First Night At The New O2 Academy Birmingham

Well, it has been re-open quite a few months now but all my gigs seem to have been shot elsewhere! Anyway,  tonight was my first trip back in probably well over 10 years to what will be always remembered as The Dome to people of my generation ;-) Needless to say, it's no longer a hideout of the under 16's desperately trying to pass themselves off as old enough to be drinking and clubbing the night away to Wigfield!!

Friday night however,  I was there shooting HIM, in particular Linde Lindstrom the guitarist. Laney provides Linde with an endorsement.
So apologies for all you HIM fans no picks of Ville Valo, the task in hand was to get get nice shots of Linde and his amp setup.

The gig went well, really bad lighting for the first two songs, almost entirely backlit, a nightmare for gig photography when flash isn't allowed as was the case here.  Here are a couple of pics from the evening. Shot on my Canon 1ds Mk III 24-70mm wide open at 2.8.

Live Band Stuff

Given that my website is having a bit of down time whilst i sort through all my images and try and rearrange them into a more structured and coherent form I thought i'd post up a few shots here of my live music photography, I shoot all manner of bands and artists covering almost all genres from Jazz to Death metal! Here are a few recent ones which link through to a few more found on my flickr account.

This one is a particular favourite of mine mainly cause of the band involved! I grew up listening to these guys and a few of the members have been friends for a long long time if you were vaguely interested in Punk or Ska in Birmingham in the late 90's then you more than likely heard of FARSE!! This shot was taken at a one off reunion gig at the old Brum Academy!

Royston and the Mansion

Two weeks ago, I received a call regarding some fashion work for a client based in sunny Wolverhampton. The client Royston Blythe a very well respected celebrity hair dresser, who wanted to do a shoot for his male entrants into the 2010 Loreal Hair competition. I jumped at the chance to do something new as I have never done specific hair shoot before and headed off to his home on a cold tuesday night packed with my gear and my trusty assistant James! His house was simply unbelievable, huge, incredibly styled and truly breathtaking! We shot for about 4 hours in the corner of the dining room on the dance floor ;-)

The aim was something super clean and fresh! The idea was to be influenced by the very clean style and look of Calvin Klein adverts.....

Here are some of the images. Bowens 750 head above camera right with large rectangular softbox as the key, camera left Bowens 750 with small rectangular softbox as fill. Hair light camera left and rear Bowens 500 with snoot.

Shot on a Canon 1ds 70-200 using Bowens lights as above and Bowens Pulsar triggers!

My First Post

I thought it was about time that I pulled my finger out and started a blog, so those of you that may be interested can keep an eye on whats happening in my photographic world! Over the next few weeks I plan to post up a few archive bits and bobs that havent really seen the light of day since they were shot as well as post up new projects and assignments!

So here its is my first post images to follow shortly.

Cheers

Dave