Symphony At The Park

After I left Shoreham Airshow on the Sunday, I jumped on a train for Chiswick House and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

I’m not sure I have mentioned this in the past but one of the loves of my partner is film soundtrack music, with him regularly writing reviews for a well known website in this sphere. Our thoughts were we could both cover the concert and have an enjoyable evening at the same time.

I started off getting one or two general views before taking to the side of the stage to photograph the conductor Joel McNeely (orchestral music is one time where stage-side is a good spot, otherwise it is impossible to get good images of the conductor at work)

Joel McNeely conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

We then both settled down for a wonderful evening of music.

Composer Jerry Goldsmith's wife Carol applauds Joel McNeely

Toward the end there was a short power failure when (as luck would have it) a piper was on stage and he managed to keep us entertained as the power was restored.

The piper entertains in the dark

All in all a rather pleasant evening.

Further images may be seen and purchased here…

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….

The Great Escape….

As I write this I ache all over and am absolutely shattered (it’s 10AM on the Saturday morning). 2 days of The Great Escape Festival have gone and we are now into the final day..

For those of you who do not know TGE is a “new music” festival covering 3 days in 24 venues throughout Brighton. This means covering it is a case of running (ok, brisk walking) from venue to venue and trying to clamber to the front to get a position from which to shoot (many of the smaller venues do not have a “pit”).

Yesterday evening I shot 8 acts in the space of 4 hours starting with a special outdoor gig by The Futureheads at Audio and finishing with “I blame CoCo”. Between these there were a number of acts, some I have to say were quite poor but one I really liked was “Think about life”, a Canadian band with a lot of beat and life…





Now I need another cup of tea and to plan todays marathon..

Ash at Concorde2

Concorde 2 in Brighton is a venue I love and hate both at the same time (with far more love than hate I must say). Why?

My hate is the lighting and the smoke machine… It really is a small venue and like most small venues the lighting is just about vertically over the stage with and awful lot of backlighting. For the audience the result is great and dramatic. For a photographer trying to deliver images to a client where you can see the performers, see their faces, recognise them, it’s a nightmare. It’s just the nature of small venues, The Borderline in London is usually the same

But as a venue, it’s wonderfully intimate. It’s not just it’s size, there is something else, an atmosphere that contributes to this feeling within the venue. I’ve been to some wonderful gigs here and I will continue to visit as often as I am able…

For Ash, for some reason we had far more room in the pit than normal and as there was only one other photographer there was plenty of room to get the wide angle on for the 3rd song which, with the backlighting made for some dramatic photos. Then, as he got to the end of the number Tim punched the air… perfect!!

Originally uploaded by Julie Edwards Uk

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!