Bartolomy’s Diary

So I went into a studio (Reflection on Stoke Newington High St. to be precise) and did a fashion shoot based on sparkle. We got a load of clothes in with black/gold/and gems. I used my blondes on it and wished I had a dedo light set for this, it would have been killer but I had to make do with my 2 blondes, and in the end I even only used one. Problem became the slow shutter speeds and I had to ask the model Carolina Bergstein to stay still as there was just too much blurring as the shutter speeds sometimes were as slow as 0.5 secs……

It’ll be some time before the results will be shown as the post prod. will take some time.

I hope to meet Malene Nielsen later on as she is in London.

So Terri and I went to Old Blue Last’s Electric Toaster run by Hayley Loader to watch a few bands we just did not know about. It was time to catch some new talent basically.
The first band The recovery were a heavby band from up north I thought they were ok, but at times it all reminded me of Placebo. I like Placebo but I wasn’t too sure abouyt these guys. The next act, was more a jack the lad type namedJonny Taylor, not bad, not my cuppa either.
The last act Belakiss, borrowed from Joy Division no doubt but they were heavier. I liked them, as a matter of fact I thought they were quite good.
Some shots:

I was supposed to shoot Stateless in the studio (as they are rceording in e2) but…..work does not allow me to do this, maybe Sunday or just after that. I am shooting fashion on Saturday.

Here’s an outtake of the Where Were You shoot.

Styling: Jackie Beeke
Hair and make-up: Charlotte Fisher.
Model: Kate Ellerly @ Select

I am going to Electric Toaster @ Old Blue Last tonight and snap a few new bands (well new to me) and tomorrow hopefully I will capture Stateless in the studio and after that get pissed in the Vibe Bar.
And Saturday we are doing a sparkly fashion shoot. Plenty of action so to speak.

That’s the title for today’s shoot (thank you Jackie) which went really well. Styled by Jackie Beeke. Hair and make-up was done by Charlotte Fisher and today’s model was lovely Kate Ellerly from Select models. We did in the end more than was needed and we still finsihed at half 2, we just put our heads down and got on with it, changed in the bushes like pros do It saved a lot of walking back and forth and such…..
I am very happy with the results of which I shall post some shortly.
here’s a pic from when we went for a quick lunch.

Yup, like the header says, 4 pages plus cover for Mark Kebble and co., after a 10 month band or hiatus (’what are you like Bart, it was never a ban’-M.K…..yeah yeah) I am shooting a few outfits down Morden with Jackie Beeke, a great stylist who I used to work with many many years ago. I am looking forward to it, it’ll have a slight gothic theme.
There’s some bands to be shot this week as well, and then Saturday perhaps Fashion PR Gods permitting a shoot for Florida International magazine, we shall see if all this happens…..

Left for Vienna from Heathrow, an airport I haven’t flown from for ages, the plane leaves at 6 am, which means I have to get up at 3 and get a cab shortly after. The flight with Austrian airlines is quite uneventfull bar the near miss with another plane I witness. Hardly anyone else sees the other plane flying just underneath us, I’d say the plane was maybe 500 meters away and 200 meters below us, in real terms that’s plenty but when I see nothing in our vicinty for 20 kilometers I ask myself why…….. The elderly couple in front of me just giggle it off, I on the other hand feel my heart beating like a m0f0, hows that for an adrenaline rush at 7 am, HA.
The weather in Vienna is grey and the temperature is a lot less than in London and I am not ready for it, brrrrrrrrr. I arrive at the hotel Falkensteiner and get the feeling I am being fobbed off by the Vienanese blonde, with an ice cold stare and unemotional manner she directs me to the 4th floor. I arrive and the carpet is all dirty, my luck is the room has two single beds, something that wasn’t ordered so I make my way down to complain. She tries to resist but I am not having any of it and she arranges a different room on the second floor which is a lot better and a lot cleaner. I was hoping to snag a few snoggers in the center of Vienna but to no avail. I walk around in the rain and no one is in a loving mood, people just grin and bear it and make their way from one cultural attraction to another. Vienna’s center is nice, for one it wasn’t bombed to the stone age in WW2 so it has plenty to show for. Also the city is very clean, this I remember when I was back there in 1992 other than that I wasn’t too interested in its culture back then, too busy chasing a model friend of mine…….;) but now I have a great time to check it all out in the spare time I have. I even find the spot I did a catalogue shoot for, for Ad Fontes. Feels like ages ago I resided here for a month.
After two hours waiting & lurking I give up on catching any snoggers and decide to go into the gardens instead, one of them has many varities of roses and decide to take some close ups, shame I wasn’t there a month or so earlier as most flowers are on the turn, still better than nothing. The blitz visit to the city ends rather quickly and I make my way to the airport an hour earlier in the hope catching some snoggers there, and I sit outside on the veranda and see people getting dropped off, and this is a whole different ballgame to capture The Kiss, as it’s blink and you’ll miss it. People kiss each other quick and move on with their lives, I see 4 happenings and manage to capture 2 of them. I am also wary of exposing myself shooting people at the airport with the cctv, security and it would be blatantly obvious what I am doing………

Oh and I love the new Kings Of Leon album, ‘Only By The Night’, superb stuff. Still Metallica’s new album ‘Death Magnetic’ is being played almost every day as well. I have been trying to listen to Capricorns’ ‘River Bare Your Bones’ album but I simply hate the mix and it is hard to get through. On top of that there was a real ‘nice’ interview of all band members in Terrorizer magazine where everyone has had a go at each other. I just met Kevin Williams outside my house on our road by coincidence as he was helping a mate move house. He tells me there’s an even ‘nicer’ interview in Vice magazine where Nathan Bennet has a go at the rest of the members. Kevin declined to do an interview, why bother aye….mud slinging about a band that is in hiatus, or broken up…..bit of a waste of energy.
Like me missus would say, ‘it’s like the newspaper being used to put chips in……..’ I thought they were a good band and they could have gone somewhere but egos, once again, destroyed all that. Oh well….. I am glad I managed to cover a period of them where they were at their peak and the line up was the strongest, and that is almost 2 years ago……
Time surely flies.

So it was a freebie at Pushing Pussy at the Vibe bar (aka Vile Bar). I sit outside for about half an hour waiting for the missus trying to catch this couple having a kiss, I sit at the table next to them and try not to be too obvious trying to capture them, I wait and I wait. My missus arrives with one of her pals and the second I get up and greet them it happens. I feel like I wanna dissapear and break a few things, my mood is killed for a few minutes and it is hard to even chat. She asks what’s wrong and I explain, oh well, she shruggs like only a Brit can do.
Love this country

We make our way inside and have a drink and watch Joana and the Wolf, who sound excellent, shame the crowd remains seated coz a band like them feed of crowd participation, then again what band doesn’t. I hear a new song which just fits in real nice but at the same time they don’t play “‘Frankie’ which I think is just such a great show finale, oh well. Still great fun to watch and glad I went. Took a few shots but wasn’t very happy with the lights (2 spots and that’s it), when do these plonkers get clued up about this…..nevuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur.

Joana and the Wolf @ Pushing Pussy, Vibe Bar
The next band The Guillotines are a blast to watch, I even get to scream out “She’s My Witch” when the singer sits on my lap, major entertainment factor with that lot. I did not shoot and I just wanted to watch, I would like shoot them at some point in the future though. Their music is not really my style but their stage presence is proper!!!!

On my way to Liverpool St. I encounter snoggers galore, I zap three couples in 10 minutes time, this makes up for the earlier miss big time.

I am going to Vienna at the end of this week, maybe a few shots from there…..who knows.
This means the editorial for Archant has been moved to Tuesday. And I have another one lined up the weekend after.

Yesterday went to the west end to hook up with Guy Pranzili and his missus Sylvia, had not seen them since our trip to barcelona, we hung out for three hours had lunch in Chinatown (which was ok) and then had coffee at the photographer’s gallery and chatted away and just caught up with all kinds of stuff, some shoptalk and what not.
Here they are at lunch.

Shortly after we met up with Sergio , a hair stylist I worked with on the Derelict Sensation shoot a few years back, was good to see him again too.

From there I made my way to Tower Bridge and just before entering the Design Museum I caiught this couple at it, funny thing was they were snapping themselves as well, priceless moment. Just where I was standing to my right another couple was @ it but lens was too long to make that shot, would have been a double whammy otherwise.

Sam Hecht’s talk was filled with hickups, his laptop gave up midway, the mic stopped working, the lift did too (ok that had nothing to do w. his talk but it was inside the building). I shot his portrait shorly before his talk and also of Wallpaper journo Jonathan Bell who did the interview.
Here they are:

Terri and I left late to go and see Die Die Die at Proud Galleries, we were there a few months ago when Kaputt were playing there.
We run into the lads right away upon arrival they sit in one of the stables and have a massive bucket filled with beers at their disposal. I chat to Andrew Wilson (vox/gt) and he confided in me that the sound engineer was not too happy w. them as they kept unplugging stuff and the guy wasn’t happy with that. A ‘good’ start!
The punters; twenty somethings on a club night out, not your average rockers/punks check the band out and are somewhat bemused by Locky’s and Andrew’s wanderings into the crowd. I get a dreading of a similar effect as at Club NME at Koko a few months earlier and sadly it proved to be true. Worse still the sound is crap, I mean at least where I was standing and snapping away, I could not differentiate Andrew’s vox at all. To top that the lights are the most terrible I have ever encountered at a show. All we get is the so called intelligent lighting and at some moments it is impossible to shoot and I consider packing up, that I have got some useable stuff is nothing short of a miracle.

I am supposed to do a proper bandshot of the three little shits before they embark on a European tour for the rest of Sept and early Oct., we’ll see if that happens. Also a fashion spread for Archant Magazines after a ten month ban I am allowed to do a fashion story for one of their titles. Whether it all comes off is another, not holding my breath on that one.

Die! Die! Die! @ Proud Galleries

I had model Diane Bednarz from D1 models come over and show her book, decided to take a few, here’s one.

Here’s a picture I took of Anne Marie Prins who I met in Milano originally and then shot while being in Den Bosch, Holland at Harry’s studio in May 1992. It’s print film processed as a slide and then put in an enlarger and exposed onto polaroid which was then transfered onto mounting board, tioz a one of a kind, and 16 years old.

First of all, I have been listening to the new Metallica album and it fucking r0xx0r. No doubt the best album since the Black Album, they do what they do best, grooves and riffs, ok some songs structure wise sound like “Creeping Death” and “Fade To Black” but it sounds very good. I love the instrumental song “Suicide & Redemption” and the final track “My Apocalypse” is a stunner too. Great album, a pleasure to listen to, for once egos were kept in check and a team effort brought a wonderfull result. WAY TO GO!!!!!

Ok, two weeks ago left for Germany to fly from City Airport (my fave airport btw) to Frankfurt a city I lived near to (Hofgut Neuhof to be exact) when I was a baby until I was three years old. Rent a car and go to a small town southwest of Frankfurt called Trebur. The hotel we stay in Zum Erker is a family run biz and the rooms are mega clean and the food is your typical local grub, excellent. I shall post some pix of some of the sunflower fields and water activity on the river Main. the weather, sunny and in the mid/high 20’s. The farmers are harvesting their crops and I take shots of this. Quite cool to see the potatoes untouched by the civilians, they wait until the farmer has collected his crop and what’s left is up for grabs.
On Wednesday after a 7 day stay make me way down to Freiburg by train from farmland galore to a city that holds half a million. Bit of a shock really my partner in crime Adam Lloyd is lapping it up like no other and ready to parteeeeee. I on the other hand need at least 36 hrs to get into this, especially as I enjoyed the nowheres ville attitude in Trebur. I should have gone to Hofgut Neuhof, did not realise it was this close…….oh well.

Freiburg is a great looking city, very tidy and above all pictoresque, although it practically has been bombed to the Stone Age in WW2 there’s plenty of old style buildings left. The cathedral (which was hardly touched by the allied bombings) is a great place to be on top on, some good views. The hotel is ok, breakfast a nice affair but the cleaning of the rooms leaves something to be desired.
I make a climb on top of a ridge that overlooks the city as well at half 8 in the morning and do a quick panorama shot. The market on Munsterplatz is awesome, all local produce and it looks stunning, this beats the crap out of what you buy in an English supermarket any day, it aint cheap then again living in London aint either. The quality of living in Freiburg is high, very HIGH.

Our flight back is delayed and we only manage to get out of Basel just before midnight (no flights allowed after that). I h8 Easyjet and Ryanair, you definately get what you pay for. On arrival we have to wait for the trains to get us to the passport control for a good 15 mins. The hall is rammed and it looks like every tourist from urope has come back at the same time. At passport control it is so busy the cue starts right when you exit the trains, I remember when Stanstead was a local affair with hardly any peeps in it. Now it’s a PIG tourist trap……give me City Airport any day.

I am slowly adjusting to the London madness again………..
Prepping for some up and coming shoots next week and the one after, we shall see what comes out of this.

Some shots

I manage to catch a few snoggers in a place called Kornsand near the river Main while in Trebur, two couples on the Munsterplatz in Freibur and one couple in a club in the center of Freiburg.

Came home last night after a 12 day stay in Germany (near Frankfurt and in Freiburg). Took some cool pix and will put down a few notes today or tomoz. England grey…………..ugh, definately home again.

There are problems with uplaoding pictures, my pass even got wiped nor did it recognise the username and email, thanks to SeJo that has been solved but still can not upload anything, not the first time with surpasshosting something is going on that ends up fishy…..