Bartolomy’s Diary

Had a few meetings this week regarding possible work.
I know I will have to produce a fashion shoot for a new Archant title in Barnet at some point in Jan. and on the 18th of that same month I am supposes to shoot a fashion story at The Design Museum as part of their late evening sessions…so I am shooting and there will be dozens of people milling around lurking over my shoulder, boy am I looking forward to that
Then there is quite a lot in the air shootwise but I wont hold my breath on it nor will I tell whats what, you’ll see if it happens or not…

I wonder why I sometimes bother to work for magazines “on spec” as many times it just results in sheer disappointment, especially when it is all done and dusted (photography wise).
I have dealt with Laura Bird the fashion editor at Total Spec magazine a few times and in August shot a decent story for them, it was dark and edgy and I thought it would have made a great Halloween style shoot, the pix came out ok and was assured they would be published not in September but in October. In the meantime I was mailing back and forth regarding another idea I had for a later issue, boy & girl story, this idea was accepted and a week before I started to shoot I mailed a few times with no answer.
Now that the issue is out (a month late btw) my story is nowhere to be seen, something I shot in August and would have been good for many other mags. is just shelved coz of Laura Bird who just does not have the common decency to mail me back and say something along the lines of, “you know what….we are not publishing this, I’d thought I should let you know so you can shop this spread somewhere else…” this situation happens and is disappointing in a way but it leaves the door open to go and hunt for some other magazine who is willing to publish the story instead. But Laura Bird could not even give me that option.
Why bother………so Laura Bird, BIG “THANKS” to you and your “professional” work ethic!
Meanwhile I have turned the pix b&w which are a lot more to my liking. You will be able to see them shortly at my portfolio site.

And all this turns me to another matter, KUBA Music, a company founded by Jack Steven and also responsible for managing Apartment (David Caggiari & Co.) and a few other bands.

As some may know I have had a run in with the people that work at Kuba Music (Jack Steven, Biff Worsley and David Levine) for using my pictures without my permission at a launch party and David Caggiari being complicit along the way.
By going to the court as my emails/explanations fell on deaf ears I was hoping to recoup some money for this illegal usage but to no avail. After sending the bailiffs to Jack Steven’s house they were told that the owner (who is J.S……)had moved on and had not left anything of value.
Basically a Ltd company that is blown up because it wasn’t run properly in the first place, I doubt that an outstanding invoice less than 1500 quid would have done that.
It shows what caliber people I have been dealing with, and to me they are no different than Claudia Giambrone who, by the way, should never be allowed to run a company in her entire life ever again. I hope Mama Josy Lofthouse @ Salvo CFS (nice copying of my pictures btw!!!!!) has seen to that although I doubt it as the spoilt little girl gets what she wants……..

The Kuba Music company website/company is now “owned” by David Levine, a mediocre photographer at best (and with that I am being generous) and who has a telephone manner of a call centre operator who could not close a deal over the phone to save his life. And who hides behind Ltd companies as well………
AVOID!!!!

Get this; just when I had written all above I made my way to Brick Lane to go and see Stateless at The Vibe Bar I run into Davide DeSantis who had quit Apartment straight after the short US tour in May and now is busy getting a career in IT on the go. We chat for about 5 mins in front of the Truman Brewery.
There is talk of them getting together in Jan. and see if they still have a future as a band. I doubt they will with a has-been manager………………

Stateless has been gigging around Europe a bit and they made their way back from Belgium only to find out that the sampler got lost and therefore Rod could not play and that left Kidkanevil unemployed as well so the band decided to go acoustic instead but low and behold a drastic change has been planned, they have drummer David Levin play bass, as Justin Percival is playing acoustic guitar. They had him practice inside the van on the way down from Leeds and they have even stuck notes on the floor for him to cope with it all. In the end it’s a nice gig and liked it better than the Bedford show.

The Vibe Bar (Terri: “Vile Bar”) is alright to hang about when you are in Brick Lane but when it comes to gigs…..I don’t know why they bother especially with 3 lights hitting the stage, actually I have barely any interest to shoot anything at all, that I have a few decent shots is sheer luck.

I arrived at half 6 at The Design Museum to set up my lights quickly as I was told that Tord Boontje was already there and having a look at Zaha Hahdid’s expo, only to find the door locked and being told by Production Mgr. Mark Casaraghi that someone (must have been him no doubt….) had broken the key inside the lock and that they could not get in to grab my flight case with lights. I asked them to get a drill but this was a building manager’s job and as he was not around nothing could be done.
BRAVO!!!!! How’s that for efficiency…………..

Tord arrived just for the shoot and I decided to use flash, all the others have been shot with tungsten lighting and I feared for a differ in continuity of the other portraits but it came out fine.
I had a nice chat in Dutch with him, he was born in Enschede, I myself was born in Hengelo and they are extremely close and practically connected cities in the east of Holland.
The talk was as it should have been it was about design and very interesting to watch, there were some chaotic momets but in general it went really well. I thought his designs were quite feminine and that also more or less explained the attendance as the majority of the punters were females in their mid/late 20’s.

In the end I put all my anger in shooting the entire event and I am quite satisfied with the shots of the talk, especially the blurs.

A gallery of the talk is HERE

It has been a while since I was there; think last year when Baroness, Torche and Capricorns played there. I hook up with the band at just after 6, the weather is pure shyte wind and rain…
They have already sound checked and I just hang and make some shots while they are standing about. At some point we do a quick shot on a sofa and one of the crew members of Zico Chain sits on that very same sofa, so the bass player tells him to move and he won’t have it, doesn’t fuck off till I am actually done. The bass player, Chris Glithero, apologizes big time, but I wasn’t really too bothered about it coz I cropped him out anyways. Still Zico Chain are a nice bunch of guys.
CTD are on at 9:15 their live show is more back to basics and they have a heavier set and also more consistent sounding so all good.
They also dress more appropriate; jeans/t-shirts and leather jackets. The live shots were difficult to take simply coz of the dreadful lighting unless I flashed the place to oblivion which I did not fancy doing. The stage also has an awkward position and the crowd was 5/6 rows deep and did not want to barge my way through them…
They will play from Wednesday till next week on Friday nationwide. They also have plans to do more one off London shows in Dec….we’ll see.

I watched 5 songs of Zico Chain and was pleasantly suprised, really like Chris Glithero’s vocals it fits their dirty sleazy R&R very well. On the way back it just poured BIG time, me girlie Terri seemed to love it….

I spoke to Chris Melian yesterday, they are starting a lil’ tour and play the Underworld Monday eve. I may go or not…..we’ll see.
I updated the Mexicolas gallery with Gayme (all being sick and sorry…..) and Co. @ Waterrats. They are playing La Scala later this month supporting Daughtry. And will support The Cult @ The Forum, which of course is brilliant stuff.
Also the Stateless gallery has been done. besides that I hammered away on working out to sort the folio site out, it’s still in beta phase so to speak so I am looking forward into sorting that once and for all a.s.a.p.
I am going to chill, I hope, this weekend…..

I have one meeting tomorow but several set for next week….
Besides working on printwork for my folio not a lot going on and I like it. next week maybe Cat the Dog at Underworld and the week after Mexicolas and Stateless both on the same day (one in La Scala and one in the Vile eh…Vibe Bar). I am also going to some networking event in the Cadogan Hotel tomorrow eve which should be alright I hope….I remember doing a shoot with rebekah Roy there last year in Feb. Cute little place.
Also booked a flight to Holland next month for a few days taking a break.

here is the Tobias Menzies insert shot, I did not get the pdf until a few days ago so here it goes…

I arrived at about 6 pm to set my lights up at The Design Museum and await Matthew Williamson’s arrival, and believe it or not but I felt relly nervous. I admitted this to Michael Czwerwinski who just waved it off, and said something like “ow come on you are a fashion photographer, you have lots to talk about”, upon meeting him and shaking his hand I turned rather quickly and in doing so I almost wacked his champagne glass out of his hand (a great intro no doubt…..) it was only because he held it firmly the glass did not end up on the floor….
During my so called chat of 30 secs to a minute with Matthew Williamson I almost froze, and it was only because I realised he was more nervous than me I sorta got things going, a bit…of the dozen shots I took almost everyone was a winner, easy.
It is probably in my top 3 fave shots of the Design Museum bunch no doubt..

Colin McDowel did not want to be photographed which was fine by me, his loss, as I did come for Matthew Williamson specifically. Colin McDowel mentioned before the talk that he was going to talk solely about design, instead it was mostly about Matthew Williamson’s past and very little about the actual design, and the core of it all.
I personally thought that aspect should have been adressed more and therefor felt a tad dissapointed.

Here are the three shots.

I am shooting portraits of Matthew Williamson and Colin McDowel tonight at the Design Museum.

What should have been a 2 hour affair turned into a tedious day of waiting.
I was supposed to go to Notion Mag’s offices and meet Marlondo the model and Alexis the stylist and do a quick three shots to finish of the story I did for them two weeks ago. The story was meant to be a 10 pager but somehow this all got lost in the communications and only 6 pages were shot…….
More misscomunication resulted in the model waking up at half 12 and have his phone on silent and only realising by luncthime he had to make a move….
In the end I started shooting at about half 2 and was done 60 mins later. We shot a double page spread in a basketball court on an estate (to keep that oh so urban feel on da go….) and the other two very close by against some walls that had been drawn/painted on….happy with the results they will fit in with the rest of the story nicely……. Shame it started to rain, on the way back in my fave bus 149 it even became torrential….
I am dying to do some swimwear at a nice location to tell ya the tr00th

I was in Barnet and Hadley all day yesterday walking about and taking shots for a new title at Archant (the same publishing company as Angel, North and The Guide magazines) which is supposed to come out in Feb. A bit of a photo library needed to be set up so there I was schlepping me bag all over the place.
The area was much bigger than say Greenwich and Blackheath and I think I walked anything between 7 and 10 miles for sure….
Hadley is all money, huge houses, reminded me of Bisshops Avenue in East Finchley. Barnet is hilly to say the least and I spent time there in the morning and later on in the afternoon. Hadley Woods is very nice, it’s big and on a day like yesterday worthwile to wander about, you literally see the leaves dropping of the trees…
Some shots

Friday eve I went to see Mark Kebble who wants me to go to Barnet for the entire day on Monday, after the meet in the pub I joined him to a leaving do on Upper St. where the free booze flowed graciously. I had to stop myself necking bottles at a fast pace or I would have just lay in bed all day on Sat. Mark on the other hand is in fine form, heckling anyone

Get this; Notion mag, the story I shot ten days ago was supposed to be a ten pager and not a six, so on Thursday we are going to shoot the remainder…

Here are a few shots of the spread for Total Spec.
Styling: Alexis Knox
Hair: Gerardo Demaio
Make-up: Claire Salter
Models: Steven Young & Eva Gil

Here is the latin dance story from 10 days ago.

Styling: Cat Watson
Hair & Make-Up: Charlotte Fisher
Model: Eva Gil

Last night Terri and I went to the fireworks display in Alexandra Palace which was great fun. Brought me camera coz I love shooting fireworks. Finally we made it as we missed out 2x on a row last year and the year before due to lateness and traffic.
I like ‘em

Caught this couple at Finsbury Park, I was well pissed as Terri and I downed quite a few drinks at The Faltering Fallback, our old local.