Vans Warped Tour 2010 - Uniondale

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

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

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

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

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

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.