan
Audrey Kitching
Demi Moore
Steph Carter & Eva Spence
The Bangkok Five
Stan Lee
Marino Lambrix
Juliette Lewis
Fuel Girls
Jared & Shannon Leto
30 Seconds To Mars
To Write Love On Her Arms
Vans Warped Tour
Travis Barker
Lauren Conrad
Dita Von Teese
Gerard Way
Craig Burton
Lights

Craig Burton & El Wood - Comic Readers

2010-09-04T13:53:00.005+01:00

Last Saturday I was hoping to take some photos of Craig Burton and El Wood for the 'Read Comics In Public Day' but didn't manage to do it on the day.

Thankfully I managed to rearrange it with them. Craig is a photographer and has been very helpful and extremely supportive this year and El is a model but they both help out at Frith Street Tattoo shop and I managed to grab 20 minutes with them on my lunch break to grab some shots for my comic readers project.

I was pretty nervous because of what they do but I guess because I didn't have a lot of time and I've known Craig for a while the nerves went pretty quickly.

We shot outside the tattoo shop and while shooting Craig the lighting was pretty nice but the sun really came out during the last few shots. It made shooting El a bit more tricky as there were a hell of a lot more shadows which I probably could have sorted out with a reflector (which I don't own but probably should) or flash (which I didn't really want to use). El was a trooper for doing this despite feeling really ill.

I think I'm finding that I'm far more comfortable shooting if I don't really have to give people directions. Just being able to just concentrate on shooting away relaxes me and I like to think it gets more natural looking shots.

I'm really happy to have gotten another two people done for this. I've got a few more people I have in mind to shoot I just need to sort it out. I don't really know where I'm going or what I'm going to do with all these photos in the end but it's really nice to be working on something.

Thank you very much to Craig and El for letting me do this!

The rest of the photos of Craig are here.

There's a few more of El you can see here.

New York - Black & White

2010-09-01T21:57:00.004+01:00

This is going to be a quick update. I used two rolls of film in my Lomo Fisheye while I was in New York in July, one was colour and one was black and white. I haven't scanned the colour shots in yet but I've only just got the black and white ones developed (and scanned at the same time).

This is the first black and white film in my Fisheye and I like how the shots have come out despite them being more grainy than I expected. I really want to start using the Fisheye more, there's loads of experimenting with double exposures and film swapping I want to try out. Using the camera is pretty fun as you don't have to worry too much about the shots being perfect but I find it makes me think more about lighting and conditions (hopefully it helps with judging conditions for my SLR too).

Thinking about New York makes me feel a bit better but I fucking miss that place.

There's a few more from the roll you can see here.

Lights & Reading Comics In Public

2010-08-30T16:16:00.003+01:00

Well this has been a pretty shitty week. It seemed to all kick off after my last blog post about my problem with Banquet Records and although I had a lot of supportive comments, there was also quite a few negative comments. I don't take compliments well but I take anything thats negative to heart. I know I shouldn't but I'm very hard on myself and don't have a lot of self confidence/esteem and negative comments just reinforce everything.

The whole situation couldn't have come at a worse time, I've been struggling again and insanely low in general and this seemed to be the icing on the cake. I saw that Lights was playing the Water Rats in Kings Cross and I had pretty much decided that if the gig goes well I'd carry on with photography and if it didn't then I'd take some time out from photography.

I felt like I'd hit a bad run of gigs and was really struggling to get reasonable images, let alone anything I was really proud of. With everything that had gone on I felt like it was all too much and didn't really felt like it was worth it.

Lights sounded great as she always does but the whole situation was terrible. I got there at a decent time but it was pouring with rain and the queue was huge. They opened the doors late so I was soaked and when I got inside they hadn't opened the main room so everyone was squeezed into the small front bar and once I got into the main room I couldn't get a decent spot. I got stuck and the person in front let two other photographers in front of her/me and I tried shooting round them but it just wasn't working. I ended up taking about 4 photos in the first 3ish songs and decided to leave. It's one of the worst gig/photography experiences I've had. It was so frustrating and just added to all the shit I was feeling. I'd pretty much had enough and had decided a break was the best thing.

This was the only remotely ok photo from the Lights gig...

I was pretty ok with my decision but the next day I got a message from Craig Burton about some photos we were meant to do together and I told him I think we'd have to leave it but totally regretted saying it. I don't really know why and I can't really explain what had changed as I was still feeling shit but I was actually excited about taking photos again.

I had planned to photograph some people for International Reading Comics In Public day and decided to try and do it anyway. I mentioned a while back on here that photographing people reading comics was a project I really wanted to do and I thought this would be a good starting point.

Thanks to rain and Craig being unwell I only got to shoot Mark Gamble. I've arranged to shoot a couple more sets of photos this week, so hopefully this all goes well.

The photos of Mark aren't amazing but it was nice to be out shooting again.

The other photos of Mark are here.

Banquet Records & photo usage

2010-08-23T22:15:00.006+01:00

Before I get started with explaining whats happened between myself and Banquet Records, I would like to say that I know I'm not the first person this sort of thing has happened to and I won't be the last. I'm sure this won't even be the last time this happens to me.

The second thing I'd like to say is if you don't know me or haven't had any dealings with me when it comes to photos and photography but I hope this is something that comes across in my blog. I love taking photos, I love going to gigs and I'm not in this to get paid. I do it because of how it makes me feel. I don't watermark my photos and I try not to be too protective over them. I want people to see my images. I happily give bands, performers and venues my photos if they ask for them. It means a lot when someone wants to use my photos. I've turned down paid jobs because I don't believe my photos are worth the money. Most people I've given my photos to credit me or link back to my website/flickr/blog. This is all I want but by the same token I don't want people to take the piss and walk all over for me.

A couple of months ago I found that Banquet Records had used one of my Gallows photos for a poster to promote a Gallows gig they were putting on. I sent them an email and asked for a copy of the poster. Although I wasn't overly happy they had used the image without asking but it was Gallows so I was happy to see a poster with my image on.

At the start of August, Gallows were playing another show which was put on by Banquet Records and I saw when buying tickets that not only had they used another photo of mine (without asking) on this new poster but they were also selling copies.

I emailed them again and said that I wasn't happy about this being used again without permission and that I thought the selling of the poster was going a bit to far.

They sent me a few emails saying sorry and that they weren't making money on the posters, they were doing it for the fans and as something to take away. After a few emails back and forth I got them to add my name and website onto the poster and thought this would be the last of it. I could have demanded money or demanded the poster be taken down and not sold but what was the point? At least people were seeing my name on the poster.

I bought tickets for the show and they arrived on Saturday and inside there was a flyer for a Banquet Records run club night (New Noise) which had the same image on as the one used for the second poster. I felt like the fact that this was the third usage of one of my photos without asking was just going too far and felt like I was being walked over.

I emailed them and said...

I hate the fact that I'm having to write this email again but I just received my Gallows ticket and inside the envelope was a flyer for New Slang which has my photo on it (the same one used on the Peel gig poster) which once again has been used without my permission.

If the flyer was made before I emailed and complained then I feel let down by the fact you failed to mention that you'd used it more than once (are there any more instances of this image being used?). If those flyers are printed again I want the same credit line from the poster added to them.

If the flyer was made after I emailed, how could the same mistake happen again?

I am happy for you to use my photos if you let me know what they are being used for and ask permission (as well as provide credit).

If one of my photos is used again without my permission then I will take this matter further.

I don't think I've said anything wrong in this email but again, as this was the third usage without permission, I felt like I needed to say that if it happened a fourth time that I wouldn't just roll over and let it slide.

These were the two emails I received from different staff at Banquet records...

The New Noise flyers have rotating images at the top and are used for maybe a few weeks at a time when there is a memorable show that's appropriate for the club night. These were made the week after the show, long before you mailed originally. I've made so many variations of this flyer and they are such a small deal that I wouldn't have even thought about mentioning it. If it ended up in your ticket order it's probably just because the mail order flyers are the more out of date ones. I'm pretty sure it's not the one we're currently using but as I say...I do so many and they're used for such a short amount of time I don't know.

The poster was amended with the credit and hasn't been printed without it since.

As your last line suggests you will take further measures if this happens again...well obviously that won't happen again as we won't use any of the pics. We'll re-do the flyer tomorrow (when I'm actually at work, it's my day off right now). Also although as the photographer you do own the copyright to the image itself - on the same token the subjects of the photo have as much right to tell you you can't use it / profit from it unless you were issued a photo pass or given permission. The band were stoked on the pictures as it was one of their favourite ever shows and that's why they were used.

We simply do not have the time to go through every picture and credit it, which is why we have our own photographers at a lot of these events. As much as I appreciate you're just standing up for your art it will only serve to restrict the ability for anyone to bring cameras to shows in the future without approval / being issued a photo pass in advance, which is obviously not something we want to do.

And I mean jeeze, this would be different if we were Live Nation or any of those multi-national corporate promoters (who will have lots of small print about photos, model release stuff) but I mean...what exactly would be the point in taking anything further, If you want the broken chair with no back or the recycled garden furniture...sorry, workstation I use in our office you're welcome to it... :)

As I said, we will remove the photo and use the official one for the tour ASAP. Obviously we can't do anything about the ones that are already in circulation.

and...

Hi Derek

Yeah, just want to re-iterate what **** said really.

First off, genuinely sorry that you’re pissed about it… but as Dave said this flyer was done long before that Gallows Peel show poster was done. . You were probably sent a NN flyer with Frank Gallows on specifically because you’d ordered a Gallows ticket. Other than that, this flyer isn’t in ‘ciruclation’ as such. We have, for years, used different images on an otherwise generic New Noise flyer. Recently there’s been some sick shows at the cocks, and its to show that off and celebrate it... Currently we’re using the New Found Glory picture here http://www.banquetrecords.com/NewNoise

I wasn’t at that cocks show as I was at a stag do. And maybe this is why something wasn’t clear at the time, but the general gentlemen’s agreement we have is that if we’re letting someone use a camera, at New Slang, at The Cocks, at anywhere we do shows, then they’ll always let us use the pictures for promo on our site etc. I really don’t know what to do about all this. Its left a bad taste in my mouth about why people would want to take photos at our shows. Shows that, in more cases than not lose us money. Punk shows, by punks for punks. The whole ethic seems to be missing through the tone of the ‘taking this matter further’ comment. As I said last time this came up (which is the same issue for us, but understandably not for you), I don’t want to get to a point where we have to make people with good cameras (does an i-phone count?) sign contracts for release of photos… Do we ban cameras entirely? I dunno.

But yeah, both Dave and I failed to inform you of a flyer that was created about 2 months ago, as, quite honestly, we have other stuff going on in a day we have to deal with. We should have told you and for not doing so I’m sorry. But that’s about it.

It wont happen again, and I wish we’d never had that Gallows show for the hassles a poster and flyer has caused

I found both their responses to be rude and disrespectful considering they were in the wrong. I found the fact they have said in several emails that they are to busy to ask photographers if it's OK to use their images. It's just bad practice as a company and a designer and I think it's quite unprofessional. I know quite a few designers who would never do this as it could get them in serious trouble.

I found the last line about how he wished he hadn't put on the Gallows show because of the hassle I've caused to be both rude to myself and the band.

I don't like the fact that they think that because they don't have a camera policy at the gigs they put that it automatically gives them to the right to use photos without permission. I don't understand how you can have a 'gentleman's agreement' without actually agreeing it with photographers.

I really didn't feel like I was going to get any further with them through emails and just felt all that would happen would be that we'd carry on arguing. I emailed back to make sure they were aware that I thought they were being rude and disrespectful.

This was the reply I got...

Hey

Leaving aside the fact I find the talk of ‘taking this further’ also disrespectful against one of Gallows’ biggest supporters over the last decade, I’m sorry you feel this way.

Like I said below, genuinely sorry you’re pissed and sorry we both forgot that those NN flyers were even made

The irony is that we do all this stuff to please music fans such as you…

Nothing has been done with that image since the first email, and it wont be at any point again.

Up until now I've always said good things about Banquet Records and had a lot of respect for them as they've put on good shows and seemed like one of the good guys. I don't think they've acted like it in this situation.

I'm a big Gallows fan and the last thing I want to do is cause trouble for them. I am always grateful of the opportunities they have given me. If I have annoyed you guys or you would prefer that I don't take photos of your band I'll understand. I just want to be treated fairly.

I'm not sure what I would like to happen from all this. I feel like they don't really get where they've gone wrong and I feel uncomfortable at the idea of photographing any of shows now because they've made me feel like I'm the bad guy for complaining and wanting some credit/acknowledge/respect. Not money. I'm not trying to screw the shop over.

If I've done or said something wrong or handled this situation badly then please feel free to let me know Hopefully some other photographers can learn something from this as well as maybe some bands, record labels and venues.

Asking a photographer for permission doesn't take much and a little bit of effort to credit photographers goes a long way.

Thank you my friends and other photographers who have been very supportive on Facebook and Twitter.

A Gun Rack? - Islington Arts Factory

2010-08-22T19:15:00.004+01:00

My good friend Mark Gamble, played his last gig A Gun Rack? gig for the forseeable future at the Islington Arts Factory last night.

It's a shame because Mark has a great voice and insanely talented but he doesn't have the time to dedicate to his music as his graphic design work is really taking off.

Mark's been a great friend and the gig was a good send off.

I took a few photos which aren't great (I never did get to take a good photo of him live) but it was nice to take them.

The other photos of Mark are here.

I've been having a really weird time as of late, my heads a mess and a bit all over the place and I just can't really deal with everything at the moment. I've been incredibly low and fed up this past week.

One good thing thats happened (I guess) is I entered a photography competition through Vice and I wasn't chosen as one of the ten finalist but I made it as one of forty runners up and my photo was exhibited at a Vice party. On one hand I'm over the moon that one of my photos was on the wall (and projected on another wall downstairs) in a public place epecially as it's a life goal to be part of an exhibit but I also felt really strange about the whole thing. I hate the idea of competing or trying to catch a break through entering a competition. It doesn't feel like I've worked for it. I guess the only way I can describe it is like entering a music talent contest rather than working away and being noticed on your own merit.

I wish it felt like the start of something good but I just don't get that feeling. I feel like it's a fluke and won't happen again. I was thinking of entering the NME photography competition but I just don't feel like I can put myself out there like that again. The building your hopes up and being disapointed is hard for me. I want to win but feel like it's cheating.

These photos from the night were taken by Zoe Jenkin ( http://www.doublemagazine.co.uk/ ) and are on the Vice website.

Fuel Girls - Unholy (Aug)

2010-08-22T18:39:00.004+01:00

There seems to be a theme of disapointing photos at the moment and especially after my photos of The Fuel Girls from the Unholy club night at the Scala I really wanted another shot at taking photos of them as I knew I could do better.

Thankfully they sorted me out with a pass for Unholy again which was going to be the last one and when I turned up there were two acts on before The Fuel Girls.

One act was a guy just making random noises on some sample machines and shouting nonsense down a microphone.

The second act was equaly bizarre (especially considering it was a metal night), it was a deadly serious, non ironic Britney Spears tribute act. She looked and sounded like her but it couldn't have been more out of place if it tried.

You can see more of Britney here.

Last time the venue had kept the lights really low and thankfully the lighting was a hell of a lot better this time. I got covered in champagne more than I ever had before and although my camera was soaked, I'm really happy with the shots.

The Fuels Girls are great and I can't wait to photograph them again. Not sure if I mentioned this before but I really want to shoot their aerial act.

Hopefully the girls will like these photos especially as they are so much fun to take.

The rest of the photos of The Fuel Girls from the night are here.

Gallows - The Horn

2010-08-22T16:33:00.003+01:00

The last two times I shot Gallows I thought my photos were pretty poor and really wasn't expecting much from the shots I wanted to take when I saw them on Thursday.

I went out to see them at The Horn in St Albans and they had Spy Catcher and Feed The Rhino supporting. Spy Catcher are good and I've seen them before but Feed The Rhino were a band I was really looking forward to seeing after their set at Hevy and they were a great band to photograph. The singer spent most of the set jumping in and out of the crowd and most of the band ended up joining him for the last song.

Gallows were great as usual and they had a pretty rowdy crowd. I got totally battered at the front and really struggled to take photos between getting pushed onto the stage and my camera steaming up. I ended up moving to the side of the stage for half the set and on stage by Steph for the 'Orchestra Of Wolves'.

I had a great time and the band seemed to really enjoy it.

The photos were better than I was expecting but still aren't anything special but at least I'm not unsatisfied with them.

The rest of the Spy Catcher photos are here.

The Feed The Rhino photos are here.

The other Gallows photos are here.

Hevy Fest 2010

2010-08-22T15:50:00.003+01:00

Recently I've been very behind on photo editing. I've moved house and between that and work I've just really struggled to find time to get down to photos. This has stressed me out quite a lot. Thankfully I'm all up to date and I've got about four blogs lined up which I need to get through and get up.

A couple of weeks ago now I had a photopass for Hevy Fest. Firstly I'd like to say that the line up was fantastic and I saw some great bands over the weekend but I thought the organisation was pretty poor.

Transport to and from the festival was a joke, there were barely any buses and the festival didn't put on any shuttle buses or extra services like pretty much all festivals that aren't close to anything. They hadn't made the campsite big enough so there wasn't enough room for everyone when I turned up on the Saturday.

The most unorganised part of the festival was the security. The festival organisers had stated that the photo pit rules were three songs with no flash. This is pretty standard and I think everyone expects to have those rules but the security changed the rules for every band and just made it up as they were going on. We were allowed three songs for the first band but every photographer was told that we 'didn't have the right type of photopass' to shoot the second band. This resulted in at least 25 photographers going to the box office and complaining. They restated the three song rule and sorted it with the security. During the third band of the they kicked us out after half of the first song.

The security were saying they were kicking us out because of safety but virtually every time they did there were no crowd surfers and no rowdy fans or anything like that. They just seemed to ignore everything they were told and did what ever they were felt like. I know we were 'press' and 'in the way' but I just think if you are going to make rules then stick to them. Don't mess us about as it just makes everyone elses life hard.

There were two smaller tents with stages and because of the high number of photographers they were limiting how many photographers could be in the pit at one time which meant I had to make sure I got to the stages early to avoid being turned away.

I managed to shoot Glassjaw, The Subways, Lower Than Atlantis, Throats, Devil Sold His Soul, Young Guns, Bury Tomorrow, Gallows, Comeback Kid, The Computers, Rolo Tomassi, Hearts Under Fire, Trash Talk, Santa Karla, Dead Swans, TRC and Feed The Rhino.

The lighting for Gallows was terrible and once again we were kicked out after one song and this resulted in me taking the worst photos of Gallows I've shot. Was so disapointed. Getting to shoot Glassjaw was a dream come true and I'm thankful for that experience.

Another band I loved that weekend was The Subways. Having seen them before there were several things I was hoping and waiting for. The first was Billy has a habbit of doing massive jumps off the drum kit and the second is he tends to get in amongst the crowd or stage dive during their last song which is normally 'Rock & Roll Queen'. I manage to get a good spot in the middle of the stage and I managed to nail the jump and I made sure I had my camera all set up and ready for the last song and the minute I saw him getting ready to jump in I made a quick dash straight into the middle of the crowd and got some nice shots of him crowd surfing. I was also reminded of how much I love photographing Rolo Tomassi. They have this really nice swagger and stage presence and are just so easy to shoot.

I had a good time despite the trouble with security (I'm very thankful to Hevy for giving me a pass) and I got to hang about with some good people including some fellow photographers Ben and Penny.

I feel a little disapointed in some of the sets of photos as I've stressed over these photos for at least two weeks and once I got them sorted I felt a bit like 'is that it?'.

All the photos from the weekend can be seen here.

Bryan Lee O'Malley

2010-08-18T13:54:00.006+01:00

I started reading the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels about 4 years and loved them straight away. The creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley was one of those people I never actually thought I'd get to meet unless I went to a convention in the states.

Thanks to the Scott Pilgrim movie (which is great) we managed to get him for a signing at work.

He was a really nice guy and I had a great time at the signing. My photos from the signings at work tend to be pretty standard but there's one where he looked straight down the camera which I think has come out really well.

I'd strongly advise you to see the movie and read the books.

The rest of the photos from the signing are here.

I've moved house and am without the Internet, both these facts mixed with being very busy in general means I'm still editing photos from Hevy fest and reckon I may have them done and online this weekend.

I entered a competition through Vice and although I wasn't chosen as a finalist, I made it as one of 40 runners up and there's a party tonight showing all the finalists and runner ups photos. It's going to be weird seeing one of my photos up on display in public. Not sure how I'm going to react. It's something I've always dreamed about and I may have a little panic attack or something as the tiny bit of attention I may get is something I'm not used to. There's an NME competition as well which I may enter but there's two categories, professional and amateur and I don't think I fit into either of those so I don't really know what to do or if it's worth entering at all.

I'm seeing Gallows again tomorrow night and I'm not expecting much photography wise as my photos the last two times I've shot them I've been disappointed with my photos.

Recently I've been looking more at other photographers work and I've found it a little soul crushing. I find it hard thinking about the fact I'll never shoot to the same level as these people.

I've also spent a lot of time daydreaming about shooting Warped next year for the whole tour. A guy can dream right?

Read comics in public day

2010-08-12T15:10:00.003+01:00

For a while now I've wanted to do a series of portraits of people reading comics and a friend just sent me a link to an article on Comics Alliance about a 'Read comics in public day' on Sat 28th Aug.

This would be a great chance to start this project and do something cool to promote a medium I've spent 10 years involved in.

I'm looking for comic fans who are free on the 28th August in London, who can spare me 5 minutes at some point on the day for a couple of photos.

Depending on the response i'll either try and organise a time for each person or if there's a big response it might be cool to try and organise a big group/gathering in Trafalgar Square.

If anyone wants to take part and let me take there photo you can either leave a comment on my blog or drop me an email at derek_bremner@hotmail.com

Hope this all makes sense and you can read more about the day here...

Sick Of It All - The Borderline

2010-08-03T21:35:00.005+01:00

After I left Underage Festival on Sunday I went straight to The Borderline to see Trash Talk, Polar Bear Club and Gallows supporting Sick Of It All. I wasn't sure what to expect from the show, whether I'd be able to get my camera, how packed it would be and how crazy the crowd would get. I'd also heard many stories about Trash Talk and how wild they could be. I'm sure one of these days that something bad will happen to me and/or my camera and I was pretty sure it was going to be at this gig.

Thankfully I managed to survive Trash Talks set despite the singer trying to suck/bite my throat. I'd heard a lot of good things about Polar Bear Club and they were really good and I'm definitely going to check them out again. Things started getting a bit more hectic when Gallows came on. One of the problems I have with The Borderline is that because of the shape of the venue and the way it's laid out, the crowd doesn't really get packed together tight enough to stop everyone falling about when a pit starts. Between struggling to stay on my feet, the pit and stage divers, I decided to move to the sides and even then I still got hit about a bit. It got a million times worse when Sick Of It All came on and I gave up trying to take photos after the first song or so.

I really struggled with photos at this gig, I just couldn't get to grips with the lighting (what little of it there was) and my flash gun seemed to be playing up and nothing really seemed to be working out. It's a shame really because this was a bit of a once in a life time gig.

I have to mention Paul who is Lee's (from Gallows) dad. He battled it out at the front and put me to shame. He also put in a pretty impressive stage dive too!

I feel really at odds with my photography as I feel like one day I'll be taking photos that I think are some of my best and then the next day I'm taking photos that I think are pretty disapointing. I don't really think I'm consistant with my shots. I'm not sure what to do or how to sort it out. I guess I need to find a photographer I trust to help me out so I can learn a bit more.

Trash Talk

Polar Bear Club

Gallows

Lee's Dad stage diving

Sick Of It All

The Trash Talk photos are here.

The photos of Polar Bear Club photo can be seen here.

The other Gallows photos are here.

The rest of the Sick Of It All photos are here.

Hearts Under Fire - Underage Festival

2010-08-02T22:30:00.004+01:00

Hearts Under Fire have had a really amazing run of festival shows recently and on Sunday they played Sonisphere and Underage Festival in the same day. I was hoping to shoot them at both but Sonisphere fell through because they didn't get back to the girls at all about my pass.

I headed up to meet them at Victoria Park for Underage Fest and despite some trouble getting in (thanks to a really disorganised box office and a million entrances for different people I got to catch them play. I really like shooting outdoors with natural light and I think what little style I have works in this kind of setting.

They were playing on a bandstand which meant there were big pillars blocking some of the view of Nicky and Steph but the girls sounded great.

It was really nice getting to chill out with them when they finished backstage and watched them be interviewed for the Red Bull Bedroom Jam website. I'm really hoping this is the start of something for them and they can carry this momentum on.

I think the highlight was watching and photographing Steph and Lexi having a water fight with their friend Tim (before having to do another interview soaking wet).

I'm hoping the photos of them backstage is something a little different from me.

They want me to do their next set of promos which I'm both happy about and kinda nervous. I don't want to let the girls down and leave them with a shit set of photos but I don't really want to pass up the oppertunity. I'm just not very good with models and getting something good will be a struggle. It doesn't help that the last set of photos they had done were done by Tom Barnes and were great. I loved the style. I know it's not a competition and I'm not trying to out do Tom but by the same token if the photos aren't up to scratch they will look even worse when put beside other great photos.

I'm crossing my fingers for some good news that may or may not come on Wednesday and I've got some photos from a gig I shot last night (Trash Talk, Polar Bear Club, Gallows and Sick Of It All) to edit and Upload. I'm also meant to be shooting Hevy Fest this weekend but I feel like thats going to go horribly wrong.

The other Hearts Under Fire photos can be seen here.

Vans Warped Tour 2010 - Uniondale

2010-07-30T21:42:00.004+01:00

During my trip to New York this summer I got to photograph the Uniondale date of the Vans Warped Tour. Getting my pass wasn't as easy this year as it was actually quite hard finding someone who would let me take photos for them despite the fact that I was sorting the pass out myself. Eventually Rock Industry said they would be happy to have the photos which was a relief.

Steve Prue was shooting again this year and drove us down there. I love shooting with Steve, he's so laid back and easy going which is a big help to me as it stops me stressing out and keeps the day fun.

We shot together last year and this year we decided we were going to try and shoot as many bands as possible because if we weren't shooting we'd only be sat around. This meant lots of moving between stages.

The main challenge I find shooting Warped is because your outside you have to constantly switch between settings if the bands are in the shade and then if they move out in the direct sunlight.

The bands we shot were Alesana, Alkaline Trio, Anarbor, Andrew WK, Attack Attack, Automatic Loveletter, BMTH, Enter Shikari, ETID, Eyes Set To Kill, Four Year Strong, Motion City Soundtrack, Parkway Drive, Sum 41, The All-American Rejects, The Casualties and The Dillinger Escape Plan.

Highlights of the day were ETID who were so full on and energetic despite it being 11:45am and Dillinger Escape Plan who I've been dying to shoot for ages. Shooting them as them climbed up and threw themselves of everything they could was as easy as gig photography will ever get. Automatic Loveletter were really cool, Juliet Simms is stunning and her getting in amongst the crowd on the barrier are some of my favourite photos of the day. Bands getting in amongst the crowd seemed to be the thing to do as I managed to get photos of Automatic Loveletter, DEP and Enter Shikari all doing it. It really was the most intense and full on music photography I've done. We shot 17 bands in all on one day. It would have been 18 but Pretty Reckless had banned photographers because one person took some photos of Taylor he shouldn't have a week or so before so they kicked everyone out. It's a shame as I was quite looking forward to her band and it's sort of put me off them really. Even though I don't really like the band that much, I was really pleased with my BMTH photos. The band photograph really well and probably my favourite photo of the day is a shot of Ollie with the sun shining through.

I tried to shoot more crowd shots with photos of security carrying down crowd surfers, kids in the pit or just general shots of people on the barriers. I just wanted to try and give a better sense of everything that's going on.

Shooting one day really re-enforced the fact that I want to do more than one date, so that I could cover more bands over a longer period of time. Hopefully this would make this even more relaxed and allow me to spend more time shooting crowds and fans. I've thought a lot about the things I'd like to do if I ever got onto the tour for the whole thing. I got to say a brief hello and have a little chat with Tiff who is the pit reporter/official photographer for Warped. She does a great job and she does so much (videos, photos and blogs).

I really have to say a big thank you to Steve Prue for being my partner in crime and putting up with the bands I wanted to shoot, for driving and for making a big effort to make sure I had a good trip. Hopefully one day I'll be able to return the favour if he ever visits the UK.

This is a selection of photos but there are so many more to see in the collection on Flickr.

The photos from the day can all be seen here.

Fuel Girls - Unholy

2010-07-28T20:59:00.004+01:00

This blog is squeezing it's way in between my New York update and my Warped update which is coming.

I got a text from a friend of mine who's part of the Fuel Girls saying they would be dancing at this new club night at The Scala called Unholy and did I want to come and take some pictures. The Fuel Girls seem like a great bunch of girls and I was really pleased with my shots from the last time. It was pretty last minute but I went down and when I got there I wasn't down for a photopass but the girls managed to sort that out. I've written about the other things I've shot at the place so I knew what the lighting was like so I was pretty prepared.

When I got in the place was pretty quiet. I'm sure thats mostly down to it being the first night and the fact it was the day before a festival in London. Despite it not being packed the Fuel Girls still killed it. I love their use of fire despite it being really hard to shoot. The one frustrating thing was that person doing the lighting seemed to think that because they used fire it would be wise to turn all the lights virtually out. That mixed with the fact that they spend a lot of time on the barrier with the crowd and there was no decent lighting for that. I had to have the shutterspeed right on the limit of what I can get away with which meant there's a slight motion blur in a lot of the picture and a lot of them are grainier than I would normally like them. I don't think they are as good as others I've shot there but I'm hoping that although they aren't techinically great, that their energy comes through.

Needless to say I got covered in multiple types of alcohol and liquid but it's all worth it.

Thank you Fuel Girls.

I *might* be shooting Hearts Under Fire twice on sunday then Gallows all in the same day. Fingers crossed it all works out ok.

You can see the other Fuel Girl photos here.

New York 2010

2010-07-20T21:49:00.007+01:00

Last summer I went over to New York and did a lot of photography and it was really great for me personally and I was really pleased with what I shot (as I've mentioned before). I was pretty nervous about going over again this summer as I wanted to have a great time like I did before and I wanted to take photos again but I didn't want the photos to be the same as before. I wanted to keep the same look and style but get something new and to try taking photos in some different areas of the city too.

Despite the odd spot of rain during the week I had a great time. Got to hang out with some friends and catch up with one of my big photography inspirations (Steve Prue). He is a great photographer and has always been very supportive of me. He's pretty good at helping me out and meeting up when I go over.

It was a pretty packed and busy week, did somethings I hadn't done before like visiting Coney Island and spent more time in Williamsburg. I think the two things I wish I had done while I was over was photograph Brooklyn (and especially Williamsburg) more and photographed a freak show in Coney Island.

I took more photographs of buildings and surrounding areas this time and tried to do more night shots as well. I don't think I shot as intensely as I did last year but I think I was a bit more precise when doing it.

I got to see Rival Schools and Weezer by the river in Williamsburg with an amazing view of the Manhattan skyline. I would have killed to be able to have taken my camera in to shoot the bands or to simply shoot the view. Regardless of being camera less that was a one of the best nights of the holiday. Everything about it really was perfect.

Doing this kind of street photography again really made me think that I'd love to capture more American cities and especially some of the small suburban areas.

I love New York.

I have one more blog to put up from New York which will be my blog about Warped which will be up later in the week.

You can see the other photos from around the city here.

Gotham Roller Girls

2010-07-20T19:45:00.004+01:00

I went to New York for 9 days last week and got back yesterday. This will probably be the first of three updates this week(ish) about the trip. After getting off the plane in New York and dumping the bags at the hotel I went straight up to Hunters College to watch a Gotham Girls Roller Derby bout. It was Queens Of Pain vs Brooklyn Bombshells. It was something I was quite looking forward to as I shot the two London Rollergirls bouts and it would be good to do something similar in a different country.

There was a pretty big queue and I was actually surprise how many people were there. The track was in a college gym which had proper seating off the floor so you could look down and have a better view of the track. There were a few track side seats but a lot of those people got nailed by falling skaters as they have a pretty small run off area.

Got introduced to a couple of the Gotham Girls staff who were really nice and friendly and got show where I could and couldn't go.

The bout was really good, very fast and hard hitting. The photographers could pretty much shoot any of the corners on the track which meant that I could get a pretty good vantage point of the start line and I could get some more close up photos of the skaters. Each team also had cheerleaders who help get the crowd going between jams which was a nice touch.

I really enjoyed shooting the bout but I was so tired and really struggled to get through to the end. It was good to hit the ground running a bit in New York.

Big thank you to the awesome Gotham Girls for letting me come and shoot!

The rest of the photos from the bout can be seen here.

Hearts Under Fire - Kingston Act Theatre

2010-07-20T18:26:00.003+01:00

I meant to write this blog before I went away but I didn't really get much of a chance. I went to see Hearts Under Fire supporting Don Broco at the Kingston Act Theatre. I'd never been to this venue before and it Kingston College's drama theatre so it was more of a makeshift venue. It had a very low stage and really beautiful side lighting rigs but the sound wasn't great. It looked more like a film set for a music video than a venue.

The security were insanely strict but that was mostly because it was an all ages event. Lecarla were also playing which was cool as I'd seen them play with HUF before.

Hearts Under Fire killed it as usual and I like the shots I got. Thanks to the size and spacing of the stage and venue, I got to try and take some shots fitting in all the members of HUF in one shot.

Lecarla

Don Broco

Hearts Under Fire

Lecarla photos can be seen here.

The rest of the Don Broco photos are here.

The HUF photos are here.

London Pride 2010

2010-07-04T19:28:00.005+01:00

Pride is something I've wanted to photograph for quite sometime but it's something that I always think about or remember too late. This year I emailed the people dealing with Pride's press as they were having bands/acts in Trafalgar Square and I thought it might be cool to shoot some of those. I wasn't sure what the deal would be with cameras but thankfully the very kind people at Pride gave me a press pass.

I had to go and collect my pass from near Baker Street before hand. Once there I found out that my pass allowed me to attend a photo call with Boris Johnson and the rest of the head of the parade. Before that though, all of the people taking part in the parade were gathering and getting ready on the rest of Baker Street. It was really fun to walk up and down photographing the people.

The photo call was very surreal as being that close to someone like Boris Johnson and being surrounded by so many press photographers was something I've never really done before. Once the parade started we were allowed to stay in front of the parade and were walking 10-20 feet ahead of it all. There were quite a few photographers that were pushing their luck and despite being told to keep moving and keep their distance, they ignored everything they were being told. Some would stop or sneak round security and then complained when they were shouted at by security or physically moved. As you needed to have a pass to be on the street in front of/with the parade, there were other photographers jumping the barriers and hiding in with the pack of press photographers and then were complaining when they were told to leave for not having a pass. I really don't envy the security and pride staff that were controlling this but I think they handled it fairly well.

Once we'd gone down Oxford Street and were most of the way down Regent street they allowed us to move back through the rest of the parade with an escort until the front of the Parade had moved on far enough. They did a good job of talking to the photographers and being really friendly.

So I made my way back through the parade shooting the people and crowds and I had such a good time. It was so nice to be in the middle of such a massive celebration and worthwhile one at that. It made me feel like I was doing something good.

There was also a massive crowd in Trafalgar Square for the acts, it was nice walking around and taking some crowd shots. I got some wide shots of large chunks of the crowd that I'm quite happy with.

I chose to shoot only a couple of the acts as I was starting to get pretty exhausted but it was the first time I shot a festival size stage. It's not easy getting shots over the top of the stage and monitors with the equipment and it's quite hard getting the angles too.

The light throughout the day was constantly changing and it wasn't the easiest thing I've shot. I was having to change my settings a lot and there were a lot of shadows which weren't always easy to shoot through. I kept checking to see how they were coming out and on camera a lot of them looked massively over or under exposed and I was a bit worried about having wasted an opportunity (especially as I wasn't using flash). I haven't worked out using flash in the day without blowing out all of the shots. I chose to stick with black and white for the day as I thought I could get some really strong shots. This might seem strange because of how colourful a day it was from all the costumes and flags but I'm glad I did.

I'm really happy with how the whole day went and how my shots came out. I got a lot more photos than I was expecting to. It was really just what I needed as I've been really low on confidence, frustrated and questioning a lot of what I'm doing and being there really helped.

It would be cool if you checked out the set of photos on Flickr as there's almost 100 on there.

Rest of the photos from pride are here.

Glitter Room - June

2010-06-24T13:41:00.003+01:00

I went straight from the shoot on Sunday (which I wrote about in the last blog update) to the Glitter Room. It's weird having to travel from outside North London to outside South London.

As all of the recent Glitter Room shows I've shot have been done on my 50mm lens, I thought I'd try it with my 17-55mm lens to see if I could vary the shots a bit more. I always feel like I've missed shots when I have the 50mm as I struggle to do full body shots and other similar things.

It was a great show, lovely to see Ivy Paige hosting as I'm a fan and I was very impressed with Ruby Deshabille and Elle Amour who I had never seen perform before.

I was a good fun solid show.

It made me really want to crack on with working on getting a body of photos together for my book idea but I really want to get this TWLOHA project nailed first.

Trying something a little different with this one, the photos below should link back to the original Flickr page hopefully for each image.

Rest of the photos are here.

Photoshoot: Behind the scenes

2010-06-22T13:27:00.002+01:00

On Sunday I went to a photoshoot organised by another photographer (Jemma Austin), she had hired a studio and arranged 6 models for the day (shooting a mixture of stuff for Suicide Girls/Zivity/portfolio). Jemma asked if I wanted to do to come down and shoot as well. I really didn't fancy doing anything for SG as I think I would have been quite flustered/uncomfortable shooting with models having so many other people around. What I offered to do and what I thought would be quite interesting would be to do a load of candid/behind the scenes shots.

Thanks to some wonderful transport delays I was late and a little flustered/paniced but once I was there things were fine. It was really nice to meet everyone and there was a really cool chilled/fun atmosphere to the day. Everyone chipped in and helped out with ideas and suggestions.

The studio was itself was fairly standard but what I really liked was that the corridors outside looked like a disused building, lots of paint peeling off the walls and looking very run down (in a good way).

The other thing was despite being a bit of a cold day, the natural light was stunning and it was so easy to shoot in.

I wish I'd shot more of the actual shoots but didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

The other candid shots are here.

I did a quick portfolio shoot for Stacey. As well as being a fellow geek Stacey just looks flawless and is so easy to photograph. I know these shots aren't very adventurous/not pushing any boundries but these are pushing myself. I'm not good at working with people and it's taking me a long time to feel comfortable as a photographer in front of people. Especially when it comes to things like giving directions to models. Thank you to Stacey for sticking with me while we shot.

The rest of the shots of Stacey are here.

Suzi was so much fun to be around on the day, she spent the whole day giggling and her energy really helped keep everyone going. I got her to pose for some quick portraits after she had done her shoot. I really wanted to get across her personality in the photos and I wanted to keep it really simple. I've become really fascinated with very simple and basic portraits and think that they can sometimes be the most striking. I just let Suzi talk away and laugh while I snapped away. I'm really happy with these. I would definitely like to do more shots like this in the future.

There's a few more of Suzi here.

Gallows - Brixton Academy

2010-06-16T20:37:00.003+01:00

I managed to get a photopass for Gallows who were supporting Cypress Hill at Brixton Academy thanks to the band. I was really looking forward to shooting in a big venue which I don't get to do too often and especially seeing Gallows there. One of the things I like about Brixton is the fact it has a really spacious photo pit and a big barrier which I normally am hopping on and off to go round other photographers and security. In big photo pits I feel so much more relaxed as I don't really have to worry about getting hit by the crowd or worry that my camera is going to get damaged. Also Brixton has a massive stage which means the band have more room to move about and aren't confined at all. It also made such a change to the small venue shows like The Fighting Cocks gig.

The one downside to Brixton (and especially when shooting support bands) is that the lighting can be really bad. It's normally one colour and all back lit with no front lighting which makes it hard to shoot. Needless to say it was like this and I was all set to have to pick my moments more than normal but halfway through the first song the lighting suddenly got bright and colourful. It was a dream to shoot in. It meant I could crank the shutter speed up and grab some cool shots.

The band were amazing and I think this is probably some of my favourite shots of Gallows. Big stages and big venues just give you so much more freedom to shoot and get different angles and cover the whole band.

I really like to think about what and where I'm going to shoot when taking shots of a band, like to plan a lot and anticipate as much as possible. Sometimes though luck really plays a massive part and it's about being in the right place at the right time. During the second song Frank jumped into the crowd and was one someones shoulders, I tried shooting with flash but he was too far away and they weren't brilliant. I decided to turn the flash off and shoot and hope to catch a stray bit of light or someones flash going off. I managed to get this shot which I love...

I've mentioned before that jump shot photos are like the holy grail of gig photography for me, I keep trying and I've got some that I like but there's always something like it's a bit blurred or someones foot/hand/guitar are cut off but I really think I nailed the shot of Frank jumping.

Needless to say the band were superb for what I saw. I had to shoot off straight after the three songs but it seemed like it was going to be a cracking set. I'm really proud of these photos.

The other Gallows photos are here.

Hearts Under Fire & Download Festival

2010-06-15T14:02:00.005+01:00

Hearts Under Fire won a wild card spot to play on the Red Bull Jam stage on Sunday at the Download Festival.

The girls were kind enough to sort me out with a photopass but I was only allowed to shoot bands on the stage they were playing.

I used to go to download every year but decided not to go last year because it just works out too expensive but I went for the day this year. The line up for the day wasn't great and there were only a few bands I was interested in but it was worth it to get to shoot HUF. I had to get up pretty early and make my way there (including a random cab ride with two Polish and two Columbian people going as well).

I decided before going that I wanted to shoot some shots of the crowds and people there. The day started off insanely sunny and I was worried about being sunburnt but as the day went on it got overly cloudy until it POURED with rain. I was absolutely drenched.

The great thing about the rain was as HUF were playing inside, a lot of people decided to go check them out so they could watch a band and shelter from the rain, this meant by the time they came on the tent was completely full.

I got to speak to them a bit before they went on and despite being nervous they went out there and played one of the best sounding sets I've seen them do. The lighting was really nice and I've decided that yellow lighting is my favourite light to shoot.

It really meant a lot to be there for such a special day for the band. It's the biggest crowd they've played to and they seemed to go down pretty well. Fingers crossed some good things come from this.

Well done girls, I'm insanely pleased for and proud of you all!

The other great thing about Download was I got to bump into Benjamin Gibson who took some pretty cool shots at the festival and Andrew Kendall. Andrew Kendall was one of the first 'big' music photographers who's work I saw when I first got started and was someone I've always looked up to. I got to have a really nice chat to him and am really thankfull he took the time to sit down and talk to me.

I took a very quick shot of the girls before they went onstage...

The rest of the HUF photos are here.

Shots of the people and crowds at Download

The other photos are here.

I left early due to the insane rain and ended up having two hours to wait for my train. I was pretty tired, soaking wet and a bit fed up. The only thing I could think to do to pass time was to take some photos of myself in the waiting room. Thankfully the station was empty. I

The other photos I shot in the waiting room are here.

Banbury Cross - Covent Garden

2010-06-15T13:48:00.003+01:00

Last Saturday Banbury Cross was performing again in Covent Garden's Piazza but this time she was performing a brand new french routine. I was really looking forward to shooting this, as it was outside and in daylight I tried to shoot some colour too as I thought it might come out quite nice.

It was harder this time to shoot than before as the levels of sunlight kept changing quite dramatically and I had to change settings quite a lot and quite drastically to match the light.

I have to say going and taking photos of Banbury Cross in this sort of situation is almost the perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon.

The rest of the Banbury Cross photos are here.

I've been really eager to take photos recently and do more portraits and 'people' photos and while at home and bored I roped Nicola into letting me take photos of her.

They aren't the most creative or greatest photos to look at but it's nice to be able to snap away and do something productive and a little confidence boosting.

Cheers to Nicola for letting me be annoying.

Gallows - The Fighting Cocks & Bizarre Ball

2010-06-06T22:27:00.003+01:00

Today's a big day for Gallows. They were supporting RATM at Finsbury Park and I'm pretty sure this is the largest crowd/highest profile show they've played. It's a really exciting time for the band (from an on looker's point of view). They are playing some great festivals over Europe and have some quite big support slots coming up too.

As a warm up for the RATM show and a few other ones coming up, they put on a secret last minute show at The Fighting Cocks in Kingston. It sold out in minutes.

The Fighting Cocks venue is basically the side room of a pub. The stage is quite low to the ground and this had me kinda worried as at least with a decent size stage it stops you from falling on it if the crowd is crazy.

This show was insane. It's quite possibly the hotest sweatiest show I've ever been to. I don't actually remember much of the last two songs as I think I was pretty close to passing out. Holding off the crowd at the front was so hard because I was having to put my foot on the stage to push back off but the stage was slippery. I ended up sitting on the side of a speaker by the stage.

The band sounded great and really seemed to enjoy the show. My camera kept steaming up and it was so hard clearing the lens when all my clothes were soaking, it fogged up a chunk of photos which was a shame but I think I did well considering.

I was thinking about it and this was the ninth time I've properly shot a Gallows gig which I think is pretty cool (I think I'm getting pretty close to having photographed them live more than anyone else except for maybe Craig Burton and Tiffany Mink. I could totally be wrong though haha). The last few times and including this show I've shot from the right hand side of the stage (when there's not been a barrier) so I think next time I'm going to have to switch sides as my photos of Lags and Stu aren't brilliant.

The support band, 33, put on a decent show too and they had Frank throwing himself around during a couple of songs.

After the gig I got home as quick as possible and went straight back out to Facedown for the Riot Girls (mentioned in the last update). This is one half of why I'm shattered.

One of my photos from Gallows' gig at The Peel was used for the poster of the gig too!

Gallows

The 33 photos are here.

The other Gallows photos are here.

After having very very little sleep, running around town all day and seeing Banbury Cross, I went to see Gallows play at the Bizarre Ball. I've been to the Bizarre Ball once before and it was quite a laugh. This year was a lot different. I don't know whether it was because I was tired or what but there was a very weird atmosphere there (a hell of a lot different to a burlesque show or something similar). I just didn't enjoy the night and was really glad to get home.

Gallows for the second day running were great and the runway that was connected to the stage gave Lags (especially) and frank a lot more room to throw themselves about and run about on.

One thing that put a downer on the night before I'd even got there was the fact I feel like I was pissed about by a load of the people involved. I reallly wanted to shoot this show as it was a mix of burlesque acts and Gallows. I emailed well in advance and emailed everyone I could (the venue, the magazine and the promotors) and no one bothered to get back to me I chased and only got a response a day or so before the event. The response I got was pretty much "we are up to our allocation on photographers". This is so frustrating especially as I emailed early but got no reply. Really felt like it put me in my place and reminded me how much of a nobody I am.

I took my Lomo Fisheye in and took some shots on that but they aren't great.

Other than Gallows, one highlight was the fact I said hello to Andrew Kendall and told him I've been a fan of his work (like a total dork).

The other fisheye shots are here.

Riot Girls & Banbury Cross

2010-06-06T19:34:00.008+01:00

I am so tired but I've been busy the last few days which I can't complain about.

Friday night I went to Facedown again to shoot the Riot Girls again. Yashin were also playing but I really didn't fancy shooting them.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the Riot Girls this time around, wasn't sure if it would be the same routine or whether it would be something new. Thankfully it was different and parts of it were a lot more like traditional burlesque.

I got to talk to another photographer called Penny a bit more, the weird thing is, is that I've sort of knew her 8 years ago. She's offered to help me out on some of the projects I want to do which I may take her up on.

The girls themselves were great but for most of their performance the lighting was pretty shit. It had been an insanely long day. The photos are ok but not great. I think the last set is better. If I get to photograph them next month I think I may use flash and try shooting in colour as I've concentrated on black and white so far.

Something that was quite cool was that it their performance was dedicated to Paul Gray from Slipknot.

The rest of the Riot Girls photos are here.

Yesterday involved lots of running around and while in town I found out last minute that Banbury Cross was performing at the Piazza in Covent Garden. I had to go home and grab my camera and head straight back out. I was quite looking forward to idea of seeing some burlesque in daylight and in a pretty public place but was a bit unsure about how far Banbury would go.

She was performing to promote the opening of a shop and it was Maryln Monroe's birthday this week so it was pretty fitting.

There were some problems with the music while she was performing but she was great despite that. I loved the lighting in the Piazza and it made me want to shoot more things outside and during the day.

The other Banbury Cross photos are here.

EDIT: Ok so I'm putting it down to severe lack of sleep but I had to edit this blog as I'd written that the Riot Girls were shit when I actually meant the lighting was shit so if you read this blog entry before I edited it then hopefully this clears things up a bit. The Riot Girls are (and were on Friday night) awesome. Very sorry for the mistake. It's a terrible one to make.

Projects

2010-06-01T13:33:00.002+01:00

I've been wanting to write this down for a while but I'm going to attempt to list all the projects I'd like to work on, for the time being I might keep it to 'realistic' ideas and then one day I'll write about 'dream' projects. What I end up doing with the photos I'm not really sure about yet but these are the things I want to work on.

Knuckle tattoos
Tattoos are something that I'm very interested in and something I think could be quite interesting is to do a series on knuckle tattoos and what they say. It's something thats quite a big commiment (more so than most other tattoos) because it can hinder your working career. I was thinking it could be what the tattoos are in a situation showing what they do. For instance singers in bands with microphones etc...

London
My friend Clint is thinking about us doing a project on London. I need to sit down and talk with him about this and work out some details.

London Burlesque
I really want to do a big project on London's burlesque scene. I have an idea of how I want to do this but I just need to get out and shoot as many shows as possible to get a large body of work to choose from.

Comic readers
Comics are a massive passion for me and really have shaped a lot of my life over the last 10 years. I would love to do a series of portraits on people reading (and maybe shopping for?) comics, preferably showing them in the place they normally read them. Whether thats on public transport, at home, in a coffee shop etc... Maybe do some bits on couples that both read comics and the differences in what they read. I'd also like to do something on people and their collections as well as some stock images that I'd like to sell.

Comic conventions
For the same reasons above I'd like to photograph the comics industry and do some work documenting the UK conventions and the dream would be to go and photograph the San Diego Comic Con.

Warped Tour
This kinda falls inbetween a dream and realistic idea. I just want to travel with warped and document anything and everything to do with it. Behind the scenes, production, bands, life on the tour, crowds and the places it travels through. I'd also like to do something on a smaller scale for bands in general.

Miss Led
I want to do more work on documenting Miss Led, I've mentioned this before but this is sort of in the works.

Frank and Steph Carter
As everyone should know by now, I love Gallows and one of the things that interests me most about the band is Frank and Steph, their relationship and their lives. Maybe mixing in work based around Frank's painting and tattooing.

To Write Love On Her Arms
This I have definitely mentioned before but I'd love based around TWLOHA and people suffering from depression.

Some of the things I've been thinking about is doing a UK based series of portraits or going out on warped and doing portraits of the people who come and check out the TWLOHA stall etc.. (and maybe bands who are supporting TWLOHA) or documenting TWLOHA in general/one of the TWLOHA days.

There's more in my head I think but it's good to get these down. The problem I have is I struggle to motivate myself to organise and do these things (mostly through fear/nerves/anxiety) and I kind of wish I had someone who was almost like a manager who could help me arrange things and help point me in the direction of what I needed to do and when. Dates and things that are upcoming confuse me at times and I struggle to see whats coming up.

This blog is also me asking for people to come forward if your interested in getting involved with modelling for any of the things i've mentioned.

You can drop me an email (with the project in the subject) at derek_bremner@hotmail.com

It would be great to start working on something and I think it would be quite positive for me.

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble.

New York 2009

2010-05-30T22:26:00.005+01:00

I was checking out a photography community I go on and there's a place for people to post photos of the last photos they've taken. There's always some stunning work in there and the last thing thats been posted in there today was someone's photos of New York.

I've written about my trip there last summer on here and I've mentioned that I'm going back. It's coming round pretty quick and I was having a flick through my photos and realised there were a few shots I really liked that. I know I'm going over old ground but it's made a bad couple of days a little better.

I♥
NY

If you haven't seen them already then the other New York photos are here.

Rolo Tomassi & Hearts Under Fire

2010-05-29T13:23:00.004+01:00

So somehow this week I've ended up at four shows. It's been good a I've had pretty different experiences at all of them.

I found out pretty last minute that Rolo Tomassi were playing at Rough Trade on Thursday night, I raced over there from work to make sure I could get a wristband and it was totally worth it.

Rolo Tomassi really are great live and are like a whirlwind when they play. The thing I loved about seeing them at Rough Trade was the fact that because the stage is quite small it meant that James and Joseph had to play on the floor which just gave them more space to throw themselves about. Before they came on the lighting was quite decent but as they started RT dropped the lights a bit which was a shame. It was a lot different to a normal show as they were taking request for songs to play.

Pretty happy with the photos as a set and I managed to get a kinda cool jump shot as well.

The other Rolo Tomassi photos are here.

Yesterday I went to see Hearts Under Fire at The Garage. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love this band. They were on first but on quite late time-wise for a support. I got to hang with them for a chunk of time before they went on and had a long chat with Lexi when they were done. It really is impossible not to be smiling and laughing when I'm around those girls. They are probably the band I'd love to tour with the most, I reckon it would be so much fun. A dream would be to tour with them on Warped.

The photos themselves aren't brilliant. There was pretty much no lighting for them other than a faint hint of red and green and the stage it pretty small. The one good thing about the small stage is you can get down the sides.

Needless to say another superb performance.

The photos from the Hearts Under Fire show are here.

Lights - Underbelly

2010-05-27T20:30:00.004+01:00

I'm never actually sure whether people are reading this or not but if you are then you've probably read that I've been pretty down and fed up recently. I've been quite frustrated about my photography and situations I've been in.

After the Lights show at The Borderline I felt like I'd screwed up a chance at shooting Lights and I'm never sure if I'll get another. Luckily Lights played a surprise show last night at the Underbelly in Hoxton.

I bought a ticket and got down there and was one of the first people in which meant I could grab a decent spot at the front which meant that I could relax a bit and not stress about how I was going to shoot the show.

I've seen Lights play similar size venues before but this was probably the one that felt the most intimate. It was also really nice that Lights was on first because it meant a lot less waiting around.

I'd never been to this bar/venue before but it was such a nice place, the stage was decorated quite nice and it had quite low key but good lighting. Sometimes it was a bit hit and miss depending on where Lights was standing but I really liked the feel that it gave the photos.

This is probably my favourite set of Lights photos. Thankfully this show and the one (maybe two) I'm going to write about at the weekend have kinda restored my faith a bit in what I'm doing.

The rest of the photos of Lights from this gig are here.

Lights - The Borderline

2010-05-25T21:09:00.003+01:00

Lights was over doing her first headlining tour of the UK and she was playing The Borderline. I've seen Lights a number of times now and managed to photograph her on three of those occasions. Unfortunatly I've lost all my original/hi res copies of the photos (except for the ones from Warped) when my hard drive died so I was looking forward to getting some more shots. I met up with a friend beforehand and went for a drink. Someone that works with Lights sorted me out with a photopass as they had photo restrictions. We walked in during the support band which was a surreal experience as it was virtually pitch black except for a video being projected on the back of the stage and the crowd we hitting around loads of white balloons.

The good stuff about the night was that she was superb. She really has a stunning voice and it's really powerfull. Lights has a a really great infectious stage presence and a smile that makes it hard not to enjoy watch her perform. It also really comes out in the music which i've always thought has an extra bounce to it live.

The not so good stuff about the night was I actually had a hard time getting in. I had an email confirming my photopass was fine but when I got there the venue said I wasn't on any list. I managed (through my friend) to get hold of Lights' tour manager who said she had sorted it out and had personnaly seen my name on the list but when I went back the venue still said my name wasn't down. They let me take my camera in but it felt like it was only because I was annoying them that they just gave in. I had actually bought a ticket too which I asked the door people if I could put someones name down to collect it which they said was fine but again, they claimed they didn't have her name down. It actually put quite a downer on the night for me. I also struggled to get a decent place in the crowd and it was hard to shoot Lights round her keyboard set up and I gave up in the end because I was just getting frustrated. My problems and frustrations were overshadowed by Lights being awesome.

Lights is playing a surprise show tomorrow so hopefully that will go a lot better that last night.

The rest of the photos from the night are here.

Pretty much no one knows this but since last summer I've kept an old US Dollar in my wallet. It's helped keep me sane as I see it pretty much every day and it reminds me (obviously) of America and New York specificly. Reminds me no matter how shit I feel that it hasn't and won't always be like that. Recently I've been feeling worse and worse and the Dollar has started to lose it's effect. I just hope it starts working when I come back from there in July.

Eyes Set To Kill - The Underworld

2010-05-21T23:47:00.003+01:00

The kind people from/involved with Eyes Set To Kill sorted me out with a pass to see them support I Am Ghost at The Underworld. I've really wanted to see them for a while and am hoping to catch them on Warped this summer when I go.

This was obviously my fourth show at The Underworld recently and I felt like I really struggled with this show.

The lighting was pretty shit and it was too busy at times to be able to get into the crowd to shoot from the front. Both the singers from Lower Than Atlantis and Eyes Set To Kill played guitar as well so were in the centre of the stage and I found it hard getting decent shots of them. It was a combination of the limitations of my set up mixed with trying to get decent angles around other band members.

I've also been really tired and quite stressed out and as much as I wanted to see ESTK and Confide. I don't think I was in the right frame of mind. It was just one of those days. I left before the headliners I Am Ghost but really enjoyed the three support bands.

These photos definitely aren't my finest hour and I wish I could have got some better photos. I think I need a break from shooting at The Underworld.

Lower Than Atlantis

Confide

Eyes Set To Kill

The Lower Than Atlantis photos are here

The Confide photos are here.

The rest of the Eyes Set To Kill photos are here.

I worry a lot about slipping back into how I was for most of last year and am trying hard to keep my head above water. I'm feeling like my work is getting a bit stale and boring and I want to photograph something new but I don't really know what. I think I may try and do some more London street photography and I need to start writing stuff down and getting things planned for my book idea. I'm not sure whether to leave working on the photos till after New York or start it before.

Blessed By A Broken Heart - The Underworld

2010-05-18T22:44:00.006+01:00

I don't know why but virtually every show I want to shoot at the moment is at The Underworld at the moment. My third recent trip there was for Blessed By A Broken Heart. I saw them last time they were over but it's taken me some time to appreciate them and enjoy how fun they are if you don't take them too seriously.

I had a pass for the show but as it wasn't rammed I decided to shoot the bands partly from the side and partly from the front in the crowd.

The lighting was average for the support bands and I hadn't heard the first two bands but shot a few pictures anyway. The main support was Lovehatehero and I was quite looking forward to seeing them and they were good. Really energetic and one of the drummer and guitarists seemed to have a lot of fun posing for shots.

As BBABH came on stage it got absolutely flooded with smoke as they were using lasers which made it pretty hard to shoot well. It's hard to use flash because everything comes out quite hazy but it's even worse to shoot without. As well as shooting from the front of the stage I shot from both side stages as well which I don't often do there trying to cover all the members of the band. They put on a good show but it got crazier and crazier as it went on as the stage kept getting invaded by the crowd and during the last song I ended up helping rescue a keyboard and stand before it got lost to the crowd.

I had a lot of fun during this show and it was pretty laid back and stress free which is always a positive.

My fourth show at The Underworld will be seeing Eyes Set To Kill and Confide supporting IAMGHOST.

The Morning After

The First

Lovehatehero

Blessed By A Broken Heart

The Morning After / The First photos are here.

Lovehate here photos can be seen here.

The BBABH photos are here.

I forgot to mention in the last update about the TRC show that someone was sick on my camera bag at some point during the gig. It was pretty fucking rank. Cheers to whoever that was.

I also passed up on some regular with webzine which I might go more into in another blog. Another gig I shot this week was Third Eye Blind but the photos should be used on Bring The Noise but I'll wait till they are up before writing about the gig and posting photos.

TRC - The Underworld

2010-05-15T13:27:00.003+01:00

I went to another show this week at The Underworld in Camden and guess what... I got a pass (despite them saying there's no such thing at the IWABO show). Went to see Deez Nuts play and I want to thank Miles/TRC for sorting out my pass.

I decided not to shoot the first couple of bands as they weren't 100% my cup of tea but the first band of the night I shot was TRC. I've heard a lot about this band, seen them getting a lot of press recently and seen a lot of photos from other photographers. I was really intrigued to see what they were actually like live. They had no front lighting so the stage was insanely dark except for the back lighting and it made it quite a challenge to shoot. I struggled to get the right exposure a lot of time as I kept finding people in the shots were either too dark at the front of them but way over exposed from the back. I used flash a bit more than I normally would, especially using it with my 50mm lens which I normally never do. Having 6 band members on the stage makes picking out people to photograph harder. Mixed feelings about how the photos came out but hopefully they'll like them.

The crowd were pretty crazy throughout the night which meant shooting from the side of stage for the whole night. Its good because it means I can get decent drummer shots but unless people come close it's not always easy to get shots of band members on the far side of the stage.

The second to last band were The Ghost Inside they had the best lighting of the night. The singer covered the stage really well and they were pretty easy to shoot. Was quite impressed with them and their set as a whole.

The lighting went a bit shit for Deez Nuts and I don't think things really clicked for me while they were on and think it shows in the photos.

TRC

The Ghost Inside

Deez Nuts

The other TRC photos are here.

The Ghost Inside photos can be seen here.

The Deez Nuts photos are here.

Things are still a bit weird at the moment and I think I'm going to turn down an oppertunity I've been offered as I just don't think it's right for me and what I'm doing at the moment. I'm happy doing things the way I am at the moment and don't really want to comprimise that, especially as doors seem to be opening up as it is.

I've decided I want to produce/publish a burlesque photography booked based around London. I really think I can do it, it's going to take a lot of planning and work and I'm not expecting things to happen over night but fingers crossed I can pull this off. I really feel like I need to do something and especially do something constructive. I would love to try and get something sorted by next years London Burlesque Week.

IWRESTLEDABEARONCE - The Underworld

2010-05-10T21:45:00.001+01:00

Normally when I'm sorting out a pass I email the people I need to well in advance and email several times to confirm everything in the lead up but I completely forgot to email and sort my pass out officially for Sunday's IWRESTLEDABEARONCE gig. Thankfully the guy who answered my very last minute emails and sorted it out for me. On my way up to Camden I also forgot the Northern Line on the Tube wasn't working so had to go a longer way round. I really had this feeling that the night was on a knife edge and that something was going to go wrong.

If there's a gig I desperately want to go to then I buy tickets first and sort out a pass later, this way if anything goes wrong I don't miss out. Got to the venue and found my name wasn't down on the guestlist so I had no pass. I went downstairs and spoke to IWRESTLEDABEARONCE's merch guy who tried to sort it out and the people on the door told him that The Underwold don't do photopasses. I've had loads of passes for The Underworld before but every now and again they seem to deny all knowledge about this. The venue at the time wasn't too packed so I just grabbed a place at the front.

First band on were Dead and Divine who were pretty good, the singer had 'home sick' across his knuckles and I tried to get a decent shot of them but couldn't. It made me think a lot about knuckle tattoos and how I'd like to do a project on them.

IWRESTLEDABEARONCE were on second and they were AMAZING. They have so much energy and just kill it live every time but this was the best I've seen them. Kyrsta was a lot more talkative and engaging with the crowd. She also had me laughing a lot at the things she was saying. I'm quite gutted that they join the Warped Tour about 2 dates after I go this summer.

As I was only there for IWABO, when they finished I moved up to the balcony bit at the side and watched a bit of the main band The Chariot before leaving. I shot a few photos from there and quite like how they came out.

I really need to write about all the things I'd like to shoot and projects I'd love to work on. They are all rattling round in my head and feel like I need to get them down before I forget them. Might try and do that over the next few days.

The Chariot

Dead and Devine

IWRESTLEDABEARONCE

The IWRESTLEDABEARONCE photos are here.

The other photos of Dead and Devine and The Chariot are here.

Riot Girls - Facedown

2010-05-08T19:18:00.003+01:00

Last time I was at Facedown after the band has performed they had the M.O.B girls performing but this time they had the Riot Girls instead.

The Riot Girls are about the fourth alternative dance troupe I've seen perform and I have to say they were pretty damn good. They were a lot more performance based than a lot of the other acts like this which was great, they were more like a circus/horror/burlesque act than just a dance troupe. They did about 5 routines, one after the other each involving different members of the group.

I really enjoyed shooting these girls and am really happy with the shots. Thankfully unlike normal, I didn't get covered in water or any other liquid being thrown about!

I'd love to do more backstage shots with a group like this.

More of the Riot Girls photos are here.

Daisy Dares You - Facedown

2010-05-08T18:47:00.003+01:00

After a close friend suggested with hit up Facedown at the Scala for a night out I noticed that Daisy Dares You were performing. I've seen her in the press a fair bit recently and was intrigued to see what she was like. Trying to sort out a photopass last minute can be quite tricky but with the help of the people that run Facedown as well as Daisy Dares You's record label, I got it sorted pretty easily.

I always feel very exposed in clubs and extremely self concious so taking photos breaks that up a bit.

Daisy Dares You were a lot different and a lot better than I imagined, some bands don't put a great deal into their performance and fill inbetween songs quite a lot but Daisy herself was all over the stage and very energetic. The band just got on a played the songs (and played hard).

I've talked about this venue before and I don't think I'm repeating myself too much but I like the Scala, it's got some really good strong lights and the front of the stage is always lit really well. Towards the back can be a bit to hazy and smokey but I can't really complain. The other thing I like is the low stage, it means you can get a more level/straight on angle which you normally can't get as you are normally just angled up at the performer. It makes facial shots a lot easier.

I'd definitely like to photograph Daisy Dares You again before she gets too big (ruling me out of being able to get passes).

The rest of the Diasy Dares You photos are here.

Miss Led - Work in progress

2010-05-04T13:41:00.003+01:00

Yesterday afternoon I met up with Miss Led in her studio/workspace to photograph her. The previous times I've photographed her has mostly when she's been doing live art and it's all on a large scale. Photographing live painting can be hard due to the limitations on the angles you can get as it's virtually always on walls. This makes it hard to get front on shots/a lot of variety but going to Miss Led's work space really opened that up.

Miss Led is insanely busy at the moment with lots of different projects on the go so it was good to try and capture her working while also maybe giving an insight into her methods. If you haven't guessed already, I love her work and shooting her over the last year or so has been really motivating and inspiring. I fell in love with her studio space, it's wall to wall art and materials while still being very open/spacious. It's the kinda place I've always wanted. She's also bee incredibly supportive which I'm really grateful for.

This is definitely what I want to move into and I tried to change things up as much as possible, switching between my two lenses and between B/W and colour. Hopefully it will be a nice contrast to the other photos I've taken of Miss Led. Fingers crossed this is something we will do again and maybe more ongoing as I really want to work with and be more involved with Miss Led. She's so talented and I want to be able to help share that with everyone.

The photos I've uploaded now don't show any of the work Miss Led is working on for obvious reasons but maybe once the work is finished and out there, there maybe a few more photos.

Despite my self esteem and mood dropping over the last week or some from being worn out, I've had a lot of supportive messages and lots of kind words (some from people I really wasn't expecting it from) and it's been really encouraging, so thank you very much!

I'm waiting to hear back on a few things but I'm trying to push my comfort zone and trying to push for shoots and opportunities that my head says I'm not good enough for but I've got to try. We'll see what happens.

It's been a while since I've taken any photos of myself. It's something I keep wanting to do, especially at the time when I'm at my lowest but that's normally when I have the least motivation so never do it. I also find it hard seeing the photos after I've taken but I had a haircut and decided it was time.

Self Portrait

More of the photos from the afternoon are here.

Please check out Miss Led's website here.

Miss Led's Facebook page is here.

London Burlesque Week 2010

2010-04-29T10:58:00.003+01:00

Last week was the London Burlesque week and despite being exhausted and pretty much out on my feet I made it down to three shows.

Burlesque is something over the last few years I've really grown to love. I've been interested in it for quite some time but didn't know really where to look for good shows or how (if at all) it was possible to take photos at them. The first burlesque show I ever took photos at was the 2008 London Burlesque Festival Newcomers show. Straight away I loved it and thought that this was a community I really wanted to be a part of.

This year's festival was extended due to growing popularity and looking at the line ups that I was going to go to the Newcomers Battle Royale show and the VIP Closing Party. I had a friend coming down from Scotland who was in the Newcomers show and the line up was filled with most of my favourite performers.

I was emailing Chaz Royale about coming down and taking photos at the shows I'd bought tickets for and he asked if I'd come down on the opening night and take some shots. I said yes obviously.

The opening night was very nerve racking and great at the same time. They had a big press session before the show and I was given a little brief of what they wanted. This put me out of my comfort zone but I really wanted to nail it.

Something not a lot of people know is I am insanely shy and find 99% of social situations unbareable and awkward. I find it very hard to talk to or approach new people and often don't. I'm sure I can look like a dick as there's always loads of people I've spoken to online but can't say hello to in person. I just get very flustered and panic and just can't do it. On the opening night though I spoke to Ivy Paige who I've spoken to before and Kiki Kaboom, Chrys Columbine, Maleficent Martini and a few others. Also took photos of some of the performers who were around too. This is a big deal for me and a big step forward.

The Newcomers show i've been to three years running and is always worth going to. You see some great up and coming acts but it's intense as there's normally a lot of performers. It was great to get to see my friend Hettie Heartache, she had a great performance and we got to chat quite a bit as well as take some quick pictures backstage. The photos I took back stage aren't brilliant as I really got flustered and rushed things.

Before the closing show on Sunday I spent some time around central London with Hettie and we got to talk photography and burlesque which is always good. We had a quick peek around a couple of galleries and I obsessed over this massive escalator in the National Portrait Gallery. The show itself was probably my favourite show of the week. Everyone was on top form, I got to see Banbury Cross again, Cici Darling, Catherine D'lish and loads more. Finally said hello to Cici Darling, she was really easy to talk to and I really should have done this sooner.

Over the week as well I spoke to a few photographers who shot the shows I was at and that really added to the community feel of the week. Beneath all of the backstage drama that can happen, I love the burlesque world.

One of the photographers I didn't speak to but saw his work was Boris Conte, his work was breath taking and I would seriously advise everyone to track him down and check it out. It kinda got me a bit down as this last month or two has been a big photography high and his work reminded me how far I've got to go to be where I wanted to be but I think I am making progess. I'm very happy with my shots from the week and I'm still recovering.

I got covered in Champagne three times, water and a massive amount of glitter but it was all worth it.

Opening Night

Newcomers Show

Closing Night

The escalator

I'm kind of on a big come down at the moment, thinking a lot about friendships that have fallen away (some are for the best) and things like money. I find it hard balancing everything and everyone.

I made a big school boy error last night, my good friend Mark Gamble was playing an accoustic show at Pure Groove for his birthday, I wanted to take some shots but left my camera battery at home. Whoops.

More photos from the LBW Opening Night are here.

More photos from the LBW Newcomers Battle Royale are here.

More photos from the LBW VIP Closing Party are here.

Melissa Auf der Maur

2010-04-24T22:03:00.003+01:00

Melissa Auf der Maur is someone I've been a fan of for sometime now, I knew of her from her days in Hole and Smashing Pumpkins but really loved her debut solo album. One of my first photopasses (when I was using a point and shoot camera) was a gig of her's at the Mean Fiddler. I didn't actually take any photos that night (long story) and I've been dying to see her play again and to shoot her since then.

She was meant to be playing a show last Saturday at Cargo but that got cancelled due to the volcanic ash situation and she was grounded in Finland. She traveled across Europe though to make a screening she was having on Wednesday and managed to re-arrange the Cargo show for the same night at the Jazz Cafe.

Rachel, who was doing Melissa's PR was a saint as she put up with me emailing her millions of times over the last week or so asking about times of things and what was happening with everything. She was a massive help.

Despite being shattered I decided to go to both, I headed down to the screening early so I could get a place at the front to get some pictures. Melissa was showing a short film she made to go along with her new album which was beautifully shot and she did a brief Q&A after. It was really interesting to here her talk about the making of the film, her album and what she has been up to in the years she's been away. I always find it interesting seeing musicians not on stage performing.

After the Q&A it was a mad dash from the ICA to the Jazz Cafe. There was no barrier so I was behind a few people. I know you I write a lot about lighting but it was bright but not really bright enough. It was a hard light to shoot in and I was having to peek round people. Melissa's performance was superb, she has such presence on stage and really draws your attention even when she's being reserved.

Amanda Palmer was also there and she performed with Melissa as part of the encore which was really cool (especially seeing the two of them together) but I had to leave during it to make sure I got the last tube.

I'm editing the second set of my London Burlesque Week tomorrow and then I'm off to the closing night so I'll probably do a big blog update next week with photos from all three LBW shows I went to.

"Out of our minds" screening Q&A

Sky Larkin (support at the Jazz Cafe)

Melissa Auf der Maur

The other Q&A photos are here.

More Sky Larkin photos are here.

The photos of Melissa Auf der Maur (and Amanda Palmer) are here.

Glitter Room - April

2010-04-24T17:08:00.002+01:00

Last Sunday was the return of the Glitter Room. I'm so glad it's back as it's really one of the best places to see some great up and coming acts for a really good price.

Keith had someone doing the lighting this time which was interesting, at times it was great but the levels of light are so different across the stage as it is but when the light levels and colours are being changed it makes it more of a challenge but it worked.

Banbury Cross and Beulah Bell returned for another set of really strong performances. There's also a lot of people turning into regulars there which makes for a good atmosphere and I think Keith's hard work is paying off. I just wish more people made the effort to get out to Croydon for this show as it really deserves not to be missed.

Banbury did the Champagne routine again and I wanted to try something else this time, I used the 50mm lens before but I thought I'd try it with my wider lens to maybe see if I could catch the spray a bit better as well as trying to get some full body shots. I don't think the shots came out as well as last month and I really noticed the difference between the two lenses that night. The extra F stop on the 50mm lens makes it so much easier to shoot in low lighting.

This weeks been a really crazy week as so far i've shot the Glitter Room, two nights of the London Burlesque Week and a Q&a plus show of Melissa Auf der Maur. I've also done 4 and 1/2 days work at the day job and i'm so worn out and run down that it's made given me a cold. I don't actually know how I got through the last few days.

I also created a Facebook fanpage which if you are on Facebook then you should be able to find it by searching my name. I just wanted to be able to post my blog and photo updates without clogging up my personal FB page and maybe reach a wider audience.

More photos from the night can be seen here.

Hearts Under Fire - The Peel

2010-04-17T17:32:00.003+01:00

Hearts Under Fire are a band I've written about before on here and I went to The Peel in Kingston on Thursday to see them play. It was the first time I'd seen them since Sian officially left and it was great to see them again. It was also a lot less crazy since the last time I was there for Gallows. This sounds stupidly lame but this was the first time I'd spoken to all the girls in the band, which for me is a big deal as I really struggle with talking to people I don't know very well, especially people in bands and things like that. I freak out quite a bit.

The Peel actually has some pretty decent lighting when they decide to use it and it was really nice for Lecarla who were supporting but it didn't seem as good during HUF. There were some really nice greens and yellows during Lecarla but it was mostly blue and red for HUF and I don't know whether it was to do with the placement of the band members on stage but the light didn't seem to hit HUF as well.

Thank you to Hearts Under Fire for an awesome night and being really nice to me. Their new songs sound great.

Pretty pleased with these shots and it was a nice end to a really busy week. I was at Alesana last night at Islington Academy but I wasn't shooting, which is something I still find quite weird. I've heard other people say this too but any gig I'm not shooting I spend thinking about things I could have done and think "that would have been a nice shot". I also spend a lot of time watching other photographers looking at what they are doing and how they are shooting.

I was meant to be seeing Melissa Auf Der Maur today but due to this volcanic ash nonsense she can't make it into the country. The shows been postponed which is a shame as I was really looking forward to it although it's nice to have a breather before another busy week.

Lecarla

Hearts Under Fire

Hearts Under Fire photos are here.

Lecarla photos are here.

You can check out Hearts Under Fire here.

Jonathan Ross & Tommy Lee Edwards signing

2010-04-15T13:45:00.003+01:00

At work we had Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards signing their new comic (Turf) at the London FP store. Obviously I've mentioned before how important comics are to me and it's always really nice to meet people who share that passion. I'm always a little worried when people come in for signings that I'm going to find out that they aren't particularly nice but both Jonathan (who I met once before) and Tommy were superb. Both really nice guys and love what they are doing. Jonathan Ross' love of comics is really refreshing and when doing press for Turf, he'd much rather talk about the things he loves like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko than promote himself.

There's not much else I can write without gushing too much (and i've written before about what it's like to shoot a signing but you should definitely check out the comic, TLE's art is great on it and it'll be a good read.

I'm out seeing Hearts Under Fire tonight at the Peel and Melissa Auf Der Maur at Cargo tomorrow so expect more photos over the weekend.

The rest of the signing photos can be seen here.

You can check out Turf here.

Kirsty

2010-04-05T20:24:00.004+01:00

I've had this last week off work and had the chance to do a fair bit of photography (as you may have read below). On Saturday I went down to see my good friend Kirsty so we could shoot a set of photos for her for Suicide girls. I had to be out of the house not long after 7am which wasn't easy but I got the chance to make a dent in the Emery photos while on the train.

We used a rehearsal room in Monster studios in Brighton to shoot in. It was a nice little room, have a drum kit and amps about. We had quite a laugh doing it while listening to some Bon Jovi.

A while ago I bought a soft box, stand and some wireless triggers for my flash gun but I've never been able to get used to it or find settings that worked. Pretty much everything I shot was just way too over exposed. I decided before this shoot to buy an umbrella and to give that a go instead. It worked so much better than the soft box and I felt quite comfortable with it.

Shooting a Suicide Girls set is a lot different to anything I've shot before. There's so many do's and don'ts as well as the fact there needs to be 40 - 60 shots that are different and show progression. I had to use photoshop to clean up the photos far more than I ever have before. I got to know the clone and heal tool very well over this weekend. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the results and Kirsty is too which is the main thing. We'll see what happens.

We booked the room out for 4 hours and we were done with the SG stuff in about an hour and a half and we planned to try and shoot some shots that were more fetish orientated than the SG shots. We shot using latex hot pants and skirt, a mask and a Jane Doe eye patch. These are the shots I'll be posting below.

Kirsty is a superb model. She has a really good look and she just oozes confidence and energy. She is so fun and lively that she's a joy to be around. Kirsty's really the first person I've shot that I've felt totally comfortable with and not really panicked or stressed while shooting. This was a major step forward for me and a massive confidence boost. I've been thinking a lot about something that was said at the Ross Halfin talk about not being intimidated when you shoot and this time I wasn't. I'm hoping this gives me a real boost and confidence to do more shoots. I owe Kirsty for having faith in me and not doubting me.

The non SG shots can be seen here.

The place we shot in (Monster studios) can be seen here.

Ned & Carly Hartly - Wedding Day

2010-04-03T20:32:00.005+01:00

I've known Ned and Carly for a couple of years. They have both been very supportive and helpful to me and I'm very thankful for that. A lot of my experience with music photography stems from Carly giving me a chance when she worked for Rockworld and helped get me a lot of great opportunities besides shooting bands.

They got engaged on last years Valentines day and got married on Thursday. Carly's uncle is a photographer and was doing the official photographs for the day but they asked me if I would come and take photos as well.

Shooting weddings scares the shit out of me. It's such a huge day in peoples lives and I stress about cocking up the photos and leaving the people with nothing to look back on or the photos just being shit. Having someone else take the formal shots took all of the stress and nerves away, they were happy for me to do exactly what I wanted to do and however I wanted to do it. As I love shooting black and white and the fact all the formal shots would be in colour I decided to stick to that.

The day started with going to the hotel the bride and bridesmaids were staying. I got to take some photos of them getting ready and having their hair and make up down. I've always really wanted to do this. Then it was off to the wedding ceremony which was in a stunning conservatory in the Barbican. As it was a conservatory the lighting was just stunning which made shooting so easy and such a joy. Having everyone surrounded by these amazing planets and flowers was great too. I think the only part of the day I didn't do particularly well was Ned and Carly's first dance. I didn't want to use flash and the dance floor wasn't very well lit so I tried to catch other people's flashes going off. It worked but it wasn't great.

I am really happy with the photos and I really hope Ned and Carly do too. I'm proud that I got to be a part of an amazing day. The wedding really was perfect from start to finish and I got spend a lot of time with a lot of my close friends too.

Thank you and congratulations to Ned and Carly.

My favourites from the day are here in my Flickr stream.

There's an official wedding Flickr photostream here, which has a lot more of my photos from the day as well as a lot by other people.

Emery - Barfly

2010-04-03T20:01:00.003+01:00

Over the last year and a half I've really grown to love Emery. I got to see them on their first visit to the UK at 'Give It A Name' last year and they were superb so I was eagerly awaiting them coming back. They played a show at the Barfly in Camden as part of a headline tour.

The Barfly is a venue I love shooting in, it's got great sound and a good lighting rig. Providing I can get to the front i'm normally pretty pleased with my shots. For whatever reason (which I have no clue what it is) they just used one set of blue lights for all the bands and for the entire night. It's harder to make photos look different without changes in lighting but I got through it. Their set was amazing but there's still probably 4 or 5 songs i'd kill to see live.

I realised when I came to write this that I hadn't shot a gig since the Gallows which was not far off 2 months ago. Very strange.

Photos from the support bands (Moneen and Deaf Havana) can be seen here.

The rest of the Emery photos are here.

Thoughts

2010-03-27T21:28:00.002Z

I entered a competition through the British Music Experience at the o2 and won a pair of tickets to a Ross Halfin master class. Ross Halfin was one of the first music photographers I liked and it was a good chance to here a big name photographer talk about their work. It was pretty much him talking about his career then going through examples of his work and talking through what it was like and how he got the shot. Ross has been in the music industry for a long time now and had quite a cynical and jaded view of the music industry which I guess for him and the things he's seen/done/been through it's understandable but I guess I still have a little bit of a rose tinted view of the music industry. I know it's not perfect but I choose to think that there are still people in the industry that aren't only looking out for themselves and aren't all about money.

There were some things he said which really struck a chord with me. He said that he would love to shoot nothing but black and white on film and that he tries to always shoot without flash. Also that he shoots how and what he wants. I really related to this is pretty much exactly how I feel and what I'm currently trying to do.

He talked as well about doing photo shoots and that you shouldn't be intimidated in the situation. You need to disarm them and break down the barriers to make the subject relaxed and that way you get the best shots. He also tries to capture what the people are really like and sides of them that people don't see. His work has a lovely natural look to it. The talk of relaxing the subject is something I'm thinking a lot about.

I'm always really shit scarred when it comes to shoots. I always get flustered and think that the other person is expecting more than I can give. I lack practice and don't really know what I'm doing and think my uncertainty and nerves is passed onto the model. I want to work on this.

All in all it was a really good night and I feel pretty lucky to have been there.

The last few weeks have been really hard and my self esteem and mental state have been really low. I'm tired and fed up of struggling. My friends and family help keep my head above water but it's been photography over the last three months that has given me an extra boost.

April is going to be a busy month but the being busy starts on the 31st. I'm seeing Emery at the Barfly followed by Carly and Ned's wedding the following day. I'm not shooting the official photos at the wedding but I'm doing some bits like taking photos of Carly and the bridesmaids and more. It's going to be a lovely day.

After the wedding, I'm going to go down to Brighton to do a shoot with my friend Kirsty. She is amazing. We are shooting a Suicide Girls set and then hopefully doing some latex/fetish pin ups which I've been dying to do ever since the shoot I did for Rockworld TV where they were using Jane Doe clothes.

I've also got seven events in eleven days. I have Hearts under fire, Alesana (probably not shooting as I doubt I'll get a pass), Melissa Auf Der Maur, the return of the Glitter Room and three of the London Burlesque Week. I can't wait but I think I'll be shattered by may.

I'll obviously write more about all these things afterwards.

I didn't realise that my blog was set up so people couldn't comment unless they had a google account or something like that. It's now set up so that anyone can comment. I really am thankful for the support you give.

I'm going to write at some point about my 'dream' projects/subjects which I'd kill to shoot. I can't really believe we are almost a quarter of the way through the year already. I'm sure there was something else I wanted to write about but I can't think for now.

Here's a photo from the last roll of 35mm I shot on my Lomo Fisheye. It's from quite a while back but I never posted it here.

Kick Ass signing

2010-03-23T21:45:00.003Z

I would say I have three main passions in my life. Music, photography and comics. My day job has been working in comic shops for about 10 years now and comics, the art and the industry mean a hell of a lot to me.

On Sunday, through my job I got to meet and photograph two people who are quite big in the comics industry. Mark Millar who has written some great stories and John Romita JR, who to me is an absolute legend.

We had them in the FP London store to sign copies of Kick Ass and getting to hang out, talk comics with and photograph these people is an experience that is hard to top.

One of the things I love about shooting signings being able to shoot some natural shots and i'm photographing people I normally would never get the chance to.

There's a few more photos here.

Fistful of Rollers

2010-03-22T23:12:00.002Z

After shooting the last London Rollergirls bout I got the bug and really wanted to shoot some more.

The Texas Hustlers team were coming over and they, along with the London Rollergirls were hosting a two day bootcamp and bout in the Excel London. I really wanted to shoot the bootcamp/training days as I thought that would be really interesting and it would be really interesting to see and photograph another side to the roller derby. Unfortunatly there were other photographers shooting it so I couldn't go but I got to go to the bouts in the evening.

This was a lot different to the first one I shot, the venue was a lot bigger (obviously), there were two shorter bouts and there were 1200 people there. They had specific zones for photographers and as there were a lot of us I decided to stick it out in one area and just safe guard a spot.

The bouts were superb, I think because of the occasion and the crowd there was a lot more enery and speed to the skating. It was such a good night. I'm still feeling quite limited to the photos of the bouts I can get as I don't have a long enough zoom lens but i'm happy with some of the photos.

I went to the after party too which was great phone. It's such an open and welcoming community. It's definitely something i'd like to be more of a part of.

London Brawl Saints vs Glasgow Irn Bruisers

London Brawling vs Texas Hustlers

Some extra shots

More Brawl Saints/Bruisers photos are here.

More Brawling/Hustlers photos are here.

Other photos from the night are here.

Fuel Girls - Cafe de Paris

2010-03-14T15:59:00.003Z

I thought about writing about some frustrations and low moods i've had in the last week or so with my photography but decided to just write about last night.

After shooting a lot of burlesque shows and the MOB girls at Facedown i've been dying to photograph the Fuel Girls perform. In my opinion they are the best alternative dance troupe around and it's a nice contrast to burlesque.

A friend has been dancing with them for some time now and she very kindly allowed me to come down and take some photos of them performing at Cafe de Paris, a venue i very much love. I really wasn't sure what to expect, didn't know what type of club night it would be, what the crowd would be like or what the Fuel Girls performance would be like. It really wasn't my kinda club/scene but I had a good time shooting none the less. There were some pretty cool podium dancers on beforehand as well. One of the things I like about photographing performers and bands is the fact that they don't really acknowledge photographers and I think that helps the shots come across a lot less contrived or staged but sometimes knowing someone's taking a photo can be fun. There was one of the dancers who several times saw me taking photos and held poses or dancied into the camera with a cool smile that made a nice change (so thank you to her!).

Club lighting is quite dim so I found it a little hard to shoot at times as I had to have a pretty slow shutter speed but the Fuel Girls came out a did a fire routine which allowed me to shoot faster.

I really enjoyed their performance and I got covered in kerosene (or whatever fuel they use) and Champagne but it was worth it. It wasn't always easy covering the stage with 2-3 girls on the stage with a couple more on podiums at the side but i'm quite pleased with the shots.

I shot pretty much the whole time in black and white and I know it's not the best way to capture fire but I think it's show the shape of the flames pretty well and might be something different to a lot of the other Fuel Girl photos.

I definitely want to shoot them again. Knowing what their performance is like I think I might be able to do a better job next time. So thank you Fuel Girls for last night!

The podium dancers

Fuel Girls

Some other photos from the night are here.

More of the Fuel Girls photos are here.

Scott C

2010-03-07T00:00:00.003Z

Ok, so the bad has definitely out weighed the good this week and it's been tough but there's a little glimmer of hope. There's some opportunities that seem to be slowly opening up and i'm trying not to get my hopes up but things seem to be clicking into place for photography. If/when any of these things actually happen i'll deifinitely be writing about them.

Last summer one of my favourite artists was over from America to do an exhibit with another artist. It was a really awesome show and I got to hang out with them a little and take some photos of them doing a live art. It was my first experience of doing this and it got me hooked. Scott C who was the other artist is over at the moment doing a solo show called 'Everybody, all the time' with London Miles gallery in East London. It's really nice to get to see such a large collection of his paintings. I really wanted to shoot his opening but I didn't really get the chance but he was doing a comic book workshop which I asked if I could come down and shoot.

Saying Scott is one of the nicest people i've met would be a huge fucking understatement. I don't think i've met many people more relaxed and as excited about art, comics and just people in general. It's been a pleasure spending time with him again. Tina who is overseeing every thing for London Miles breaks seems like one of the few 'good guys' in the art world and is doing a great job at finding exciting people to exhibit.

Photographing the workshop made me realise how much I want to move a lot more into documentary style shooting especially when it comes to artists.

More photos here.

You can see Scott's work here.

Also check out the London Miles gallery.

London Rollergirls

2010-02-28T18:00:00.003Z

I was pretty lucky and got the chance to go to a private/season ticket holders only London Rollergirls bout between the Steam Rollers and the Suffra Jets. It was the first time i'd shot a Roller Derby and was pretty nervous. Photographing people and performers is one thing but people speeding round a track is another. I knew it would be tough to shoot, as they are going round a track i'd have almost just one chance per lap to get the shots along with trying to shoot fast enough to get clear photos but not too fast to take away all of the energy from the shots.

The lighting was quite bright but it was high so it cast quite a few shadows and my current set up meant I couldn't get right up close into the action due to my lenses not being long enough.

I really wanted to get some good photos and really wanted to impress the London Rollergirls because I wanted the opportunity to shoot this kind of event again. I came away feeling like i'd cocked up this opportunity and felt like i'd been knocked down a peg or two. It kinda reminded me how much about photography I don't know and much I stay in a little comfort bubble with the stuff I currently shoot. Safe to say I felt pretty dejected.

There are a few shots I liked and thought came out ok but I felt I should (or could?) have done better. I just hope the LGR like the shots. Guess we'll just see.

Everyone should check out a London Roller Girl event. Seems like a great community.

More information on the London Rollergirls can be found here.

The other photos from the night can be seen here.

Rise Against

2010-02-24T21:26:00.002Z

Just got round to uploading some photos I took at the end of last year. I took them for a website which hasn't as of yet used them. I can kind of understand why. I'm pleased with some of the shots but they aren't very commercial. They are quite expressive but due to the lighting, faces aren't very clear.

I was shooting at Brixton academy which is a great venue, its pretty big with a great lighting set up and large pit at the front. The only problem tonight was they seemed to flood the stage with light without really front lighting it very well. It also can be difficult getting good coverage of everything down to the size of the stage and it's hard to react and get from one side of the stage to the other.

It's always a joy to shoot in any of the larger venues and it's not every day I get to shoot big bands like these.

Poison The Well

Thursday

Rise Against

I also Shot Escape The Fate and Hollywood Undead at Shepards Bush Empire, it was a pretty decent show and the lighting for Hollywood Undead was a dream come true. It was just spot on and I was pretty happy with my shots. Unfortunatly my laptop died just before christmas and i'd already backed up every thing except those shots. I've got one shot left of each band that I had emailed which i've uploaded.

Rise Against photos are here.

Thursday and Poison The Well photos are here.

Escape The Fate and Hollywood Undead.

Cupids Cabaret

2010-02-22T13:43:00.003Z

I spent valentines day editing Gallows photos during the day and nursing my wounds from the night before. I had so much to do and was so shattered that I had to bail on taking some photos for 'Words and Pictures'. Sorry Julia.

Sunday evening I went down to what was meant to be the last show put on by Keith Suave. I think it's been hard for Keith because the shows have been great and it's a good venue but because it's Croydon not many people ever want to travel out, they'd rather go into town. The line up was more of a mixed bag of performers which I think worked very well. Banbury Cross and Beulah Bell are stunning and always put on a great show and Major Suttle-Tease would have stole the show had it not been for Banbury.

One of the performers was Frank Sinazi. He's a comedian who looks like Hitler but sings like Frank Sinatra. While being quite funny and clever it was very close to the mark and photograph-wise, it was too close for me. When you see his performance it's very easy to see that it's very tongue in cheek with a lot of comments on George Bush and Tony Blair but a photo could be so easily taken out of context and cause a lot more offense than his routine would. That made me feel quite uncomfortable.

The lighting was a little softer and different to normal but it was still good.

Banbury Cross

Banbury Cross is simply amazing. She is stunning and has a superb look. Her routines are so well done and really I don't think there's anyone doing what she does better at the moment. I'm really happy with how the photos of her that came out and one of the photos from her finale I think I nailed. Banbury is fast become a big muse for me. A lovely lady and easy/a pleasure to photograph.

Photos from the night are here.

The Banbury Cross photos are here.