I went to see Joana and the Wolf at Favela Chic, it has been a while since I saw them last, Feb.’09 to be precise, and at the very same venue.
The band has improved a lot, it’s more dancier and two of the old songs have been re arranged for the best as well.
A really good show. I took pix for about 5 mins.
First of all, I have a new main website 
It has already been there these past few weeks, but now it has been finished for now and I can officially say that it is at its most up to date status.
I have added older pix from the Heavy Metal days, also did a piece about this for the next issue of Ponytail Magazine, out in April. Flowers are back also, but will need further development, I want to do more with film, that’s for sure.
A few pix from Hyde Park, last Sunday.
And here are a few more from Paris
Was in Paris for the weekend. Saturday, the second we checked in the hotel it rained all day. Sunday was much better with some nice sunny spells, went up the Eiffel Tower, and watched the sunset, nice to see the sun dissapear over the roofs of Paris. And although everything on average is 6/7 floors high, not many buildings stick out like they do in London.
Took a few
Then of course The Kiss in Paris, this city is like world champion when it comes to this, Doisneau’s picture just shows me that what was then, still is now, probably even more these days. The one near the Eiffel tower is the hammer for me. I am surprised nailing a shot like that, lucky I guess.
Here is Robert Brunner from last December @ The Design Museum.
Some flowers from god knows when, I love the nuances that only film can give you:
I was in Holland for a week, only came back on the third, it was hella cold there, sort of like it is here now 
I just hung with my family and took a few shots, it was just too cold to stay outside (I know I am soft) but the glorious sunlight made up for that.
This week is quiet but next week I am supposedly to go to France for a few days.
Some of the peeps I have been shooting lately:
Friendship, saw them first at Die! Die! Die!’s show at Cargo. Went to the Stag’s Head (fine pub that is ) and watched them play, and thought they were pretty good.
Took some shots at the beginning, super quick and fun.
Then I shot Jesca Hoop, this time with a whole team and the results are mega pleasing, did the whole thing in 2.5 hours and had a fab time.
Styling: Alicia Aimee
Hair: Ken
Make-Up: Xabier Celaya
The Kiss in Las Palmas last week, lovely weather there, being back here is kind of depressing.
Merry X-Mas everybody!!!!
Here’s Karen Gillan, who will feature as Dr. Who’s new assistant in the up and coming new series out next year. I shot these before she got picked up on that, but knew she was acting besides modelling……
She was great to work with, easy.
The last shot is my fave, soldiering on…….
This year my missus was well determined to make it in time for Bonfire Night in Alexandra Palace, as we missed out 2 or 3 times due to traffic etc. And yet every year no matter what we plan we get caught up in it. In the end it look us 90 minutes to get there, like 5 minutes before blast off. And you know what….it was like looking at last year’s, like someone was playing a movie of last year’s fireworks display……………
I took a bunch of pix, I shall post a few, some are pretty and others are like more extreme, I will probably end up using them in some kind of fashion shoot, as a backdrop at some point.
I would not mind going and shooting the Lord Mayor’s show this coming Saturday and beef up the collection.
I am shooting some artists these coming weeks, you’ll see who :-0
Multi talented Spanish designer, and a joker too.
When I asked him to just stand there without the plastic object he had just picked up and fooled around with, he looked so good that after clicking a few frames I basically got it and stopped straight after, a winner and so are the funny ones.
Here are three in a raw finish.
Took me a while, I have been changing some bits even as late as last night, but that’s it.
Styling: Gillian Hyland
Hair and Make-up: Rachel Young
Model: Ashleigh @ Profile
Last week I hung out and travelled about for 4 days with Die! Die! Die! who had just been on a successful European tour.
The first show I join them on takes us to Brighton, only having left the capital for about 30 minutes I get hit by a bad case of food poisoning and need to go for no. 2, only to be on the motorway and the rest of the crew not taking me serious enough to pull over, I end up marking my territory in the van, lucky for them there’s a service station just down the road when it is all happening. This of course gives the band plenty of ammo for the next few days, should have pulled over fellaz
The gig at Jam is ok, but there are barely any lights so not much fun to shoot actually. Nor do I feel well after all this food poisoning situation and am not sure whether I can go to Birmingham the next day, however a good night’s sleep makes me feel good to undertake the journey.
Has been a while since I have been there, I shoot the whole set from behind Michael, as I wanted to get some shots from behind but I end up being locked in for the whole set, much to sound man James Goldsmith and Tour Manager George Beleznay’s chagrin. I end up taking some cool pix tho, so it was well worth doing that.
London the next day is probably the best gig of all, there’s some proper crowd attendance 120 odd and the response is very good. They end the set with Will from Friendship on guitar and play Nirvana’s “Breed”, quite a laugh….
On all shows the band only play three songs from “Promises Promises”, nothing of their debut (which they did at Buffalo Bar tho) and the rest is of the yet untitled new album which should be released early next year. A single is expected to be released shortly before X-Mas.
I have had the privilege to hear the unmastered album, and I can tell you that it is killer, it blows “Promises Promises” away, it is more mature and an extra layer added on yet still very intense. The band had tightened up their live act as well while being away in the EU, the second they started playing in Brighton I thought they played a lot tighter than as they did in early Sept.
I am plastering a few pix down, I have decided to do a book on them which should be coming out @ some point next year, you’ll see.
In the evening Ron Arad, I checked his website beforehand, he does make great objects. When I had a chat with him while taking pictures he was being a joker.
His talk was presented with a chaotic flair……
I was given an hour notice to be told that Paul Smith was at three in the afternoon and not in the evening, so I jumped in the shower and cycled down only to arrive sweaty. Went straight into set up and shot ten frames and that was that. Only after watching his talk, which was excellent btw did I get a chance to assess things.
Must do that again, NOT.
In the end however I have a nice portrait, he wears his clothes effortless and with a certain nonchalance. I like the way the stripes react with my technique.
My missus and I have been to Crete these past two weeks, had some lovely weather, also some dramatic fat fluffy clouds too, I think I took some nice land/sea scape shots and a few of Cretan life.
Terri and I travelled to Tsoutseros the first week and were in Agios Nikolaos and surroundings the week after. Tsoutseros is a small town mainly for the Greeks in the close vicinity, hardly a foreigner sets foot there which is great in its own way, it is easily accessible from Heraklion and has a very nice beach.It was quiet, but after 5 days of doing nothing too quiet, we were not mobile as there was nothing around where we could rent some wheels, so we went for Agios Nikolaos, where it was quiet but still busy enough for everyone with a shop (and there is some serious designer stuff there and especially jewellery)to be open, in Tsoutseros you had 5 tavernas and 3 VERY EXPENSIVE shops and that is it for your local entertainment, but the season had more or less ended for them.
In Agios Nicolaos we got ourselves a scooter and drove around some nice mountainous areas, the scooter just about managed it, we met some great people who helped us get us on our way and advised us in finding some great restaurants. We end up at some point @ Seles where we see windmills 100 ft high, then those huge propellers swooshing around, eerie. Genius here only shoots a couple on his iphone……..tsk tsk. The winds had come up big time, something I had not experienced before;and this was our 5th visit to Crete. This meant also changeable weather, but in the end I guess we had 80 % of the time blazing sunshine.
Really a chilled affair, we spoke to locals who happily pointed us to some great places to eat that were off the beaten track, whatever you do never eat on the main boulevard and/or water front, the food is never as good and always pricier.
We experienced two kinds of Crete, the commercial “gimme your money hubbah hubbah” attitude, and the one where you are treated like friends, we were lucky we had more of the second one than of the first.
Special thanks go out to our friends in Heraklion,; Vangelis and Effie who helped us out of some situations
Here are some shots, with their descriptions:
Ah yes, finally did some backlog.
Worked on these last week after being dormant on a HDD for yonks. I also, believe it or not, dropped some rolls of film off from more than a year ago of some flowers I shot. I have not done any this year, shameful really. But it now seems that my film scanner has gone belly up, the images come out completely dsitored, will need to look into that today actually.
Here are White Llight Parade shot in the corridor of The Dublin Castle late April.
Die! Die! Die! arrived last week in London and did a few shows, the first one at Jamm; in short the gig was a nightmare, it was on near 4 a.m. Unreal how big a mistake that was by the promotor, and hard to believe there were still 60 odd people watching them. the show itself was alrite, the sound was too loud and distorted. I did not get back home until 6 in the morning, been a while since I have done that. So the next day I just sat around and worked on some of the shots.
Offset Festival was on last weekend and on Sunday I gather with the boys at their place in Camden and we drive down to Hainault Forest where the site is, and it is a really cool small set up, friendly atmosphere and good choices of some nice food available. we hang about, chat, drink, hang some more till it is showtime. Shoot Andrew while he waits and hangs about behind the stage, and then the first half of the set on stage, where I get some pleasing shots. Later on in between the barriers a few more decent ones. I like the one of Andrew hurdling back on to the stage, it was about 2 meters high.
The show is good and they get a good response, as a matter of fact one of the best ones of the day, which brings me to the fact that Die! Die! Die! should have been third on the bill and not fifth. Next year then perhaps…..
I shot S.C.U.M, The Horrors and Clinic as well.
I am adding pix tonight and over the weekend.
The Kiss @ Offset
Then last Tuesday at an Artrocker night at Buffalo Bar the band played again, and they played great. I shot them for 20 minutes then stood next to soundman James Goldsmith and listened to the rest of their set, and it just sounded bliss. Killer sound, everything was clear, even Andrew’s vocals, I could actually hear what he was singing. One of my fave shows no doubt.
Going to the Offset festival, Die! Die! Die! are on just before 4 PM, The Horrrors headline. I hope it stays dry today.
Was for three days in Belgium, mostly arround Zele and Lokeren and the final day spent some time in Brussels too. Jochen Maes, and old pal of mine was getting married to his lovely missus Nathalie and guess who was shooting the wedding…….. I had a great day, the people (Belgians know how to enjoy themselves) entertainment,food and drink was top notch, a day to remember no doubt. The next day we spent lazing and grazing, and on Sunday we hung about in Brussels, nice city.
A few pix:
During my travels I managed to catch a few couples for The Kiss as well:
Then I shot Pens for Ponytail, they are on a American tour as we speak. I thought the girls were easy going, no airs at all, the pix were done rather quick. Hopefully I catch them live at the end of Sept.
Martin Tomlinson of Selfish Cunt was someone I always wanted to take a portrait of. Ponytail Magazine gave me the oppetunity to do so, sadly Selfish Cunt is on hold (Under Review as Martin called it…) and he is having his fingers in various musical pies right now.
Martin was an extreme pleasure to deal with, a gentleman, and totally the opposite from the Selfish Cunt persona he displays on stage, he tells me he is much calmer now, oh sure
I took some shots at his flat in Primrose Hill in the beginning and also when we came back and sandwiched them with a pleasing result and the rose he sniffed was just outside Regents Park.
Terri and I left for three days to Holland again as well, and I snagged a couple on the platform, my first Dutch Kiss picture.
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I am doing post production on a shoot called INFERNO, I shall post some results soon.
I only went the Sunday to Sonisphere, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Ronnie James Dio and Co. a.k.a. Heaven and Hell but other than that no other band really interested me to actually go there a day earlier.
On Sunday I saw Lamb Of God (mwah), Mastodon (great; but bad sound due to wind), Machine Head (I thought they were ok, I still have to see a great Machine Head show to be honest), NIN (wtf is all that about……..left after three songs), Alice In Chains (to me the best band that day, soundwise amazing and their new singer is a great replacement, and the new songs sounded promising) amd then there’s Metallica.
I have not seen them for a few years, I think it was Big Day Out in Milton Keyns Bowl in 1999,Death Magnetic is back to form, not GREAT but GOOD. Kirk Hammett left a most positive impression on me, his playing was excellent, truelly a great guitarist. I have trouble with James Hetfield not swearing on stage and be this calm……. The sound was great but after about ten songs I thought it was time to bail. And low and behold 45 mins later I was back home due to the great bus service back to the station and getting the fast train back to Finsbury Park, unreal.
Other than that Festivals have become cash cows, but even with all the stuff, stands and activity on display I sensed a form of Metallica fatigue, simply as I reckon there were not more than 35.000 people there, I mean Tallica should have had 50 plus, BUT they have just been playing arround a lot the past few years. Anyways, I had a good time and it was just fun being a punter for a change. I hooked up with some old friends at Metal Morphosis’ stand to have a few beers and chats in between bands. Most pleasant.
Straight after coming back from Holland the next day I am of on a three day trip to Sintra, near Lisbon in Portugal.
I was there in early July for one day but now had some more time to look around and check out the beautiful architecture of the village.
Simply stunning. On the last night there I manage to snag a couple of snoggers in a great position and in a fine sunny setting, a really nice pic.
The village has very little night life, GREAT!!!!!!, so it is very quiet there in the evening, a few people strolling, a bar or two and that’s it. I stayed in a so called 4 star hotel, dated by at least 20 years. The staff were all friendly but some new toys, such as a proper inet connection, and beds (the ones they have are rock hard) wouldn’t go amiss in this place.
We enjoy the sunsets and I take some cool snaps…
Here’s a few:
I was in Holland for six days and had a good time, the weather was pretty good, a few torrential showers but a lot of sun as well, on my mother’s birthday the 25th we celebrated as usual on the camping, where all her sisters and brother pop up and say hi, I see way too many people to yack with, I am with my brother’s kids kids mostly as they demand their share of attention. The last few days was total bliss weather wise, I thought time to lie down and do some…….lazin’
Other than that just cycling around and eating way too much food.
A lot has happened and if I have neglected something then it’s this diary…..
So first of all here’s Doll and the Kicks at The Brixton Academy supporting Morrissey, feels like ages ago already.
The second show of Doll and the Kicks was a lot better, it sounded right and on stage it just looked better, still room for improvement but overall it made me forget Sunday night’s performance.
The Troxy and the two Brixton shows I had 3/4 songs to shoot the band, Ross Halfin is right when he says “You don’t get anything within 3 songs”, I have some pix that I like but overall the harvest is too bloody meagre, and I am too old to spend my time travelling, waiting and then get three songs for the privilege.
I also fail to understand why we get chucked out and punters in the crowd can just zap away with their compacts (some of them can be as powerfull as my digi camera from 4 years back and you can easily make A3 prints from it) for the whole set, and they stand a few feet behind me………
I gave up shooting the third and final show, add on I had to pack for my trip to Holland that same evening. There’s no point pursuing/following/portraiing people if you are kept at arms length.
That’s why there’s papparazzi’s…….. :-0
Holland; Teri and I left last Thursday for Holland just before 5am to get on an early flight to Eindhoven.
The right wing engine, where we happen to sit next to, made the noise of something very amiss.
The pilot decides to call out the engineers and they end up replacing the starter motor (always a good thing when you are about to leave…….) so we sit all patiently for about an hour with the AC off, and it does get hot inside the plane but no one uttered a word of discontent whatsoever.
We arrive in the pouring rain, it gets even better when you have to walk 150 meters over the tarmac to get to the building and arrive completely soaked.
Welkom in Eindhoven…………………..
Meanwhile I went for a run, the first in 9 months, boy oh boy my legs are like planks now……….
I am going again tonight…..just managed to fix one camera.
Here are some shots salvaged from the batch I did manage to keep….the show itself was possibly the worst one I saw them do (never saw them perform this meager to be honest), the sound was boomy and the band seemed to be nailed down to the floor……
Lost my money, cards and personal stuff but to make things worse half of tonight’s shots as well, which made me so angry that both my cameras are fucked as well………..
Losing money, cards and all that is one thing, losing images is the real FUCKER……………..FUCKCUNTBOLLOX
Supporting Morrissey, alright show, strong voices of Hannah Scanlon and later on by Morrissey……not a bad sounding venue either, good warm up for the Brixton Academy shows. I had to shoot from the crowd and was allowed three songs, 2x I got approached by people asking me for a pass, did not like shooting like this for one bit. Wasn’t happy with the lighting either it was lazy, and I only say this because the lighting tech was sitting on a flightcase a few feet away from the desk and only every now and again actually came off it and turned a knob or two………
Kevin Williams and Nathan Perier of Capricorns fame were doing a free show at CroBar, thought what the heck lets check them out. Thought it was good, the material has large elements of Capricorns in it added with some harcore raw stuff, I will see them again in the future no doubt.
Some shots:
Then I shot Wayne Hemingway at the Design Museum, his talk was excellent, I even got involved in it when he wanted to know what the Dutch Red Light District was called, which is De Wallen btw
Wayne himself was a pleasure to take a quick portrait off just before his talk.
Some various shots from Florence in 2007, the hailstorm from two weeks ago shot down from our bedroom window, and a shot across the design museum.
Last but not least: Tyson Ritter of the All American Rejects for Notion magazine out soon.
I was in Portugal earlier this week, Sintra near Lisbon to be exact. I shall return there soon and will make some pix.
Last night they played an industry show at 229, they played great, I have seen them 5x now and this was their best show yet, Michael’s guitar strap went off during the fourth track and it fell but it was dealt with like nothing happened.
Meanwhile Danny Logan has gone, gone indie so I have been told, and they have a new trumpet player called Chris , different edge and sounding nicely, should be used a lil more…….
Ze Von Trapp Family:
Taken quickly before his talk.
Wayne Hemingway is on next week
Was the Ueber friendly message from young Andrew Wilson, all back in NZ and enjoying a quiet browse on the internet…..
Die! Die! Die! are going to record their third, and yet untitled, album at the end of this month. They will be back in early Sept. and lay their first show at the Offset Festival. A festival they played at last year as well and I sadly missed as I was in Germany, but this year I intend to be there and check various other bands out.
Yesterday morning I got a text from Liam Gleeson of Notion mag asking me whether I was available to shoot Tyson Ritter of The All American Rejects at half 3, you gotta admire junior really, he gave me even 7 hours advance notice, a new record no doubt 
For those that read this and live outside of Londfon well there’s this tube strike going on and the entire city is having to deal with this and besides that some tube lines were sorta semi working the car traffic was just murder, I mean it took two hours to get to Shepherds Bush from Shoreditch, and I arrived already nearly half an hour late, so in the end we ended up at KWest hotel about an hour after our allotted time, and after some chit chat it was just snap snap snap…..and out of the door again.
I took the tube back, I ended up zigzagging thru tubelines but it was hella quicker than this car traffic hoohah.
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