VV Brown's Visuals

I've spent the past couple of nights photographing the Turning Point Festival taking place at the Roundhouse. Several hot artists of the moment were involved, including Tinchy Stryde, currently at number one in the UK singles chart and The Noisettes, who are hard to escape whenever you turn the radio on.
The main act last night was VV Brown, pop's latest style queen. Now, her back drop for the most part featured her name in bright colours, like this:

That looked pretty good.
However, her visuals also featured some video footage and bizarrely that footage happened to include my good self photographing her as she performed. Those that know me will recognise me below in action behind VV as the Roundhouse audience look on.

www.samirhussein.com

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.