Tom's Photography Blog

Catch Up

2011-10-11T10:13:00.002-07:00

Life has been a little busy. In no particular order, some of the highlights of the last few months..

Tour de Force

2011-06-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm bad at my job; not the taking pictures part, the getting paid on time and paying my bills part. This is down to a slovenly personality and also a general feeling of "if the world ends now, everything is just fine" that I get when I've had a nice shoot; everywhere I go, there I am. In a way the second is worse than the first, because the big, career-changing moments don't arrive with fireworks, and the times you're required to step up, inevitably you deal with people who already see you at that level, and so it all appears everyday.

Rambert

The issue becomes resource management. How to make the benefits of experience and talent count often feels like how to make something from nothing if you don't know how to engage those resources correctly. Likewise, each step up the ladder requires and higher-level of polish and professionalism. I'm learning, I'm learning..

In Good Company

Ultimately I find myself resenting my inability to let it all fall down. Why can't life be easy? Why is life unfair? Why am I so stuck? Then I shoot again and forget.

Nothing reassures quite so much as an old client coming back; I've enjoyed being back at the ICA, a place which seems to exist in a bubble in the heart of Touristville, London.

ICA

The more I work, the more I want to do my own work. I'm developing a project..

Tom Medwell

RIP

2011-04-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I updated. I'd like to say this is because I have been so terribly busy that I haven't had time, but predictably I've got myself into various pickles of late and have been variously raging, starving, grumping and, yes, eventually working myself into a lather of sorts. I've been pushing myself more towards dance and away from nightclubs and music; this isn't to say I don't enjoy shooting live music any more, but since magazines decided to stop paying, and my wallet gapes like a festering stomach wound, I've slowed down a little in the perhaps vain hope that I can find a way to use my talents to put food on the table without compromising my passion for it. A tall order.

Last weekend my grandmother died; it wasn't unexpected but of course still sad. She taught me to tie my laces. The picture above is a shot from when I visited a couple of weeks ago. She was reminiscing about growing up; she was born by Old Street tube station, in a time long before skinny jeans and fixed-wheel bikes. I have too much N4 pride to consider myself an East-Londoner, but I live here now and I've often thought how it might have been, when her brother was working at the fire station on Kingsland Road and the blitz was raining down.

Anyway, here's some pictures, I hope you like them. Feedback by the usual channels, as ever, is enjoyed and encouraged. Also, in case you haven't realised, clicking the pictures makes them larger (and gets rid of the awful blogspot resizing artifacts).

Let It Snow

2010-12-24T02:50:00.000-08:00

Fog Revisited

2010-11-17T04:12:00.000-08:00

Website updated.

Vanity page created.

Faces

2010-09-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

Various.

Considerations

2010-07-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a month of ups and downs. I can't ever deny being more emotional than I probably should be, and so I get hopelessly excited about things before they happen and hopelessly miserable if nothing comes of them. The following chain of events took place over the last few weeks: out of the blue a particularly excellent opportunity came up, which would have involved travel (which is perhaps what I most want from my job at the moment) and work with a large client. There was a lot of back'n'forth and then when I heard nothing for a couple of days, dropped a line to see what the situation was. I got the answer back - oh sorry, been so busy I couldn't email you sooner, they picked someone who is more of a street photographer. Now, way back in the olden days, when I started this blog, I started it with the aim of discovering more about my own photographic practise with the hope of understanding better what sort of a photographer I'd like to be. This missed chance left me seething a little inside about my lack of specificity with me work - I have plenty of good street photography, such as these two shots from a way back.

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with them, and I imagine that if I concentrated on it now I'd be able to produce much better shots. The issue is, I've never sold myself as any sort of photographer, and so if someone wants a street photographer, or a portrait photographer, or a fashion photographer, they will (naturally) look to folks who do just those sorts of photography.

I started looking at photographers agents, a depressing process. How can I sell myself as a swiss-army-knife sort of photographer when all anyone wants is a specialist? It doesn't even come down to quality - I'd back my technical know-how against most folks on account of four or five years of working with high-end fashion photographers as various levels of assistant. Also, there's a part of me that thinks that there are really only two sorts of photography - the sort where you take pictures of things that are happening anyway, and the sort where you make things happen and take pictures of it. But I can't change how everyone else approaches it all.

You'll notice all of this revolves around commercial issues; a very wise person suggested to me that a spot of just walking around taking pictures of stuff might be in order. I walked through most of central London for four hours on a Saturday night, and although the pictures aren't completely satisfactory, they're not awful, and gave me a bit of a confidence boost - I DO love taking pictures, and that is the most important thing. Here's some of the shots.

Ultimately what I'd like to develop is a style of photography that is all my own, that can be applied to any situation. I'm seriously thinking about going back to study - whether a Fine Art or a Photography MA remains to be seen, as does whether or not I can get into any academy that I'd want to go to. I don't claim to be the best (even though I probably have before) but overwhelmingly I want to be happy with what I'm doing; that's a tough place to get to. So, how about some celebration? Here's some pictures from my dad's birthday party last weekend.

Afterwards I went to watch the World Cup final with my brother at his mate's house. His mate's cat has the biggest nuts I've ever seen on a cat. Here's some pix.

Good kitty! So outside the real world, work has involved taking pictures of the Christmas PR launch for Tesco:

Indulging the wannabe movie director in me in me, here's some stills from a production I got invited along to shoot:

For Le Cool, Paloma Faith and Dave from The Invisible:

Jasmine Alexander:

and Andy Bell, who runs Festibelly:

Summertime, And The Living

2010-06-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of heat, but the summer tends to offer good chances to get nice pictures outdoors. It's been a busy few weeks, and I had the closest thing I've had to a holiday for a while by going to Download with Lucha Britannia; not that I wasn't working there, but I wasn't working on anything else while I was there, and a respite from trying to think in five directions at once was welcome, even if the mud and then heat and then mud gave me nosebleeds for two days solid when I got back. Lucha Britannia works around a formula of fights and performances, and Download is probably the perfect place for it, being filled with thousands of guys who want to go "woo! ewww! fuck yeah!" at every possible opportunity. Here's some shots of the show and the festival.

From one world to another; I did a job for Tesco, a few days after changes at the top were announced. There was some confusion about who was doing what - the people I was there to shoot were Tesco suppliers rather than employees - but I liked these pictures of folks there inbetween the tasting and talking.

Which leads nicely to these pictures I did for the Drawing Degree Show Catalogue at Camberwell..

Tesco workers of the future need entertaining today; here's Josh Knowles and Trixie Malicious' new project Chakrelax. These pictures will be 'shopped onto new-age backgrounds of forests and stars.

Meanwhile, here's Joe and his band Lazarus and The Plane Crash playing possibly their 2nd ever show. It was good!

Two people I met through Joe are Amechi and Tammy. Here's a series of shots of Tammy as Britannia.

Another person I met through Joe is Amechi. Amechi introduced me to various photographers when I was but a young hobbyist asking for places I might go to watch the real pros do their thing. Here's Amechi.

He's opened a vintage market on the corner of Kingsland Road and Regent's Canal. It's called The Pattern Market. Here's some pix I took for him.

Finally, here's some shots I did for Mike G, general musically-talented person and leader of the Badger group I have taken pictures of from time to time. I took some shots during a music video he was shooting for a new project.

It was quite fun, I wouldn't mind doing some more shoots like that during a video shoot. Someone else carries all the lights for a start. Here's Mikey.

That's all from me for now. Hope you're enjoying the heat.

Tate & LOL

2010-05-31T10:41:00.001-07:00

So, Tate Modern celebrated 10 years of existence and I was hired to document the occasion; No Soul For Sale curated the event, which had 70-odd arts groups crammed into the turbine call and theatres. It was a really hard job but I'm fairly pleased with the shots I got; the Friday basically ran to a 15 hour shift, which you'd imagine might be enough but in reality when you get tired it's hard to work as hard. Or something. I'm not going to put up all 600 photos (from 4000ish taken - good strike rate!) from the event, oh no. Those are for the Tate and the various press and agencies who want to use them (hello Vogue Italia). Here's a few of my favourites though.

I felt like sleeping for a week after that was all done, but it was straight onto the next job for me - shooting for Age Concern in Ealing.

Elsewhere! Lucha Britannia returned for a show ahead of next month's trip to Download festival.

Empress Stah invited me to take some pre-production shots of a project she's working on.

I shot Marky Market, Stuart Geddess and Steven Silverwood for Le Cool, which relaunched shinier than ever.

And lastly but not remotely leastly, a massive congratulations to Josh Josh Jones and his new wife. They had the best wedding I've been to. Hurray!

Tom vs Life

2010-05-05T04:49:00.000-07:00

So, I got that job at the Tate. Here's some pictures. So, in the order they come up in.. a month's worth of pictures. Credits at the end. As ever, click to get a larger version..

Featuring and for: Le Cool, Current.com, The ICA, Suri Sumatra, Missy Macabre, Resistance Gallery, A Rebours, Speedie's, Tony Pronier, Will Dutta, Coco Sumner, Alex Noble, Billy Childish, The Little Theater Of Dolls, and others.

I have been busy and distracted; my first Tate Mission is 14th-16th May for their ten year birthday party. It should be amazing. I'll try to stick some pictures up after that.

Swayed

2010-04-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

So, Suede returned to the big time, selling out the Royal Albert Hall. Mat had got me a photopass; I was never the world's biggest fan but to see them all up stage and loving it was great. I got a few ok pictures.

Aw, Mat.

In other exciting news, the ICA got themselves out of the mire long enough to put the best night on I've been to for a while. Luckily for me, they hired me to take pictures of the whole day; it was an event based around the work and thoughts of Cosey Fanni Tutti; in the daytime was Cosey Club, a series of talks, lectures, presentations and performances inspired by her.

In the evening at Cosey Club there were bands and DJs; Eve Black/Eve White, Fixmer/McCarthy, Richard Clouston and Andrew Wetherall.

However, though they weren't headlining, the real greatness of the night was to see Factory Floor play again. They're nice people, always put on a good show, and I'm always happy with the pictures I get.

I had a good time, thought the clocks went forward and I found myself flagging a bit towards the end. Elsewhen, I've shot two reasonable portraits for Le Cool this week. First up, Phil Wood who runs the Roxy Bar and Screen in Borough.

Later that day, Sebastian Horsley, an artist and general gadabout, who was quite fun to take pictures of.

Aside from these things, the most exciting thing to happen this week was to receive an initial email from Tate Modern about possibly taking some pictures there as their in-house performance photographer; it would be big news for me, but after the initial excitement has worn down, memories of other greatnesses that never quite happen surfaced; perhaps it would be interesting to someone to see how these things work, in terms of getting work, so I'll chart the progress as it happens.

Recycle Revolution

2010-03-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

I've had a lot on my mind the last few weeks. You know how it goes; someone shows you an example of someone else's work, and you covet it, or find yourself pinned to being one thing when you want to be another; one moment you're saving up for expensive jewellery for someone, the next you're wondering how to spend your summer; one day you've a hundred plans coming to fruition, and the next they're in ruins; for all the joys of work, the pains of chasing those invoices; for all the pains of raising funds for exhibition, the next you're getting a good review in the newspapers and all the stress is forgotten. It is hard as a self-employed person to always be thinking three steps ahead, especially when what you do is something that necessarily requires total focus on what's happening right now. My modus operandi has always been - say yes to everything! You never know when there'll be another chance/you'll go blind/get found out/get bored. Recently though I've been wondering about the benefits of concentrating on one sort of photography. The truth is, I don't think I could change the way I operate unless I had something else to take my mind off life in all the spare time I'd have when not shooting. When a camera is all that lies between me and a dive from a fifth floor window in the middle of the night (well not quite but you know), shooting stop being a job and becomes an escape.

Anyway. Here's some shots from the Suede comeback show at the 100 club (that's Brett dancing away at the top of this post).

Before I got there I ran into my housemate, who'd just won the league with her hockey team. Go girls.

Saturday daytime I'd been down in Barnes, taking some pictures of a short movie being filmed. It was out of interest more than anything; the photos might prove useful to them, and I know the producer, I thought it'd be something interesting to try..

To sound less morbid; all of this thinking has led me to thoughts about how photography is, right now. The better you get at something, the more clearly you see your own failings and the brilliance of others. Within the fields of photography I operate in, there is a clear divide between photographers who publish raw, gritty, beautiful photographs which, with no meddling, depict the world almost as you could see it yourself, if you could catch things in that frame and instant with a blink of your eyes. In particular, Dan Wilton and David Richardson fall into this category - both excellent photographers, capable of showing you what's before your eyes with an honesty that will suck you in. I mention them only because I've met them; there are others, and if you wanted to go up to the top end you could point out similarities with Terry Richardson etc. and it's part of a wider creative movement towards a home-made look to things, I think.

On the other side of the great divide, you have me, and any other photographer who manipulates with light, software, processing etc. in a way to lend a certain fantasy of their own to their subjects. I never made a choice to be one or the other; my style of photography comes from my background of learning through assisting rather than studying; although I started out shooting with 1600 film and no flash, it didn't take much time of me being in a studio to realise that knowing light was the most important thing for any photographer. Of course, each photographer might say something different is the most important thing, but for me, telling pictures with light and shadow became a big part of what the art of it is. Now I find myself at a place where the other style is becoming prevalent; for many years, high-production high-gloss photography rules the pages of magazines, and in the last five or six years, it has swung the other way. It is not a good thing or a bad thing; neither style is better than the other, and I cannot change how I have learnt and nor do I really want to. It is a little frustrating to get less work than other folks on account of style, but really, if I chased the pack I'd be no good at what I do.

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PUPPY INTERLUDE

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PUPPY INTERLUDE ENDS

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I am in the middle of a crisis of confidence; puppies help immensely. The difficulty is the difficulty of it all. I want to chase horses around the New Forest at night with a flash gun; I want giant softboxes hoisted up on cranes to shoot beauty portraits of trees. I want a hundred people in a studio, all performing for me, to make something of it greater than the sum of its parts. For me, these are the stories I want to tell, beyond what is just in front of me. That makes me pretentious, arrogant, ambitious..

Friday I was back at Cafe Oto for The Wire, shooting Carbon Cafe featuring The Gluts. Here they are, and some people speaking.

I like live stuff, and I want to have it all under control; my ultimate shoots involve performers in settings of my choices with perfect lights set up and an army of assistants. I'm doing it on the cheap; just the £5k of kit not £500k. The figures stagger me; to be as good as I want to be, I'd have to spend a lot of money, but the payback should be equal to it. I want to be able to shoot anything and everything. Here's A Rebours last thursday.

Not exactly live performance, but it's hard-shootin and I wasn't thinking straight; earlier in the day I'd been to see Syban;

Before Syban I had been in the scooter cafe with Dusty Limits, shooting his portrait for Le Cool.

Earlier in the week I'd shot some pictures of the Hennginham Family Press, another Le Cool interview you can read here:

Skipping back all the way to Friday, some pictures of Rollergirls for Shirley mag.

I'll try to post more regularly on here as these entries are getting a bit long. I hope you have a nice week and do interesting things.

The Life Your Life Could Look Like

2010-03-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

Above is a hand belonging to Mr. Josh Jones, who knows a lot about what he likes, AND art. I think. At Le Cool we had a group interview session, for world-renowned and controversially brilliant publication Le Cool, or rather the Le Cool London Blog. I took some pictures.

I took more than two pictures, but, it's people sitting around a table talking. I like the picture of Mat. Chloe or Mat took the picture of me. It was my camera though so I'm allowed to put it on here. Josh is in charge of covers; here's this weeks artist in front of his poster on the underground. He's called Tim Rasbash. He's very nice.

I have grown to enjoy shooting portraits more and more as time has gone by. I've spent a lot of this week thinking about the big important questions, like Why I Take Pictures and What Should I Do Next and Would Arsenal Winning The League Be Soured By Them Having Lost To Utd & Chelsea (answer: no! duh!). In the most part this is because of the first of my forthcoming exhibitions, for the Together charity (running for the next six weeks from the end of this week at their gallery on Old Street) I have had to do all sorts of things like writing artistic statements of intent and describing myself and my work. It's pretty tough. I find that every time I write anything about myself in that context, I think I come across as a pretentious fool, leading to the distinct possibility that I come across as a pretentious fool in everyday conversation but without the evidence and therefore 20/20 hindsight vision to notice for myself. Why do I take pictures? Because it means I don't have to get up at 7 in the morning every day. Because I get to go and hang out with interesting people and be seen as an equal. Because I feel like I'm always getting better at it. Because people say they like my pictures. All of that is true; it's also true that when I'm taking pictures, in the actual act of it, a nuclear bomb could go off across town and I wouldn't notice the mushroom cloud or boom for concentrating on getting what I'm already looking at just right. It's true that when I shoot, nothing else in the world matters, all my troubles disappear and I feel like I am the lord of all I survery. It's also true that I like to impress, that I feel like it makes me important.. all these reasons add up to - I take photographs because I'm a photographer. It's probably terminal. Here are my shots for Together.

I'm not overwhelmingly happy with them nor am I dissatisfied. I took them because they were there to take; I took them like that because I didn't think of any other way to take them. Sometimes portraiture has a stricter set of guidelines that are more open to technical interpretation; here's a portrait I shot for Tesco of their head of fresh produce, Colin Holmes.

Can you tell me which one is more creative? Which required more thought? It's always harder to shoot what's in someone else's head. I had a bit more scope with these interviews; here's this week's Le Cool interviewee, Patrick Baxter, who makes soundscapes for walking around London to.

And here's a lady called Tiffany who has a thing called Secret London which if you're in London and on Facebook you're probably a member of.

Elsewhen, there was a thing at Resistance Gallery with people doing stuff. I saw my friends Tammy and Shorn there. Here they are!

Shorn got talking to me about taking pictures of dance stuff; turns out he is a designer for that sort of thing. He got me along to a student production, where in return for taking some pictures, I would be given some money. Here's the shots, this bunch a B&W set although I sent them colour..

In the interval I was asked to go backstage to take some clearer shots for the designer who was paying me. I'm quite pleased with these shots.

I hope you like them. I don't know why I took them, or why I like them, or what's wrong or right about any of this. That's ok though. If I had answers to all the questions I get asked, I'd have nothing left to do.

Bizz

2010-02-24T19:10:00.000-08:00

Some nights out shooting I do for fun; for my birthday (officially 29+1) I took myself along to Skill Wizard where I saw Salute and Nebukadnezza. It was loud and fun.

Happy birthday to me. Dice Club approaches its third birthday; I wonder how many of the folks who go there really have an idea of what a slice of its time that place has been. It has never been a place to put bands on to please a crowd, and that makes it better than a lot of places. I don't always like the music but I like the idea of it; here's Joy Rides and The Vichy Government and Oli and Kane and a bunch of other folks I've got to know over the times I've been there.

One of the newcomers to the Shoreditch nightlife landscape is A Rebours; I met most of the folks involved in the night through them going to Dice Club, and now their night is generally far busier than Dice, to the detriment of the older club, as they're on the same night and five minutes from each other. I went along to say hi after Dice Club finished.

These clubs were clubs I went to out of choice; I also have something of an obligation to help folks out who have done me favours, and for that reason I ended up at the Gold Bar in Stoke Newington where John Power from Slutty Fringe was DJing.

Slutty Fringe also sent me out to shoot New Young Pony Club, but there was a mix-up with what time they were on - we presumed they'd be the headline band, but they were on first. So I got some shots of a band called Pope Joan, who aren't amazing. There was another band there too but I didn't get their name and they were awful.

Finally, Le Cool helped launch a Thai/Viet fusion restaurant, and what with there being free food, I was of course there to document the occasion. First up though, here's Le Cool's Josh Jones and Eamon Downes doing a passable impression of the Krays.

My boys! Onto the food; the restaurant is called Monsieur M. and the food is quite good. There were rice dumpling rolling classes and everything.

Sticking with Le Cool, this year we've started a collaboration with Art Below, supplying them with posters from our cover artists. Here's Matthew Green in front of his awesome piece.

For the Le Cool interview, Dark Times author Daniel Kramb:

For an interview on the Le Cool blog, Le Cool writer and now editor of her own fashion magazine (SHIRLEY), Naomi Attwood.

Sticking with the fashion theme, here's Maz from Lucha, and some shots of her for her friend who makes the flowers in her hair. Have a nice weekend.

DANCE DANCE DANCE

2010-02-12T04:41:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a while; I had no computer, and then work came like a storm. It has been good, but tiring, and I am looking forward to more regular but less frantic assignments. For this post I'll be concentrating on the main developments in the past six weeks or so, as while I have never set out to be a particular sort of photographer, the last month has been particularly significant for me shooting performance photography, and in particular dance. The view above is from outside Laban in Greenwich. Through my work with Slutty Fringe, I was hired by Dance 3 to shoot performance shots during tech and dress rehearsals for promotional use. It was exciting to have some say in the performance, and to have the auditorium mostly to myself. I was pretty impressed with the performances, and there's at least one team I'd like to work with again.

All in all, I got good feedback from the shots, and the folks who hired me were happy enough with them to get me for another job - shooting publicity and poster shots for Hofesh Shechter dance company. We got to use the Brighton Dome theatre as a studio, with the studio lighting they had there. It was far and away the biggest production shoot I've done for myself, although the experience of having people crowded around the laptop watching the shots as they came out is something I've experienced many times assisting Takashi. Hofesh was a lovely guy; I've not had much feedback about the shots yet but on the day they seemed pleased with them. Here's Hofesh:

Here's one of the shots they chose for the poster:

Here's some extra shots I got at the end of the poster session - we had a dance company, a stage, awesome lighting rig and a photographer, so why not?

Another significant development in the last month is that I've had a job from The Wire magazine. I got to shoot the simply outrageously good Peter Brötzmann playing live. I am not a jazz afficionado, but it was massively impressive, how he could jump into the mess of noise made by the drummer and double-bassist and somehow play something that slotted right into the sound and made it into something cohesive. Here he is listening to the double bass player freaking out, just before he steps into the eye of the storm and puts it in his pocket:

In other music-related news, I shot some promo pix for excellent people Teeth Of The Sea. They have an EP out now.

Performance is an odd thing, as introspective at its best as it is extrovert. Here's Jon Blake tying someone up; when he does it, it is a performance, without narrative, but still cohesive.

Finally, and this not for the faint-hearted, here's Sammpa and the Psycho Cyborgs doing this gory thing.

I'll try to post more regularly now I have a new computer and hopefully a bit more time.

eeek

2010-01-08T15:10:00.001-08:00

Further fail - my website is down due to some craziness called "the year you paid for is up" and so my usual info@tommedwell.com address is down - please contact on tom.medwell@gmail.com until my website is back up and running. Thank you!

Technical Knock Out

2009-12-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

Huge update alert! Things have been a little crazy; a couple of weeks back my laptop died, and this came along just as I found myself shooting pretty much every day. Hard work but good times. So, in no particular order...

Dice Club came back. I love Dice Club like it was my own oddly-coiffered child wearing pointy shoes and a see-through shirt. Romance, Cold In Berlin (ex Death Cigarettes) and Miss Something played. It was fun!

I also went to see lovely folks An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump play at their single launch.

We need some colour pictures now. I was invited along to get some shots of dance/theatre piece Lisa Appleby which was a great show and good to keep my eye in for forthcoming Exciting Dance Shoots.

Also another shoot with dancer, glass-bather and fire-eater Missy Macabre. It snowed!

I also did some promo shoots for Lazarus And The Plane Crash, a joint project between Joe from The Guillotines and Stephen from The Real Tuesday World.

You want portraits? Here's JFKt, writer.

Here's Dot Allison, singer.

Here's Fear Of Theydon, producer.

Out and about once more, I checked out a couple days of the Rock And Roll Expressionists mini-festival, with the likes of T.V. Smith, Alabama 3 and Vince Ray and the Boneshakers, as well as excellent art from 5 legendary artists such as Tom Spencer whose tattoo glass is superb.

And now for something completely different: promo shots for Miss Severity Myers.

Indeed. Although there are four or five others shoots I could show you, this is a fair idea of the sort of work I've been doing of late. But one other thing - the Artful Badger show at the Secret Garden Party Christmas Party. Everyone likes badgers, right?

So now I need a rest. Hello Christmas!

Eye of the storm.

2009-11-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

A relatively meagre week got under way while I was still finishing at the ICA; I'd done some product shots for Viktor Wynd's Little Shop Of Horrors in the week, and on the Saturday night after the ICA ended up at Sink The Pink at Resistance Gallery.

The photos are fairly self-explanatory. After a very long sleep on Monday, my week stuttered and stumbled towards the weekend in half-asleep style. Tuesday, I had a fashion shoot for Shirley magazine:

Wednesday was supposed to be a day off, but then I ended up shooting a portrait of Lightspeed Champion, for Le Cool.

And that was pretty much it for the week, but for admin, clerkisms, paperworking, and other things that kill me faster than cigarettes.

Nine Day Week

2009-11-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

For those of you to whom I haven't been talking to incessantly about it, Calling Out Of Context was a nine day festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. It was a festival of sound, emphasising experimentalism and the avant garde. As much as a concept of genre is relevant, every genre was covered, from alternately noted orchestral pieces to audience-collaborations in electronic noise via the playing of trophies with violin bows. Through a random series of lucky events I landed the role of in-house photographer for the duration of the festival. Here are some of my favourite pictures from the nine days and a few thoughts about what I heard.

Saturday 14th

Gravid Hands record label were in the recording studio. The recording studio was one of the best things about the whole festival; every day, for four or five hours, various musicians and bands would record in an open studio, with the public free to enter and leave as they pleased.

Then Teppich did a performance - Sky, Horse & Death - in the lower gallery; it was based around the sounds of airports and commercial flying.

It was an interesting experience; the giant white pyramids were speaks, which various dancers and performers climbed in and out of during the performance.

Afterwards, upstairs Robin Watkins put on a performance involving headsets; I didn't get to listen in unfortunately, but I got some shots beforehand.

The show for that evening was Lucky Dragons. Their recorded stuff doesn't really do them much justice; it's really exciting and energetic, to see how they make music with the people sitting around them, handing out instruments. It makes for an amazing atmosphere. Unfortunately for me, in these situations people generally think the atmosphere is further improved by turning the lights real low..

I resolved to take my tripod and flash with my every day, just in case.

Sunday 15th

In the recording studio today was the ICA's in-house project, The Experiment.

Later, a talk between David Toop and Rhys Chatham, who is a massively interesting person, and whose influence is large beyond measure in many of the things I like to listen to.

Then it was time for bands. Blue Sabbath Black Fiji started things up.

Then the ever-awesome Factory Floor played one of the best sets I've seen them do.

Action Beat chipped in with some of the testosterone noise.

Finally it was time for Rhys Chatham to pick up a guitar and play Guitar Trio, with members of all the previous bands on stage with him. It was pretty good.

Monday 16th

Micachu was in the recording studio; she made some sort of musical instrument out of wood, brass tubes and festival guides..

Then Chocolate Monk performed in the lower gallery, with some guests. It was odd music, more a series of noises brought back from the edge of being completely random by virtue that there were people there controlling them. I didn't quite understand, but I enjoyed the faces they pulled.

Afterwards, Aaron Dilloway, once part of Wolf Eyes, played one of the most astounding sets of music I've ever heard. If you have heard experiment noise music and thought it just sounds like a chaotic mess, go to see one of his shows and watch his performance and how he makes music, and then afterwards it will all make a lot more sense to you.

It was a real highlight of the festival.

Finally, Gravetemple played. Wish a passing interest in Sunn O))) I was interested to see any band with Stephen O'Malley in, but for me Gravetemple were too gothic vocally, and that took a bit from the awesome sound of the guitars. Nice lights though!

Tuesday 17th

I got there a little too late to see Seb Rochford and Drew McConnell in action in the studio, but watched the mix-down; it sounded excellent. All the tracks are available in some form on the ICA website.

The days first performance came from 9!, experimental music from the mind of Eddie Prévost.

Then Seb Rochford played a set with Pemelia Kurstin, who plays theremin. It was very nice sounding, but to be honest I found it all a bit one-paced.

Then Alex Ward and Steve Nobel played; there's a clip of their performance here (not mine). Experimental jazz has a bad reputation featuring beards, turtle-neck sweaters and audio noodles, but these guys were astonishing, utter drama and humour and incredibly easy to listen to and enjoy.

Wednesday 18th

Here's Alexander Tucker in the studio:

The lower gallery and theatre was given over to a combination of pieces by Trond Reinholdtsen and James Beckett with Plus Minus Ensemble and Kämmer Klang in performance. It ranged from experimental notations based on the vital signs of a rabit to avant-garde classical music to trophies being played to comedy projections.

Thursday 19th

Werk Discs were a little shy, but got some good stuff done in the studio.

Downstairs, Lucile Desamory gave a slightly tentative interview about her relationship to music in her films, and three were shown.

The theme for the bands that evening was experimental pop; first were Rude Pravo;

Then Petit Mal;

Then on came The Red Krayola. All older bands seem to have a similar attitude around them - they're not sure if they really want to carry on, but now that they're on stage they might as well. They sang some portraits, with near-identical lyrics, which I thought were pretty funny, but it got a little old by the third time.

Friday 20th

I managed to miss Woebot entirely; they'd finished by five and I was scheduled to arrive in the week at 6. The first performance was from Mira Calix, who did a live production set with a percussion player who played various instruments around the room, nipping through the crowd as and when stopwatches demanded.

It nice a nice performance; there's a lot to be said of the sort of performances where the players are in amongst the crowd. It automatically changes the atmosphere of it all, as people try to get out of the way and watch simultaneously. Everyone gets a lot more attentive to their surroundings.

Afterwards AGF did a multimedia performance in the main theatre; I found it interesting noises, but the projections and vocals were not really my cup of tea.

Saturday 21st

Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor was in the studio with session band About. It was nice to see him do something recognisably him - the singing, the song style, the instrumentation - and take it as far as he could within the context of an experimental musical festival.

Overall the weekend was given over to performances and talks relating to Cornelius Cardew. There were talks, with John Tilbury, prominent.

Ultra-Red performed The Cardew Object over both Saturday and Sunday.

And there was a performance of one of Cardew's pieces, during the middle of which I managed to have a coughing fit.

Sunday 22nd

No more recording studio, but ushers from the ICA had been placed at strategic points around the building armed with instruments and instructions on when and how to play, in a performance organised by Jan St Werner called A Series Of Actions.

There were more talks in the theatre and and more performances in the lower gallery;

The festival was closed with a performances finishing A Series of Actions in the main theatre.

And so it ended. It was a massive week for me, in terms of effort and workload - all the pictures were to be delivered the next day for possible press use. In the long term, I don't know if this is a sort of photography I'll ever be able to make a steady living from, but really, thinking like that is not what people who do this sort of thing for a living tend towards. One of the largest arts institutions in the world asked me to be their in-house photographer for a prestige project; that is a huge boost to my ideas of doing my work as art rather than just a technician. What it will lead to next, I have no idea, but certainly it has given me a bit more confidence that I'm doing things the right way and with the right approach; I could have the most clearly thought-through ideas about the hows and why of photography of anyone on the planet, but if nobody could see the ideas at work in the pictures, I'd be failing, and I'm fairly certain this is going ok.

The Countdown

2009-11-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

A delay this week, due to me having started at the ICA covering their Calling Out Of Context season for them; a massive job for me in terms of what it means for my creative output, my career, and as much as anything, intense work-rate and a constantly heightened level of concentration. Knowing what was ahead, I started last week with a trip to my mother's, in Portland in Dorset. There are two brilliant things there, aside from family. The dogs:

Their names are Silver, Dotty and Flint. Portland is a quarry island; most stucco has Portland stone in it. One of the quarries has been opened for carving and sculpture for the past twenty or so years.

I rarely think of things having to be shot in one way or another, but the rocky landscape there with the high contrast of all the shadows and edges lends itself so well to monochrome, it's how I generally end up processing those shots. Here's the cliffs and the spit:

Back to London; Thursday saw the launch of feller Le Cooler Max Leonard's book about fixed wheel bikes, called, amazingly, Fixed. He asked me to go along and take some pictures...

Afterwards I was off to Punk where A Rebours was DJing. I do not like Punk, as for me it encapsulates everything that's bad about East London, bottles it up, and sells it to foolish folks out for some fashionable culture in the City. I went along for moral support as much as anything; the moment I got there drunken idiots were asking me to take their picture. Here are some drunken idiots:

I do not know any of these people. I have found a hidden benefit of using a Quantum battery with my flash; when people pester me to take their pictures, I fire so many bright flashes in their eyes that they eventually wilt and run away. I have not yet caused an epileptic fit but it can only be a matter of time.

Friday Emperor Machine played at Corsica Studios, one of the best venues in London; I was shooting for Slutty Fringe.

It served as a decent warm up for my ICA assignment; next post will be on Monday, with the whole 9 days of Calling Out Of Context (hopefully) covered.

Defrenzy

2009-11-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

Halloween is the best thing. People dress up for the sake of dressing up. It's difficult to work that night though; I'd rather be in the crowd, with friends. Here's Cargo on a Saturday night.

Afterwards I saw two police running down the road, one was saying into their radio "how can we find someone in a Halloween mask?" or words to that effect.

Monday I ended up in Tottenham, in a boxing gym behind a building I did judo in when I was a child. I was there to take pictures of Hannah Beharry, a young lady who fights, for a friends magazine project.

Ahh boxing, reportage - has to be monochrome really doesn't it? There's probably a law or an ancient statute or something.

Tuesday I ended up sitting in the Radio One building, waiting for Annie Mac, to get a portrait for Le Cool. The shot had been delayed a few times and when it came down to it I had about five minutes to get it. She wasn't a particularly chatty lady, and that rather defused my annoyance at having to wait. Doesn't she know who I am??

Thursday I got to take some nice pictures of music for Slutty Fringe. I appreciate more and more being able to develop my own sort of style with these things. They're a very excellent organisation, and on Thursday had set me up to take pix of Anti-Pop Consortium.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to improve my skills shooting things that I'm not always completely familiar with; I suppose ultimately I'd like to be able to shoot anything and everything perfectly, so far as there can be a perfection with photography. I'm also very aware that it's completely and utterly impossible to do that. I feel though that the attempt will improve my photography, and every time I take a better picture than I have before, it makes me happy for days.

Friday was a rush day; first taking my father to the airport to get him off to NZ - the first time he's been out of Europe, and he was shaking at the departure gates. Then off to A Rebour Live, another night put on by Reece but this time with live music. Here's Stavin' Chains. They're nice boys and they make a racket.

There was more stuff but right now I have to rush off to Dorset. Next week: more!

The Temporality of Excellence

2009-10-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

After an 8 hour editing session all through Saturday night, Sunday found me at Photophilia 2, an invite-only shooting event for models, stylist and clothes designers who otherwise might have trouble getting all the people and props in the same place at the same time.

Monday and Tuesday, I found myself in Norfolk.

Wednesday starts with a shoot with Margarita Zafrilla Olayo, a Spanish dancer. We have three locations - Canary Wharf, Wood Green High Street, and Hampstead Heath. I'm enjoying working with dancers and hope to arrange more shoots like this, combining my knowledge of fashion lighting with live performance photography.

Afterwards I was off to the Roundhouse for the Dice Club Emerging Proms. Although I got there too late for Stavin' Chains, I saw my band-of-the-year Wild Palms, and Infinity, a one-off group made of members of S.C.U.M., Ipso Facto, Proxy Music and Bo Ningen.

Thursday started with a portrait of Tariq Goddard, for Le Cool.

Afterwards I was off to A Rebours

Friday was the last TransKabaret Maxximus; a transvestite performance night put on by the excellent Ryan Styles and Johnny Woo, at Resistance Gallery. I'm glad to have been to them all.

Ups And Downs

2009-10-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get over worked-up when things go right and too miserable when things go wrong. The week got off to a good start - shooting a portrait of the legendary go-go dancer and all-round lovely lady Trixy Malicious, for Le Cool.

Then it was off to the Bizarre Ball, as official photographer for Lucha Britannia. I took about 2000 shots... rather than show you the approximate 300 shots I was happy with, here's ten that made me smile.

Sunday started off with some more Badger Badger stuff at Notting Hill Arts Club.

Then I was off to the Spiro Ark for the opening of Ruth Sallon's exhibition.

Monday started with a portrait of Imogen Heap for Le Cool.

Then off to get another Le Cool portrait, this time Heidi Heelz, of Dice Club fame, to help promote her forthcoming event at the Roundhouse.

Then I was off to the Scala to shoot the No Age gig for Slutty Fringe.

Tuesday evening started with a Slutty Fringe conker competition at the Queen Of Hoxton.

I had been asked at short notice to cover another No Age gig that night, with the hope of getting my pictures into NME. I did, but the fuckers didn't credit me.

Thursday, I had a shoot lined up, a test with Hannah Logic that I hoped would go well enough to pitch to magazines. As it happens, just about everything that could go wrong did, and with the models recalled by their agency having complained about unprofessionalism, the only thing I could do is take some quick shots of my roving gang of lesbians - the stylist, her friend, and my assistant.

In the evening I had a hastily rearranged shoot with Dead Kids Mike Title, who needed some shots for publicity purposes. When he got the pix back, he didn't like em, so Thursday was officially Double Shoot Fail Day.

Friday work started with a shoot for Girls Girls Girls, a performance piece to be done at Act Art in a few weeks.

Then I was off to Fangtasia at Resistance Gallery.

Generations

2009-10-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday and it was down to Worthing for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. It was a good chance to get a bunch of the Medwell clan together; it's fairly rare, as we all live in different parts of the country. It was the first time I'd seen my grandmother for a while; she seemed in good spirits, and I think she enjoyed the occasion, although after a few hours she went off to watch tv in her living room.

Monday, I shot a portrait of David Carter, who has a small boutique hotel called 40 Winks. In one of those curious twists of fate, it turned out that my stepfather, James Mortimer (an interior photographer) was a good friend of his. The world grows larger and smaller by the day.

Tuesday was one of those days that makes my head spin; while I've taken a few celebrity portraits with no fuss, taking pictures of the musical heroes of my youth leaves my dizzy. For about three years when I was in my late teens, I collected every release DJ Vadim touched. I went to his house to do a portrait, for lecool. Naturally, he'd had three hours sleep, having landed from NY only a few hours before I arrived, and was dazed and perhaps a little grouchy when he found me waiting in his living room...

Wednesday I did a promotional shoot for Missy Macabre. I originally met her through her act with Lucha Britannia.

After that I did some promotional shots for Rock And Roll Expressionists, a group exhibition coming up at Resistance Gallery featuring Tom Spencer and Vince Ray, among others..

Friday I had a meeting with Marga, the dancer and curator of the Queen's Elms show I covered recently. She is eager to do a shoot with me so we went to Queen's Woods near Crouch End to try some things out..

Coming up: Saturday, Bizarre Ball; Sunday, more Badger drumming; next week - Imogen Heap, No Age, Dead Kids, Fashion Shoot, Fangtasia.. busy much yeah?

Portable Lightning

2009-10-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

The significance of equipment is impossible to overstate. It is of course possible to take as good a photograph with a bad 35mm film camera as it is with a top-of-the-range DSLR, but ultimately what good equipment does it raise your strike-rate dramatically, even if often quality drops with new equipment as the photographer is required to learn how to best use them. I began this week with a single Canon 580EX ii flash unit, with a 5m off-camera sync lead. Nowhere were the limitations of this system more apparent than on Saturday night, trying to wind my way between trees to take pictures of horses, avoiding branches and hoping the unit powered up quickly enough from its batteries while the horse stayed still long enough to get the photo I wanted.

The shots came out well enough, but for a while, maybe years, I've been formulating a technique for shooting that requires faster directional lighting with more control. The background to my photography training runs like this: about five years ago, I was offered the chance to assist a photographer called Takashi Kamei, as a means to learning about how to take pictures, having never studied. We worked well together, and I am proud of the work we have done and continue to do, and that I have been able to help him somewhat in the progression of his career - I operate more as a lighting and shoot director now, with a team of other assistants also helping me out. Takashi is both a very patient man and a masterful photographer, who knows exactly what he wants from a shoot before he starts, and I have learnt many things, especially about shooting with a combination of strobe and continuous lighting. For a year, on his recommendation, I also assisted another Japanese photographer, Mari Sarai. As well as fashion, Mari shoots a lot of celebrity and music portraits for fashion magazines, and has a very different approach to shooting, full of energy, shooting very quickly. Working with her was hard, but I learnt a lot about how to handle models and subjects, and it was also the first time I came across Quantum flash batteries.

As I thought more recently about how to shoot set-up shots, I decided that the best possible way I could honour the pedigree of my training and develop my own individual style would be to try to combine their two styles into one of my own. To this end - shooting on location with rapid flash units and utilising as much natural light in the shots as possible. The first step to this is to get more equipment, so I ordered a second flash unit (as they can operate and be controlled from the back of the camera completely wirelessly) and a Quantum Turbo 2X2, which is capable of powering two flashes at once.

Perhaps it was just that I was particularly relaxed after a night in the woods, but I hit Sunday's assignment, taking pictures at alternative performance night Kinky Salon, like a dervish.

Tuesday and I was still waiting for them, but deadlines are deadline, and so I shot this portrait of Paul A. Young for lecool:

Talk about dream jobs; he makes chocolate for a living, and has a chain of shops across London. He also has an interesting-looking book out.

In the evening, I had been invited to the opening of The Queens' Elm, once a pub and now a four-floor art gallery. A friend from The Lady Greys was dancing there, and I got some shots of the performances, art and bits of bobs I saw there.

The rest of the week was mostly filled with meetings and the like; on Friday though, Dead Kids had asked me if I could come down to their show to take some pictures for them. It was at St. Moritz, a small venue in Soho that I don't particularly enjoy, but there were some fun japes beforehand.

Yup, inside-out eyelids and screaming girls. On to the show..

The band are all friendly to me and are one of the most energetic bands I've seen play recently, and I always leave their shows feeling a little bruised and tired.

Tonight: Resistance Gallery punkstep? Or maybe a less hectic night - I'm under the weather. Tomorrow: my gran's 90th birthday party. Then a week of busy - two portraits, including with one of my musical heroes, fashion shoot casting, surrealness with a freaky performer, and a voodoo go go dancer. Then the Bizarre Ball on Saturday. And I get to play with my new lights some more.. oh yes.

And Relax.

2009-10-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday was back at Cargo; again, French Horn Rebellion who I'd seen a couple of days previous, joined by The Chap, who were impressive, and another band who didn't make much of an impression. I hadn't heard The Chap before, and was pleasantly surprised by the energy they put into their show.

It was a fun night. The rest of the week was dominated by two cancelled jobs, so I found myself less busy than I have been. Whereas a few weeks back I would have found something else to do, this week I needed to kick back a bit and take it a little easy. Wednesday I shot a portrait of Matthew Killick for lecool, to help publicise his exhibition.

Thursday was Skill Wizard, a night put on by Invasion guitarist Marek. The headline act was Insect Warfare. It was a lot more fun for having had a few relaxing days before.

It was the sort of night where I saw the other photographers hiding by the side of the stage and gave thanks for my height and bulk, although at one point a crowdsurfer grabbed my lens and I had to put him down. I would like it if I could make some sort of living from these sorts of photographs, but in the meantime, I have other exciting projects on the go, and perhaps doing it for a job would make it less fun.

No Pain No Gain

2009-09-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday found me celebrating the end of summer at the Summer Sunset festival, on the site of what was once the Glade festival until the landowner got fed up with 5000 ravers getting wasted in his woods and decided he'd rather have 500 of his nearest-and-dearest dance the Autumn in around a tiny stage amongst the trees by his lake. It was fun, with everything laid on. I loved Festismall. Good ideas don't have to cost a lot of money.

Those guys at the end are the Badger Badger crew, who had taken me along with them to document the event. They're an excellent bunch.

Tuesday took me to something a little different: an online art performance by Justin Allen of Switch Performance, whose body-based performance was to suture his mouth shut and observe an hour of silence in an Arts Council-funded project. Although I was mostly in charge of holding the video camera which was streaming it live (a slightly daunting experience, as I'm not used to working with moving image - the main difference I found was having to think about framing one step ahead of things happening).

Wednesday I shot some promo pix for a band called Speak And The Spells. They're regulars at Dice Club, which is where I first met them, and it seemed like a good chance to do a no-stress shoot for a bunch of nice guys. So down to Richmond it was, to try to catch deer and make some dudes look neat.

Afterwards a friend had use of a car for the evening so it was off to Kent to take photographs of industry around Gravesend.

I'd been speaking about my photography to one of the few people who's opinion I take seriously the day before; they'd suggested landscapes were one of my stronger suits, and although I'm not sure how I could ever make that style into something I could earn a living from, it always leaves me satisfied, to take pictures of something that is there for anyone to see, but still put my own style onto it.

Thursday I was on assignment for Slutty Fringe again - this time at Legion, where French Horn Rebellion, Drums Of Death and We Have Band were playing. I was fairly exhausted - my schedule has been slightly overwhelming the past few weeks, and people keep wanting their shots asap for press etc. (something I suspect I'll just have to learn to deal with) and I wasn't on my best form.

Friday - I'd been asked to shoot a birthday party, and a tattoo convention, but I spent the evening in front of the computer, waiting to hear from people and trying to catch my breath. An afternoon trip to Kew Gardens, to walk on the treetop walkway, certainly helped.

Tomorrow - Cargo. Tuesday - Miriam Elia's comedy gig. Thursday - Emily Grive then Skill Wizard. No doubt a ton of other things will come up at last minute as well..

Direction, and other impossibilities.

2009-09-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday saw me heading to the O2 for a a night of scratchin', hip-hoppin', and duckin' under and around tv crews filming the 25th DMC Championships. I would not say that I am the biggest hip hop fan in the world, but there was a time when I relentlessly collected Mo' Wax releases, knew all the words to every song on Step In Da Arena and wore particularly baggy jeans. It was a good feeling to do the job; I got it on recommendation, it was a prestege event (particularly because it was their silver anniversary) and I was the only snapper given a stage pass. I tried to make best use of it, but there is a certain limit to how much you can do with pictures of guys touching records. It was great to see up close though - I don't know if any video in the world would truly show just how fast Q-Bert can make his hands move.

That last one is DJ Shiftee, winner on the night. Not a controversial decision, but in my opinion, DJ Coma (2nd shot down) gave a more entertaining performance. But what do I know..

Monday saw me heading to Tesco HQ for a shoot with Ken Hom, for their packaging, PR and press divisions. He said I was one of the best photographers (on set) that he'd worked with. Oh boy. Maybe he'd disagree if he saw this picture.

He was a real nice guy. His favourite Chinese dish is Peking Duck.

What was going to be a busy busy week turned into a slightly quieter week, as shoot after shoot was rebooked or cancelled - of course, I always get that call when I'm halfway to them. These things happen; at the moment I have three books in my camera bag for such eventualities. Luckily Syban came over to save me from going camera-crazy and taking pictures of blank walls, ants, rubbish in the street..

She's still crazy.

Friday was time for Fangtasia at Resistance Gallery, a theme night based on True Blood. There was a spectacular performance from Santa Gasolina and I was well pleased to see some faces I hadn't seen for a while. It was a good end to a good week.

Perhaps the best thing that happened this week was being contacted by the ICA; I'm to be their official photographer for a 9-day festival they're holding in November. I'm massively excited and can't wait. First things first though; tomorrow I'm off to the Summer Sunset festival. I'd promised myself "no more festivals!" but then they mentioned 20 people salsa dancing while dressed as badgers, how could I say no?