Vampire Weekend Play The Forum

I had great fun shooting this one. Vampire Weekend have, in my opinion, produced one of the albums of the year so it was great to hang around and watch them play it live having finished shooting them.
Looking back at my shots arter a few pints I wasn't hugely impressed, but the Forum rarely produces well lit shows and having had such an enjoyable night I was happy enough not to be too critical of myself.

Kaiser Chiefs Play The Forum

I talk a lot about light when I speak of live music photography - where flash is rarely permitted - and it has to be said, given it was a major band this was probably the worst light I've ever had to shoot a gig. It was terrible, with barely any light on lead singer Ricky Wilson. When there was it was a harsh red or blue light, where there's nothing that can be done to alter it - even in Photoshop. The result was a set of photos which will never be used. A shame because, as the two photos below show, there are nice photos to be had from such an energetic band.

Kate Moss Statue & Razorlight Playing The Forum

Today was the first day that Marc Quinn's solid gold statue of Kate Moss, 'Siren', was displayed, so I went down to the British Museum to get some photos. Artist Quinn said Siren cost £1.5m to make, £1m of which was the price of the gold. He expects it to fetch up to £10m when it is sold following its time with the British Museum in January. Siren is made entirely of 18 carat gold and is the largest gold statue made by man since ancient Egyptian times, weighing 50kg, around the same as its subject.
It was impressive and it was amusing to see unsuspecting museum goers walking past Kate in her yoga pose, with legs around her head, as they made their way past the other ancient statues in the Nereid Gallery.



While there I took some other photographs of the architecture and Ron Mueck's slightly bizarre piece 'Mask II' (below).



I said after the Seasick Steve gig that my Nikon D300 body would come in handy in low light and so it proved tonight for Razorlight's Q Awards launch gig at the Kentish Town Forum. There was barely any light on Johnny Borrell, but being able to bump the ISO up to 2400 without too much noise being created meant I could still get some reasonable images from this.
The band's manager admitted after little effort had been made in terms of lighting and stage set up for this one off show as their UK tour started properly in a month's time, when they would be aiming to get everything right.