February Update

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.

You can read more about the MiMi Soya show and see more photos on Photo Pit here.

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.

You can read more about the show and see more photos on Photo Pit here.

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

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.

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).