Snoop Dogg

By the time I manage to publish this (I am writing this on a plane, travelling to Dresden to discuss rectified photography and photogramatry software), Snoop will have played a number of gigs on his UK tour, a tour which kicked off in Brighton on Sunday 15th.

I last photographed Snoop about a year ago in London at the Shepards Bush Empire. That was a shoot that I enjoyed very much (great light) and I had images published widely. It’s fairly obvious that I would be keen to photograph him again.

It was only a couple of hours before the stage time that I was actually notified I was “in” and I had to rush to make it in time to shoot the support act “Maverick Sabre”; an up and coming act that’s getting a lot of mentions on radio at the moment.

Maverick Sabre plays the Brighton Dome

When it came to Snoop we were not disappointed; although it is not my kind of music, the gig did “bounce” and I did come away with a number of nice images (well I think they are).

Here he makes his entrance (it’s my favourite shot although not one I think will publish very well)

Snoop Dogg plays the Brighton Dome

The remainder are what you would expect; portrait, a 3/4 and finally a full length (with a bit of a boogie thrown in).

Snoop Dogg plays the Brighton Dome

More when I get back from Dresden…..

The Great Escape

For those not involved with the music industry, it is indeed a “Great Escape”, a chance to spend 3 days in the diverse city of Brighton on the south coast listening to many new bands playing every style of music your can think of (and many you cannot).

The festival is spread out across the city in many venues which range from small dark rooms in pubs to bright street gigs and even The Dome. It’s this variation in location along with the fact that so many of the acts are just unknowns that make this event a difficult, challenging but enjoyable event to photograph.

It takes educated guesses and a lot of luck to make enough as a photographer here to even cover your costs. That said, if you do manage to photograph the next “Lady GaGa” or “Take That”, you could do very nicely. This year I spent even more time talking to others and researching to choose my “hit list”, even then, time table changes and cancellations changed the bands that I photographed on the final day. So who and what? Over the 3 days I shot almost 30 bands, below is cross section which should give you an idea of the different challenges faced by a music photographer:

FRANK TURNER plays the HMV Store, Brighton on 12th May


CLOUD CONTROL plays the Corn Exchange, Brighton


RACHEL SERMANNI plays the The Green Door Store


JAMES VINCENT McMORROW plays an outdoor gig on Brighton Seafront with the peir in the background


A "flash-dance" broke out at a street gig in Brighton's Jubilie Square in Brighton


Le Corps Mince de Françoise (LCMDF) plays The Corn Exchange, Brighton


Guillemots play the Komedia, Brighton


How will I do financially? Only time will tell all I will say is that a day after the festival I received a request for photographs of approx 8 bands, I had shot 3 of them….

Business and Pleasure

It’s an old adage that one should not mix business and pleasure but I’m not really sure it applies to photography.

On Saturday night I left my family at home (as I do many weekends) to photograph K T Tunstall (and support) at Brighton Dome.

The Pictish Trail

First the support (Johnny Lynch / The Pictish Trail; very entertaining ). Having shot a the first couple of songs I relaxed at the back of the venue with the other photographers discussing upcoming acts and commissions.

K T Tunstall

Next up was K T Tunstall. Her show seemed to have more of an “edge” than shows in the past (looking at photos going back I think thats true).

K T Tunstall

She sounded really great and I have to say it was another of the gigs where I would have really liked to stay longer. My only disappointment from the evening is I did not manage to get a good iPhone crowd shot. (I got an iPhone for christmas and since then I have been trying to take unusual quick views of the audience and pit at every gig).

Sunday evolved like most Sundays along the coast, (although I started with editing the night’s before shots);  A nice breakfast followed by a walk along the front (in the feeble attempt to walk off the eggs, bacon etc). As aways one camera is over my shoulder as we walked down Worthing’s to “Splash Point” which has recently been re-developed.

Splash Point

I captured this image of children playing in the mist/fountain with a small rainbow; a nice joyful editorial stock shot.

So you see, my work life and private life totally overlap, for me business IS pleasure (and visa versa in fact). The key is commitment, enjoyment  and balance…

Essence and Style.

Whatever the event; from corporate seminars to red carpet arrivals even live music concerts, the aim of the photographer must be to capture the essence of the event itself, the attendees and all the presenters or performers. This is an important aspect to look at when booking your photographer, take a look at their work, do you get a feeling for the people, the venue and the event itself.

The next thing to consider is style? A consistent professional photographer will have a style, a style that is identifiable throughout their work. This style should not be “forced”, often I see a “style” in a newer photographer that is forced, maybe a particular process applied to every shoot. Style does will mean all the shoots look the same taken in the same way, its usually deeper. Once a photographer becomes comfortable with what they are doing, the style will come automatically.

Over the past couple of weeks I have shot a number of music events. Hopefully you will feel a consistency though these shots.

Frontman Adam Levine of Maroon 5 at Brixton Academy

The key to capturing a frontman like Adam is not to follow them from end to end of the stage, it is having the confidence to watch them pick the spot you know they will arrive at and watch the way they move to get the right composition as well as their expression. the lights and the venue for this shoot enabled me to produce a really nice set of images.

The Barbarellas

The Barbarellas

With the Bararellas it was easy to read, they would separate strike a few poses but always return together. These made capturing both the duet and the individuals easy.

Wonderland play Wembley Arena

As the size of the group increases, capturing them all becomes harder. Wonderland only came close together twice, the rest of the time they spread out across 2/3 of the wide Wembley stage. A shot of them spread out would be so long and thin that it would be very difficult to use sensibly on the page.

Shane Lynch / Boyzone

Boyzone took this to the extreme; being spread out right across the stage. If this case there was no chance of a group shot. Here the only reasonable thing to do is to concentrate on each of the performers.

Tinie Tempah

It goes without saying then that individual performers are easier to cover. Even though Tinie bounced around the stage there were certain poses and stances that occurred over and over. “Reading” the performer takes time and experience, photographers that are able to do it will consistently produce images that reflect the performer.

The rules and ideas I suggest above not only apply to music shoots, but any “live” event, from loading charity lorries to corporate presentations, consistency is the key to my work.

Beverly Knight and the House of Cards

Last Thursday Beverly Knight played at the Brighton Dome. Well I say played, more like bounced. It was not what I was expecting at all, I remember her for balladry type music not the fast “bouncing” R & B she served up. Great fun and she had the audience up on their feet within seconds.


Working with 2 cameras (as usual) I thought I would try to capture some of this energy by going back to black and white with a slowish shutter speed (introducing a little blur), thinking really of the 1960′s. Of course I kept one camera more “standard”. The following 2 are examples..


Looking around the marketing possibilities for my images I have decided to dip my toe into the greeting and postcard business. At the moment, this is a toe-dipping with an on-line print-to-order provider. Should there be intrest in this, I will go the more traditional route and get some stock. In the meantime please take a look my Zazzle Store.

The final thing I have been researching is making better use of my concert photography with plans to release strictly limited edition (10) metallic based prints of a few of the images. I am still researching costs and providers (as I want the highest quality) but if, through reading this blogg you have seen an image you like, I would love to hear from you….

Bryan Adams and The Wireless Festival


In my last post I mentioned I was shooting Bryan Adams at The Brighton Dome (a week ago now). I was actually the only photographer which is always great as it gives exclusivity to the sales, however, I have never managed to supply the local (Brighton) press; not sure why.


The light was quite low but I managed a number of shots I was really pleased with (one follows);


Saturday and Sunday it was off to Hyde Park for the Wireless Festival. Although I have shot masses of concerts, it was actually my first two day festival. I havwe to say the guys a ldcomunications that handled the access etc were fantastic, always ensuring we got to the right stage at the right time.

The music was a real cross section and as well as getting to shoot many types of acts that I would not normally, I also got to listen to a wide range of music (some of which was fantastic and some, less so). I shot on 3 of the 4 stages;



Waiting. For the next act on Stage 3.


Alesha Dixon on the main stage on Sunday afternoon. With sunlight and a performer like this, who needs a studio. She looked and sounded fantastic.


Then the total opposite (musically), Lady Sovereign. I’m not sure how to describe her, “energetic” maybe.. She closed Stage 3 on the Sunday evening and certainly kicked up a riot…



“Bruno” and Naked Cyclists

As you know, this week my subjects have been “intresting”.


Last Sunday I was running around Brighton, following the Naked Bike Ride. It was great fun with a wonderful atmosphere. The sun was shining and evrybody had a whale of a time. I did make life a little hard for myself though; If you watched the video below you will know I usually work with 2 cameras for events; one with a longer zoom and one with a standard zoom. Last Sunday though I tried to cover it with fixed focal length lenses at the wider end (with only one camera). For me, I missed a lot of shots! Although I was happy with my output, I did not manage to get a shot I had planned at The Pavillion due to lens choice. Lesson learned. Here is one pavillion shot though which does get the atmosphere;

Mid week it was the “Bruno” premiere and I must admit, I was nervous sharing the carpet with Sacha Baron Cohen and not knowing what he would do was a worry. I needent have. He put on a very funny show; running about all over the carpet. This made it hard to cover him and all the guests arriving and I must admit, I missed to many of the guests. However, I did get some good shots of “Bruno”.

Finally, not often I mention the films but this week “Telstar” (about the life of Joe Meek) is released. I was lucky to see this last year at a private screening and I cannot recommend it enough.

Oxford Street and Brighton..

Extremes… On Monday I was at Oxford Street HMV for the launch of “Little Boots” new album and a short performace she gave. A real sign of the times – a shop gig and 17 photographers.. On Thursday I was at Brighton Dome for Katy Perry; 3 photographers..

Here we have a huge contrast. Of course, Little Boots is an up – and – comming star, and it was in London, but 17 snappers? To give you an idea, the last concert I did at the O2 had 10 allowed.

The contrast at The Dome. Due to a recent acident they now limit the number of photographers in the pit to 3 or maximum. This makes it really nice to work but will cause an issue if a gig is oversubscribed – the time will be shared, so we could be from 3 songs (or 2 as in the case last night) down to one. How on earth are we ment to represent the concert in a single song?

Mind you, both artists are really photogenic and great to photograph. Here is an image of each.



Manic in Brighton

I really need to cut down my hours. It’s really the travelling; most of the work I have been doing has been in London and if they are Music gigs then by the time I get home to sussex it’s the wee hours of the morning. So, I’m trying to get more work locally, starting last night in Brighton with the “Manic Street Preachers”.


A great band but for us photographers, a real nightmare, all smoke and back lighting strobes!