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    Wednesday 9 July 2008

    The Ting Tings & Florence & The Machine Play The iTunes Festival

    Much better light than last night, as reflected in my photos of the impressive Florence and the Machine. In fact, one of them (top photo below) I rate as one of the best music photos I've ever taken.
    Unfortunately after one song of The Ting Tings, photographers were told to stop taking pictures as the film crew, sharing the pit with us, had complained we were getting in their way (which we weren't). The organisers obviously gave weight to the film crew, filming for C4, but it left a lot of disgruntled photographers. It's a shame the film crew couldn't put up with the photographers for the three allocated songs we had, especially as they were there for the whole gig, but camera men and photographers often clash, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.




    Tuesday 8 July 2008

    The Times Usage

    One of my photos of Neil Young from Sunday was used in The Times today in their review of the Hop Farm Festival. They had good feed back for Young's peformance.

    Monday 7 July 2008

    Black Kids & Foals Play iTunes Festival

    Many of my best photos from this were unusable due to terrible lighting for both shows. I managed to pull a few out of the bunch that where the lighting was passable, but I really don't understand why when they give photographers three tracks without flash to photograph an act they can't provide at least one of them with reasonable lighting.
    I hope things improve as I'm down to photograph a few of the iTunes Festival shows, all being hosted at Koko.


    Sunday 6 July 2008

    Hop Farm Festival

    It was back to Hop Farm for another very enjoyable day of shooting. The sun didn't shine like yesterday, but bands - Supergrass (second from bottom), Primal Scream (bottom) and the legendary Neil Young liked up to expectations. Young performed a favourite song of mine 'Hey Hey, My My' while I was photographing him and I have to say he sounded amazing. His voice sounded as good as ever and it was a pleasure being so close while he played his classics.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLP4DWTi6s





    Saturday 5 July 2008

    The Mighty Boosh Festival

    This was a fun day-long festival to shoot save for two things: the long walk carrying heavy camera gear from the station to the festival site (we were told it would take 15 minutes, but it took 45 minutes to get onsite) and the PR letting pretty much any one with any kind of camera front of stage with the real photographers to shoot the show. I've got no problem with competing with other photographers and you tend to find a way to work with them, but letting in teenage girls, who were taking pics of Noel Fielding with their camera phones and getting in our way was ridiculous.
    Thankfully, I was able to shoot around them and it didn't stop me from getting really good material of the Mighty Boosh, The Charlatans and Gary Newman (all below) amongst others. And on another plus side the festival was very relaxed with great weather. Tomorrow I return to Hop Farm where Neil Young headlines.





    Friday 4 July 2008

    02 Wireless Festival

    This was the only day of the four days of the 02 Wireless Festival I did, as I had decided to cover the Mighty Boosh and Hop Farm festivals over the up coming weekend. Although we couldn't shoot headliners Morrisey or Beck, I still finished an enjoyable sunny day wth good photos of all the acts I shot and had the added bonus of celebs, Pixie Geldoff, Alexa Cheung and Russell Brand going on a walkabout around the site, so was able to get candid pictures of them