Snow! And The Kooks' Secret Gig

Today we experienced London's heaviest snowfall since the early 90s causing the city to grind to a standstill. I was suffering from a bad cold, but forced myself up to Primrose Hill to get some snaps, and found seemingly half of London were tobogganing down the slopes. I also spotted Lily Allen and got a frame or two as she enjoyed the snow, but unfortunately the paps had already been following her all day and no doubt blitzed all pics which would make the papers.






Later that night, still feeling terrible, I headed for the Hawley Arms where The Kooks' front man was performing a secret gig. I was hoping he'd have his new girlfriend, Micsha Barton, in tow, but she turned out to be in the States.



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MTV Staying Alive Party

Coco Sumner, daughter of Sting, was performing at MTV's Staying Alive party at The Proud Gallery in Camden so I went along to get some shots of her and the other bands playing. Still only 18, Coco has signed been signed up and is due to release an album next year. That coupled with the fact she's a major rock star's daughter, is a party girl and has been modeling a lot means you'll probably be seeing a lot more of her next year.
The other band posed below are Operahouse, another up and coming group.

Camilla, Katie & Finley

A busy day today with three jobs all over town. I braved the rain to photograph Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall leading a charity dog walk in Green Park before travelling to east London for Katie Melua's performance at the O2 Arena. It was then back to Camden to meet some friends for a night at Koko, where Finley Quaye was headlining. He certainly lived up to his reputation by being a bit out it, but even during his ramshackle time on stage there were were still plenty of glimpses of the great talent and he was when he sang songs of his debut album 'Maverick A Strike'.

Seu Jorge Plays The Roundhouse

Like the Vampire Weekend gig recently this was a real pleasure to shoot and I enjoyed hanging around to watch the whole gig as Seu Jorge got the crowd dancing along to his Brazilian rhythms and tunes. I saw the concert stood right by footballer Deco of Chelsea and Portugal, who was there with his girlfriend.

Saturday Night Fever At The Roundhouse

Catchy as it may be, spending a night watching a performance of The Bee Gees' soundtrack 'Saturday Night Fever' is not how I would normally choose to spend my Saturday night, but with several guest stars appearing throughout the hour and a half show I was asked to stick around and photograph the whole performance at the Roundhouse. The guests included The Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, Boyzone's Ronan Keating and Stephen Gateley, Sam Sparro, Sharleen Spiteri and Gabriella Cilmi and to be fair, although I'd never claim to be a fan of any of these artists, most of them put on a spirited performance.
This was another of the BBC'S Electric Prom nights and just as I'd finally made it home from shooting and editing I turned on the TV to find the show being broadcast on the BBC. It seems there was no escaping The Bee Gees best-known songs tonight.

Bodyworlds, Trafalgar Square & The Streets

The Bodyworlds exhibition, 'Body Worlds & The Mirror of Time' was both amazing to witness and photograph. The man behind it, Gunther von Hagens, is no stranger controversy but I found his latest and biggest exhibit, which shows the body living through time – at its most radiant and as it changes, grows, matures, peaks and finally wanes - compelling and totally different to anything I've seen before. To think these are real bodies takes some getting used to as they look more like wax works, but the show as a whole shows a lot - not just about how our bodies function and age, but also about life in general.






Later that evening I had a busy schedule as firstly I clambered up in blustery and rainy conditions to the roof the National Gallery on Leicester Square to photograph an outdoor screening as part of the BFI London Film Festival.
I was taken up to the roof by security man who'd come out of retirement to continue his 20-year career at the National Gallery. He was a real gentleman, but it took him an age to get me into position on the roof through a host of reasons (lift not working, picking up the wrong keys, rambling conversations), by which time I was already late for my next job of photographing The Streets at the Roundhouse. I'd have begun to lose my temper if he hadn't been so a kind, aimable guy. I quickly got the shots from the roof of the outdoor crowd braving the rain to watch 'High Treason' on the huge screen before rushing back down to get more shots from ground level.




I made it with absolutley no time to spare to The Streets headlining the second night of the Electric Proms, so barely had time to set up my camera before Mike Skinner and his boys hit the stage. I still got some good results. Sometimes I think it's an advantage to have to start shooting with no preparation or thought about how you're going to photograph a subject. You just react to the situation and shoot from instinct.

Burt Bacharach Plays The Roundhouse

Burt Bacharach's performance at the Roundhouse marked the start of this year's BBC Electric Proms, an event which over 5 days draws a host of top artists to play across Camden's music venues. The idea is to make the concert a different to your typical gig and as a result the performances at the Roundhouse tend to be accompanied by a live orchestra, as was the case tonight. Also heavy on the agenda is guest appearances and Bacharach's concert saw songs sang by Jamie Cullum, Beth Rowley and Adele (all below).
Bacharach was in tremendous form for a man in his 80s; conducting the BBC orchestra, playing his piano and encouraging his guest singers as songs throughout his six-decade career were played. The setting and feel to the night made it special, not least because we were all witnessing most of the most successful and prolific songwriters ever.
It was also great to photograph Cullum, and old school friend, who, up until now, had always missed out on covering.

Amy MacDonald Plays The Roundhouse

Amy MacDonald is another name who has built her success through a growing fan base on MySpace. I'd not photographed her before so I thought I'd pop down to a local venue of mine, the Roundhouse in Camden.
The lighting on Amy was the harshest white light imaginable - I really don't know what the lighting people were thinking. Amy is quite a pale girl anyway, so having this light on her made her face totally bleached out and that's before trying to capture her through a lens. This meant I had to turn my camera settings almost as if I was shooting in day light to capture her without over exposing her. In the end I got away with making the exposure look OK, but why such a harsh white light I don't understand.

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.

The Camden Crawl - Day 1

My day started with an email from the PR at the Camden Crawl asking if I could come and cover a secret lunchtime Enter Shikari MySpace gig. The band have a reputation for staging some of the craziest live gigs around, and it's through this and MySpace that they have build such a large, mainly teenage, following.
Their show, played in front of around 150 people in the Bull n Gate in Kentish Town, didn't disappoint. The lead singer started the gig by saying: "I'm going to be careful not to stage dive today - there's too many expensive cameras in the front row." Within 30 seconds of the band getting going however, he'd hurled himself into the crowd to jump around madly.
Enter Shikari's music is too heavy for my liking, but they certainly put on an exhilarating live show (bottom photo). I was so close to the stage for most of the gig, that it become tricky to capture the movement and action, even with a wide angle lens. I got some better results though, when I moved to the side and back of the excitable crowd.
The rest of the Camden Crawl was an enjoyable migration from one venue to another to catch the huge choice of live acts on show. With an obvious eye on selling my photos, I tended to stick to the more established and breaking names such as Sam Sparro (second bottom photo), Robyn (second top photo) and Does It Offend You, Yeah? (top photo). Having a pass allowing me to skip all queues was massively handy and meant I had time to duck into venues to check out bands I wasn't shooting around to catch up with friends around Camden.

Supergrass Play The Roundhouse

It was back down to the Roundhouse to cover Supergrass, who were in great form for their first gig together since bassist Mick Quinn broke his back. Their set consisted of a lot of new material, but unfortunately I was unable to hang around for the whole gig as I had to rush back home to pack for a ski trip to Slovakia extremely early in the morning.

Underworld Play The Roundhouse

I had problems with my 28-70 lens the moment this gig began, so was forced to shoot the majority of it with a wide angle. This meant I had very few good photos from the gig, which was a missed opportunity as there were some potentially some strong tighter shots of singer Karl Hyde to be had.
Just as with Maxi Jazz of Faithless, I was surprised to read Mr Hyde is over 50 years-old, which is good going considering Underworld's high energy dance music.

NME Awards Show: The Gutter Twins

Following on from the glamour and bright lights of the Brit Awards where I was helping out editing last night, The Gutter Twins, with their dark, atmospheric style proved to be a big contrast. Their NME gig at Koko, their UK debut, was amongst the worst light I'd seen for shooting. Of course, as is so often the case, after the first three alloted songs to shoot the lighting was vastly improved. I've little doubt these guys - Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees/Queens Of The Stone Age and Greg Dulli from Afghan Whigs (photo below) - wanted to be photographed in dark, hazy light where it was very hard to make them out with the lens let alone capture a decent image. I just about had time to take three sneaky shots with a flash before the security spotted me. Still, the shots were at least usable.
I was a bit annoyed I didn't arrive earlier, as unbeknown to me the superb Ed Harcourt was supporting. I caught the end of his solo slot, and it looked like he was having technical problems.

The Great Fire Of Camden

My Saturday night with friends was thrown out of kilter when news broke of a huge fire engulfing Camden market. I was undertaking an impromtu portrait session with my friend Nina in my flat when phone calls started streaming in telling of a massive fire burning down not only the market, but also regular drinking spot and key celeb hangout, the Hawley Arms pub.
I instantly went from being portrait photographer to news hound, picking up an extra body and long lens to make the short walk with friends to check out the scene of the fire. Unfortunately we arrived around 15 minutes too late to get really close to the inferno, where the great photos would have been, but I still managed to get a few from the Camden Lock bridge for Getty. Half of Camden was soon closed off, with hundreds of bemused characters wandering around gazing as fire fighters continued to tackle the fire. There were various rumours abound as to how bad The Hawley Arms was damaged, so the next morning we wandered down to take a look and get some more photos. The evidence was clear: The Hawley, along with one section of the Camden market had been gutted. No doubt both will be back.