European Premiere of Dark Shadows

So, at last! Its back to Leicester Square – the newly refurbished square (well its not quite finished). The event seemed to far far more room than before and it felt really good to be back.

It was a case of quality not quantity with this event with a few stars turning up, but those that did were….

Actress Eva Green

As you can see, I was on the carpet, with VIP access.

Actress Michelle Pfeiffer signing

The atmosphere was great, with many fans having arrived at ^AM and waited in the pouring rain.

Actress Helena Bonham Carter

Of course, the film is another collaboration between Tim Burton and Johhny Depp

Actor Johnny Depp

A complete set of my images of European Premiere of Dark Shadows can be licensed from PhotoShot here and here (they are split in 2 sets).

May 10, 2012 | Posted in: Celebrities | Comments Closed

Gala Screening of All In Good Time

A Gala screening for “All In Good Time” was held at the BFI Southbank on  Tuesday 8th May.

Due to the trains running late (a “Bridge Strike”, Broken rail AND Broken down train), I arrived just as the first guests (Actor Reece Ritchie – Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) and Actress Amara Karan (St. Trinians) were being photographed.

Actor Reece Ritchie and Actress Amara Karan

The blurb about the film says:

When their hard saved for honeymoon is cancelled the day after the wedding, the newlyweds have no choice but to return to the Dutt household and set up home there.

As prying family members and gossipy neighbours conspire to keep the couple from consummating their marriage, Atul and Vina start to panic. But if they can just keep their situation private, and if they can just get a bit of time alone, all could be saved for this pair.

So with meddling parents, nosey neighbours and a community that thrives on gossip, can their marriage last?

Well, they look quite good together here, so who knows…..

Photos from the Gala screening of “All in Good Time” can be viewed and licensed from PhotoShot: here.

Salmon fishing with an iPad

Ever since the first iPad was released I knew at some point there would be the possibility of reducing the weight on my back and speeding up the workflow at an event by using one of these lightweight tablets.

I invested in the iPad 1 but it was quite evident that the device just did not have the power to cope with the requirements of live image transmission, the iPad 2 was a definite improvement but still not quite there. All this time I have been playing with the pieces, putting together ideas and workflows and with the 3rd generation of the device the pieces finally fit and the jigsaw has come together. Whilst the reviews and techie sites have been raving over the screen clarity, the real improvement for me has been the doubling of the working memory from the iPad2 (being 4 times that of the original device), making image editing viable.

 

The premiere of “Salmon fishing in the Yemen”, being a low key event with only 2 or 3 “names” was the ideal event for a test.

The only real issue I found was supporting (holding) the iPad. Images were downloaded, cropped, annotated and sent to distribution all within minutes of shooting, the fastest I have ever delivered images.

Although my aim for this blog is not to be technical, more and more photographers are trying to work out how to make “real” use of these ultra lightweight devices; if there are enough requests, I will detail my workflow in a later post.

In the meantime, here are 2 of my first live event images processed and sent from the iPad (incidentally, this post was also written on the pad),

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Ewan Mcgregor

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Emily Blunt

April 13, 2012 | Posted in: Celebrities | Comments Closed

Some recent work

Anthony Daniels who played C3PO in all 6 Star Wars Movies with a Lego model of his character at Star Wars Episode 1 3D at The Empire, Leicester Square on 8th February 2011

 

Daniel Radcliffe signs posters before introducing a screening of The Woman in Black at The Empire, Leicester Square, London on 11th Feb 2011

 

Kaiser Chiefs play the HMV Apollo Hammersmith on 23rd Feburary 2012.

 

Athlete Ed Moses attends the Sport Relief Mile 2012 at the Royal Parks

 

Actress Kate Winslet attends the World Premiere of TITANIC 3D on Tuesday 27th March 2012

Real Steel, with Hugh Jackman

You may have noticed that this blog has been devoid of any Film Premiere entries for quite a while (if you ignore last months FrightFest). 

The reason? Westminster Council have been refurbishing Leicester Square ready for next years Olympics. Most people would assume that this would be done in stages, maybe a section at a time, minimising the impact on the use of the square and the business within it. When you think of the amount of trade the cinemas bring into the square and its surrounds you would have thought the council would have worked with them, ensuring that the square was able to continue hosting premieres. No. For the past approximately 9 months the square has been in such a state of upheaval that hosting a premiere has been almost impossible. There has not been enough room. In fact for much of the time it has been a struggle even for pedestrians a tourists to navigate the area without having to avoid diggers, dumpers and other plant.

Boxer Amir Khan

During this time the film industry had no choice but to seek alternative venues with the prime benefactor being The Vue inside Westfield Shopping Centre.  I'm sorry but a shopping centre just does not cut it. Even Tom Hanks seemed somewhat bemused at the location.

Titan the robot meets the fans

We I'm glad to say that is changing again. Today the barriers were moved back away from the front of The Empire and the square was once again able to host a major premiere - "Real Steel", a Disney film featuring boxing robots and Hugh Jackman.

Hugh Jackman meets fans

It felt good to be back in the square, there was a great atmosphere and Hugh was obviously enjoying himself at what he referred to on stage as his "family screening" with over 30 members of the Jackman clan in the cinema.

Hugh Jackman with robot Titan

Hugh was joined on the carpet not only by the director, Shawn Levy but also a robot called Titan.

Director Shawn Levy

Lets hope the contractors get their fingers out and complete the works so the square can return to its rightful place as the premiere location.

Werewolf Ahoy!

Strippers vs Werewolves.

A while back in “All About The Light” I mentioned that I had been working on set producing stills, for a movie but I would have to wait until I could release any shots.Well the poster is out and features my werewolf shot (Martin Kemp is under all the makeup). It was a great fun shoot:

 

13 Hrs at Frightfest

Actually this is day 3 so closer to 48 hours. What a difference a week makes; 7 days ago I was standing in a damp field, today I am working with 2 lovely actresses (Isabella Calthorpe, Gemma Atkinson) and a werewolf for the launch of their new horror movie 13 Hrs. 

We managed a few set up shots inside before heading out in to leicester square for a few more. It was at this point I was reminded how rude some of the press photographers are.. I know we all have to get our shots but to barge into an what is obviously a set-up shoot, pushing the photographer (me) aside is just plain rude… especially when the culprit was a well known “veteran” in London. Manners cost nothing and he would have still got his shot…. oh well…

This is one of the set up ones. There are more in my frightfest event gallery which will be published later…

New Book available

To be honest, it’s a bit late but it is the first time I have used Blurb and I wanted to go through a proof copy before I released it.

The book contains a record of the major events that took place at The Empire, Leicester Square where I had the pleasure of being the house photographer for the year. For each event, there is a short description, the principal cast and a couple of photographs from the event, many of which will not have been seen before.

The book is available in 2 sizes;
- 10in x 8in softcover at £21.99
- 13in x 11in hardcover at £49.89

Please take a look.

“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.