“I had this dream about you. I think you should come over.”
“Yeah, fine I’ll see you in a bit.”
Not that unusual, really. Your brother has a dream, and you head on over to chat it through over a cup of tea. What matter that we live a thousand miles apart? So I spoke to the nice people at Easyjet and hopped a (really bumpy) flight to London.
I’m not a great flyer, I’m ashamed to say. Ashamed because I was once (a long, long time ago) deemed to have ‘fast jet aptitude’ at RAF Biggin Hill. I can, to all intents and purposes, fly a plane. But I really can’t stand being cramped into an aluminium tube with several hundred other budget travellers surfing the downslope of peak oil, being handed salmon in a plastic tray 37000 feet (you know that’s 10 km, right?) above the heartland of Germany and trying desperately to copy all the people around me who are acting like this is A Totally Normal Thing.
Flying is perfectly natural. For seagulls, with a wingspan of several feet, and an all-up weight of a few grammes. Even for bumblebees with their off-kilter aerodynamics that mystified physicists and Dr Who for some time. But not for a hundred tons of rigid metal and flightless mammal freight being held aloft by nothing more than the gentle suction equivalent of a baby suckling a nipple. No, that’s nothing short of miraculous. And my body wants to run around shouting “Look at this!! Look!! Oh my GOD!!”
Oh, yeah, and I suffer from claustrophobia.
Anyway, I digress. My brother. My brother is also a photographer, recently getting back into it. He wanted to set up a studio at his flat, and I wanted to do some work for a record company and a couple of independent musicians. Perfect. Serendipity comes to town.
Like most flats in Central London, space is at a premium. Three and a half metre ceilings like my prague studio are in somewhat short supply. So we had to be a little inventive. A roll of colorama would have actually blocked the door so that got cut. We wondered if the low ceiling might be an issue, but it turned out not to be too much of a problem on the actual shoots. There weren't many occasions that we found ourselves using wider angle lenses and shooting upwards. Now and then a shot would show the edges of our little world and reveal the strings and levers, but a spell in Photoshop can usually sort that out. Just a little extra work....
The first chance to test the studio came within days. Darren from Liberty Records asked me to shoot three of their artists over a couple of days. Some of the shots needed were natural outdoor ones. Well, kind of natural. Musician shots are usually stylised in ways that actor’s aren’t.
The first shoot was with Warren Bacci. Like label mates Fenton Gee and Craig Powell, he had enjoyed early success in his musical career, and so although still young, each was looking for a little gravity or maturity to their look to set them on from their ‘boyband’ years.
I’ve put an album on the left with shots of each of them, and you can see the similarity and differences of approach we adopted over those days to give some continuity for the label, and individuality for each artist.
We worked our way along the South Bank, and even attempted a few in the lift on the way back to the studio in the afternoon. But the magic really began when we made it back to the studio proper. Unlike my studio, Paul’s is South facing. I think. But the light… beeeoootiful natural light pouring through the large windows towards the model, and through the french door to the balcony at the side. All regulated by blinds. I had my portable flash heads there, but I hardly used them. Stunning light. Very envious.
And that light really came into its own when I used film. Look at the difference between the black and white shot with the digital above, which I think is just fine, and then pretty much the same shot with film (albeit with the Leica and Summicron 90) below. It’s really got that filmstar feel. And bear in mind the digital image has had some contrast jiggery-pokery, whereas the film is straight off the neg with no enhancement. More about film when we come to Fenton Gee who was third of the Liberty 3. But first I must sleep! Had the biggest shoot of my life yesterday, and a busy day of editing tomorrow – and it’s 4am already.
I am personally impressed with all of your works. great job!
Posted by: writing job | 01/20/2012 at 04:17 PM