Father Dagon: A Review

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been following the preparations for Victoria Snaith’s Dread Falls Theatre production of “Father Dagon”, an H.P. Lovecraft-inspired, immersive multidisciplinary storytelling theatrical event. I took some shots at the dress rehearsal a couple of  Sundays ago, and on the next Wednesday evening at 7pm, attended the first night’s opening performance.

I will say at the outset that I felt that it would be difficult for me to give an unbiased, impartial or objective review, for the following, conflicting reasons:

1) I have been in touch with Victoria, and Will Connor, DFT’s musical director, for several weeks leading up to the event, and so have had access to rehearsal schedules, news on progress (both breakthroughs and challenges), and some idea of the characters that would be portrayed in the production. I felt invested in the whole project, and could almost double-guess what the spectacle would be (how wrong I was!).

2) I have long been a reader and fan of Lovecraft’s canon of work, and that of his contemporaries and others that followed later, creating what is now known as the Cthulhu or Lovecraftian mythos. I am particularly familiar with the two stories that this production would draw its inspiration from, “Dagon” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth”. I imagined, in my naivety, that this foreknowledge would hold me in good stead in understanding the unfolding experience. Fool.

3) I’m not really into all this experimental immersive dancing and music stuff, I’m more of a linear visual and narrative guy (this possibly explains why I’m a photographer, artist and writer). Theatre, acting, dance, music, video, and film are all wonderful nouns. Immersive, experimental, alternative, expressive, conceptual, modern and contemporary are beautiful adjectives too. But in my book, the two sets of words should never, *ever* be combined. I was therefore doomed from the start – and points 1) and 2) were effectively negated. What horror had I let myself in for? As Lovecraft himself said, and which was the strapline for the production itself: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” But then again, running these concepts all together in a Lovecraftian context, maybe this might work…

I wasn’t terribly reassured by the dress rehearsal, which was held in an open-plan school gymnasium in West London, selected because its dimensional footprint matched that of the actual venue. Without the dividing walls between performance areas (masking tape had been laid on the floor to guide the actors), it was a confusing sight, with actors and dancers apparently moving around randomly, some talking, some muttering to themselves, others dancing, or fighting, and over all this the strange, discordant, improvised and pre-recorded noises that would accompany the performances. Power, comms and pickup cables snaked across the floor connecting islands of random objects, some of which resembled a beachcomber’s collection (Andrew Page – raxil4‘s stringed instrument, left), while  Anton Mobin‘s decks looked like a strange blend of crystal radio set, Victorian flea circus, and wartime Enigma cipher machine. Will Connor (Seesar), stranded in New York, was coordinating the musical effort remotely, having pre-recorded his acoustic elements. Surrounded by this demented carousel, Victoria Snaith directed, banging out the tempo on the polished wooden floor with a stout cane. After an hour, my assistant (eldest son) and I exchanged a wordless glance, and packed away our photographic equipment.

But enough of this ennui of caveats and misgivings: let’s get on with this attempt at an objective review of the opening night’s early performance:

After a quick reviver at the “Pride of Spitalfields”, I wandered down to the “Rag Factory”, a now-disused textile warehouse just off Brick Lane in East London. I’m familiar with it from previous events (Models of Diversity’s “THE FЯONT ROW”), and therefore was prepared for  the grimy, run-down look of the cobbled entrance to this old, Victorian-era sweatshop (very apposite for the subject matter). What I hadn’t expected was the newly-added tables and benches outside, and the pagoda tents to protect drinkers and smokers from the elements. The glass-fronted foyer was inviting, with a well-appointed bar with friendly staff. The walls were hung with suitably-themed photographic and art prints –  all for sale. It’s just a shame that the promised Cthulhu- and Dagon-themed sculptures and artifacts were not available – would you believe it, they’d been seized inbound at Customs on suspicion of being illegally-looted ancient Mayan or Aztec archaeological treasures! That our Customs officers wouldn’t recognise cast resin from ancient stone doesn’t surprise me, but it helped with the Lovecraftian conspiracy theories, especially when you consider that Will Connor, musical director and erstwhile performer, was still stranded in New York, unable to get a visa for travel back to the UK for the performances.

A bell announced the beginning of the show, and after a brief prologue by the narrator/novelist, the audience were invited to enter the performance area. This was divided into rooms separated either by solid walls, partitions, or black drapes, and I recognised the designations from the masking-taped gym floor: there was the novelist’s study, there the old church (now the Temple of the Esoteric Order of Dagon), over here a room in a house in benighted Innsmouth, and beyond, the quay or dockside. Interconnecting these sets, or performance areas, was a maze constructed from torn strips of black drapery – representing, I think, the maze of alleys in the old town.

The audience were encouraged to follow a character, or characters, of their choice as the story unfolded. There were at least three story arcs, which each looped three times, before they all converged on the finale. The idea was that you could switch from arc to arc and see the story from each perspective, although as I can clearly remember seeing one scene three times, I must have missed another entirely!

It is true that there was less narrative storytelling than I am used to, but that is possibly no bad thing, as the intention was obviously to create a disturbing confusion in the audience, a sense of disquiet and apprehension. It certainly achieved that effect. Lovecraft himself rarely described his horrors blatantly, prefering to hint at them, suggesting rather than revealing – his works are peppered with stock references to “remote secrets and unimaginable abysses in time and space”, and “unknown and inhuman evil”. He reserved his incredibly-detailed prose descriptions for scene-setting and architecture in particular – I don’t think I’ve read any of his stories that didn’t fit in some description of a gambrel roof or a gable! Director Victoria Snaith instead positioned visual clues around the set to provide  some narrative hooks – the novelist’s beautiful old mechanical typewriter with a page inserted (titled “The Shadow over Dunwich”, a combination of two of his story titles that directly reference each other – early draft, or a reminder to us not to look for any single source for the story?), scattered notes, books, postcards pinned to walls, pendants, ornaments, bric-a-brac… some were used by the cast, others were there for the audience. At times it was difficult not to wonder whether you were reading too much into something – deliberate visual clue or mannerism/accident? At one point the novelist or narrator sat at his typewriter desk, one trouser leg up, the other down. Are we being told that Lovecraft was a Freemason? In TSOI, the Esoteric Order of Dagon replaced Freemasonry in Innsmouth, and took over the local Masonic Hall… or did actor Jake Harders just catch the cloth against the chair whilst sitting down?

And then there was the music. That music that had sounded so dissonant and cacophonous in the open environs of the school gym… now it was incredible. Obviously, it was still a dissonant cacophony, but in its correct setting and context, it carried the story along. It provided the auditory cues to cast and audience alike, just at the periphery of hearing, suggesting the ebb and flow of tides, storms, cascades, rain on cobbles, creaking doors, distant shuffling, muttering and globby gibbering, the Gaussian hiss of the chaos hinted at in the interstellar gulf (I’m getting carried away here). The audience’s sense of oppressive malignancy was heightened, the music articulating their latent feelings of unrest and menace as they watched the players’ descent into madness and horror. The music also served to bracket and carry the dance moves or sequences, which might otherwise have looked somewhat stilted, although they too looked totally different than they had at the dress rehearsal, thanks in part to the excellent use of light and shadow.

Acting, dance, music and stage sets all came together to create the intangible weird horror that is Lovecraft’s Innsmouth… all that was absent was the pervasive smell of fish.

I’m not going to write about the plotline or story, as that was essentially for the audience to deduce or interpret as the performance unfolded. I will, however, write about the characterisations, which included some very nice touches. Jake Harders played the narrator/novelist, who we can assume is Lovecraft,  although his introduction and epilogue indicate that he may also represent the protagonist in TSOI, Robert Olmstead. David Cox played a part which according to my rehearsal notes was described as “The Detective”, but also seemed based on Olmstead, the architecture-obsessed narrator of TSOI. There’s a scene where the two meet, circling each other and mirroring each other’s movements, before Cox cries out “Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?” A case of creation facing his creator?

Robb Wildash played a seaman, who, along with Cox’s detective, falls for the wiles of Kaz Brown’s tempting seductress, one of the Deep Ones, an elder race of half ichthyic/half batrachian “fish-like frogs or frog-like fishes” with human posture, if not gait, trying to lure them away from the dock and onto the black reef and the cyclopean city that lies deep below in the abyss (my interpretation).

In a wonderful piece of casting, Amy Karen Watterston took the role of a mad old lady, wandering the streets of Innsmouth muttering about the hideous secrets in the town. While the detective and the mariner are descending into madness, she’s already there. Snaith has made an inspired scripting decision in choosing to switch Zadok Allen’s homeless alcoholic tramp for an insane crone. It balances the gender mix of the ensemble, and makes for a more plausible plot (what self-respecting deity would be mollified by the sacrifice of a drunken hobo?). Haydn Davis was the cultist, or High Priest of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, who tracks down the mumbling old lady to both silence her, and to offer her as sacrifice to Father Dagon and the Great Old Ones. Davis must have had a ball with this role, hamming it up  (and I use those words in the nicest possible way) in his makeup and cowled robe, putting me in mind of the caped villain in those old black and white silent films, tying the maiden to the railroad tracks…

And whilst on the subject of makeup, I can’t end this review without mentioning the sterling work of designer Suzie Demarco, responsible for makeup and prosthetics. Here’s a wonderful montage of her original design for the Deep One princess, set against a photo I took of Kaz Brown in her latex face mask and skullcap. From concept to execution with barely a change!

So, onto my verdict – I loved it, although “love” probably isn’t the right word – it was more like the frisson of joy and terror I used to get watching Doctor Who as a child from behind the sofa, but more visceral. Victoria Snaith and Dread Falls Theatre struck just the right balance of revelation and suggestion in creating this thought-provoking and eerie show. Just as I had struggled through the maze of black drapes catching glimpses of the cast as they flitted from set to set, I felt that the veil of reality had been lifted, just for a split second, onto the hideous desolate vistas of alien places.

I’m going to give this production 4 stars, and am only holding the last one back, as I heard that DFT made some changes and and alterations in later performance that increased the audience participation and interaction with the cast. This was billed as a “preview show”, so I am hoping that a full series of performances will follow. If so, I’ll be there; if not, I’ll be scanning the media for future spine-tingling Dread Falls Theatre productions!

The ensemble cast: L-R: Haydn Davis, Jake Harders, Kaz Brown, David Cox, Amy Karen Watterston, Robb Wildash, director Victoria Snaith

Norfolk Sunsets, Cloudscapes and Waterscapes

That’s a lot of scapes, isn’t it? I apologise, but we’ve just come back from our summer holiday on a motor launch on the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads. We (two adults, three kids and two dogs) had a brilliant time… 

…but I will say in all honesty that ten days is too long – adults, kids and dogs were getting cabin fever by the end of it – a week would have done nicely, with maybe another week exploring Cromer, Lowestoft, Saxmundham, Southwold and Aldeburgh on dry land. I’ve always wanted to visit Dunwich (my last post may give clues as to why). As it was, after the first five days, beautiful as it was, river progress was slow (3 – 5mph), and it was water, reeds, windmill, more reeds, windmill, water, water, another windmill…

But the light! And the vistas! When I wasn’t piloting, or pumping in water or pumping out ****, I got the chance to capture some lovely sunsets and cloudy skies. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did taking them and looking at the results afterwards:

Father Dagon, Lovecraftian Themes and The Abomination In The Woods…

This month, I have the enjoyable prospect of shadowing the rehearsals and preparations of the Dread Falls Theatre troupe’s production of “Father Dagon”, an H.P. Lovecraft-inspired immersive multidisciplinary storytelling vehicle. My first contact with DFT was with Will Connor, the effusive musical director, who put me in touch with Victoria Snaith, founder and artistic director of Dread Falls. It should be a lot of fun photographing the  dress rehearsals and the live show. I’m also attending a live performance without my cameras, so that I can enjoy the spectacle through my own senses and not from behind a lens!

The plot is being kept a secret, and for all I know (this being performance art) may be fluid and alter according to audience interaction. I’ve got a copy of the rehearsal schedule, and have seen the characters represented, which gives me a bit of a clue, but I shan’t be saying anything until after the live shows.

As a young teenager, I was an avid reader of horror and the supernatural, and buried my head in the books of Lovecraft and his contemporaries, which included August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Robert Bloch, among many others. They freely shared ideas and borrowed from each other, which led to the formulation of the Cthulhu Mythos (or as Lovecraft himself self-deprecatingly described it, “Yog-Sothothery”). I’d read many of Lovecraft’s own influences (Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany), and I think the first horror book I ever read was my father’s battered copy of Algernon Blackwood’s “Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural “. Over the years, I read the works of more modern authors who had written about the same themes – Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Wes Craven, Alan Moore, Brian Lumley, and Colin Wilson. Because of this project I’ve been reviewing a lot of these imprints, and last year I spent six months reading the Complete and Unabridged Works of H. P. Lovecraft, so it’s hardly surprising that when I walk in the forest now, my mind wanders, and my eyes observe things in new, and sometimes macabre ways. I found this nightmare near High Beach in Epping Forest the other day:

(Camera+ iPhone app, ‘faded filter’, ‘dark grit’ border)

“It’s just a tree”, I hear you say. No! It’s an abomination from the outer dimensions, a Great Old One from out of time. It writhes, and I see new horrors in there the longer I look at it…

I see a chubby-faced little girl [1], right down to her dress, entwined in the roots along with an angry-looking boy [2], his arm raised (or an arm – or tentacle – restraining him). I see a disembodied brain [3] with glowing eyes – work of the Mi-Gu? Above that, a canopy of pseodopod tentacles with eyes at the tips [4], and to the left, a monstrous Rhinoceros Beetle-like claw [5]. Waving above that, I discern some alien insectile breathing tubes, with spiracles clearly visible. Thank God I saw that in full daylight, and not in the gloaming of dusk! I would have seen it lumber…

Is it an avatar of Shub-Niggurath? A kissing cousin of The Shaping Tree in David Conyers’ “Five Sisters”?

You may scoff, for you cannot see it. So look at the image below, at my ennumerated annotations above, then back at my original photograph.

See anything now? Or is my mind overstretched, feverishly painting halucinatory detail into mundane scenes for my devilment and torture? Maybe I’ve been overdoing the Lovecraftian mythos…

Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

Tour De France UK 2014

Well, it’s been a while… summer breaks, holidays and all that, and I have a lot of catching up to do, but one memorable event was the Tour De France. The second UK stage was run between Cambridge and Central London, and passed right through Epping Forest, right past my house.

The pub laid on music (including Karaoke, much to my consternation), food, hospitality tents, outside and inside bars, commentary and much else. We had our own Ice Cream van in the front garden! The boys had free ice cream and cans of pop all day, and the cut I got from the ice cream guy for ground rent made up somewhat for the lost day of work (all main and accesss roads were closed, as were local schools).

Here are some shots from the day, annotated where necessary:

Early start, Ice Cream van in place, Corporate Hospitality marquee pagodas set up in the car park…

With the road closed, I’ve never seen it so quiet…

Some pitched up early – not sure about the mixed messages of Union Flags, Tri-colors… and strings of onions? Entente Cordiale welcome or Mickey-take?

…tame indentured slave Ice Cream Seller: check!

Quite aside from the race – and of course the ice creams, the floats showering the crowds with freebies were a highlight of the boys’ day.

With amazing lack of tact, one of my boys called this steward “The Sontaran”…

Disappointingly, BBC live coverage ended at the sprint at Epping, and didn’t pick up again until much closer to the centre of London (despite the chopper being overhead for much of the day), so we at the Robin Hood were missed out… oh well, at least I got footage…

And so, after six or seven hours of waiting, we were about to get a few seconds of cycling history…

Now, I know it looks like I’m standing in the middle of the peloton, splitting the pack and obstructing cyclists, but I assure you I’m not…

…70-300mm zoom lens from the safety of the verge.

Though the expressions on some cyclists faces might lead you to believe otherwise…

There’s always some melonhead leaning out and getting in the shot, though.

And so that’s it for another year… a once in a lifetime opportunity for us – they never run the same routes twice – there’ll be other UK stages, but not through our neck of the woods, and certainly not past our house. I’ll remember the peloton, and the boys will remember ice cream on tap from their personal van… that’ll do.

DSLR Sensor Cleaning – expensive pro job, or easy DIY task? A primer (WARNING: open-heart camera surgery!)

If you own a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, and you have two or more interchangeable lenses, you will no doubt have come across the issue of dust or other crud on your sensor. This is different from dust on your lenses (front or back optics) or on the mirror, in that the marks or blurs will be consistent in their position on your image, from shot to shot. They will normally only be noticeable in areas of common and uniform hue and clarity – specifically the sky in scenery shots, although they often crop up in skin tone when shooting closeups.

Here’s an extreme example from a few years ago, when I gained access to the roof of one of London’s financial institutions, and was able to take panoramic shots of the City:

If it’s not obvious, I’ve highlighted the blemishes here:

But it gets worse than that – you can only see the blemishes in the skyscape. Here’s the true picture, when I took an image of the blank sky:

Nasty, isn’t it? So what can you do about it?

Well, forgetting my extreme example, if you’ve only got a few blemishes to deal with, you might be best off just cleaning your images up with the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop, or the Spot Removal option in Lightroom (or similar options in whatever post-editing program you’re using). But sooner or later, the gack and the fazz will build up on your sensor, and you’re going to have to do something about it. You’re going to have to undertake a sensor clean.

If you read the manual for your camera, you will see that you are recommended to send your precious and costly equipment to the manafacturer, or take it to a manufacturer-approved service centre or retailer, in order to have your sensor cleaned. There are two downsides to this: it will cost a packet, and you will be without your camera for a couple of weeks, while they process your order through the system. When I made enquiries with a well-known camera reseller and repair store in Soho, I was advised that the bill would be in the region of £150 (because they insist on bundling in a mini-service with the sensor clean). I imagine elsewhere it might be anywhere from £80 – £120.

I wasn’t willing to part with that sort of cash, for something I would likely have to repeat every few months – my camera bodies are old and rugged, but get a lot of use and suffer a lot of lens changes, so there’s plenty of scope for sucking in dust and other detritus. So after a bit of research on the Internet, I discovered how to safely clean my CMOS sensors myself – at a cost of a few pounds for the basic kit and consumables, and a cost of pennies per clean.

It’s at this point that some people run away screaming, because this *IS* the camera equivalent of open-heart surgery – you are tampering with the guts of your equipment, and if you damage anything in there, your warranty is null and void. So, if you’re nervous, or cack-handed, or deep-pocketed, you might like to go the Service Centre route. Otherwise, read on, and find out how to save a fortune in camera maintenance. By the way, this is what another blank sky shot looked like after the first sensor clean – still a couple of blemishes in the lower right-hand quadrant, but vastly improved, and not in an area likely to show. A second sensor clean removed those also:

Ready then? This is what you will need:

• A bulb air blower (the type with a tip rather than a brush – available from a camera retailer or online)
• Isopropanol alcohol (available online)
• A plastic atomiser spray bottle (available from chemists, Superdrug or Boots for example)
• Lint-free, non-abrasive wipes (PEC*PAD or similar – available online)
• A plastic clay modelling spatula (available from any craft shop – best to get a selection and find which one works best, and trim to size)
• Some electrical tape or elastic bands (to secure the wipe to the spatula)
• A steady hand and nerves of steel!

Clockwise from bottom left: Generic lint-free wipes, bulb blower, PEC*PADs, atomiser spray bottle, 500ml bottle of Isopropanol, two spatulas (one with wipe attached with electrical tape).

Procedure: Every camera will have its own method of preparing for a sensor clean. Some more modern models will have an automated sensor cleaning process, whereby the sensor is vibrated to shake off dust. Mine don’t – I shoot with a pair of old Canon EOS 20Ds, and my instructions from here on in apply to the Canon EOS range of DSLRs. For Nikon or other manufacturers, refer to the manual for the exact sequence to follow.

Essentially, to get access to the sensor you need to flip the mirror out of the way. In normal operation, the mirror is inline between the sensor and the lens, and only moves out of the way as you depress the shutter button. This implies that the function of moving the mirror out of line is a powered operation. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: You MUST ensure that power is maintained while you do this – either use a mains adapter to maintain power throughout the process, or insert a proven, fully-charged battery. The last thing you want is for the mirror to flip back out and trap the spatula against the sensor, or damage the electro-mechanical servos. This is the menu option on my cameras:

This first step is a precautionary one and may save you having to touch the sensor at all – we are going to use the bulb blower and try and blow the dust off. Turn the camera fully on (NOT Standby mode) and engage “sensor clean” mode (you’ll hear the mirror flip out). Romove the lens or body cap. You should be able to see the sensor clearly, as below:

Holding the camera with the lens mount and aperture facing down, raise it above your face (so you can see what you are doing) and use the bulb blower to flush out any loose dust. Get in close to the sensor but make sure you don’t touch it (actually, you can’t touch it – the sensor is protected by a glass screen, and it is that which we are trying to avoid scratching or abrading in all these procedures). Still keeping the camera horizontally aligned, replace the body cap, put the camera down cap-first and power it down (you’ll hear the mirror jump back). Leave it for a few minutes for any dust to settle in the cap, then remove the cap and refit the lens (clean out the cap with a wipe). Take a shot of a clear sky or brightly lit blank wall at a small aperture (high f/number), and see if the blemishes are gone (use your editing software to scan the entire image). If you are lucky, all will be fine, and we are done. More likely however is that there are still some marks that haven’t shifted, and we have to proceed with the full clean.

Find a spatula that approximates the size of your sensor in one or other of its planes. You are going to swipe the sensor in one constant movement, either left-right, right-left, top-bottom or bottom-top, with no return stroke, then exit the camera body without touching the mirror or any other component. The width of the head of the spatula should be slightly smaller than the sensor plane you will be swiping. You may need to cut the spatula head down to size, if so, be sure to use emery paper to smooth any edges.

Decant some of the Isopropanol alcohol into the atomiser bottle and test that it sprays OK. Carefully fold a lint-free non-abrasive wipe and attach it to the spatula with electrical tape or an elastic band. The wipe should follow the shape of the spatula closely, and cover it completely. Spray the covered spatula head with Isopropanol – it should be damp but not soaking – you want the dust to adhere to the swab, but not for any alcohol to drip inside the camera.

Again, power up the camera (mains adapter preferred, or a fully charged battery) and enter “sensor clean mode”. You will hear the mirror jump back. Remove the lens and put it asidewith a rear cap attached.

Apply the wipe-covered spatula head to your chosen start point on the sensor, and swipe across in a single movement before lifting and retreating. Don’t stab at it, just a single sweeping movement with a fair amount of pressure – as if you were scribing heavily with a pencil on paper.

This line drawing may be clearer as to the movement:

Reattach the lens and power down the camera to bring the mirror back to its normal position. And that’s it! take a test shot as before, and hopefully your sensor will be as clean as, or cleaner than, this!

I hope that you have found this article useful, and I’d be grateful for any comments or opinions on this procedure. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is nervous about damaging their equipment, but let me put it in financial perspective. The kitlist above put me back about £30 (100 x PEC*PADs were £15 – I’ve since found that I can use beauticians nail bar wipes at £1.50 for 200). Assuming that I’ve needed to clean the sensors on both my cameras every six months over the last five years, that’s about £3 per procedure (and I’ve got lots of wipes and Isopropanol left over). I’ve saved myself at least £1,000 against professional camera service centre charges. That, to me, is a no-brainer!

Save the Bikers’ Tea Hut!

This breaking news interrupts my scheduled blog post, which was to be about DSLR sensor cleaning… some other time!

This is a shout-out for help to all my readers, wherever you may be. Do you enjoy drinking tea or coffee out of polystyrene cups or chipped china mugs? Does the smell of bacon & egg sarnies make your mouth water? Do you appreciate a refuge in your wanderings in woodlands/forests? Are you a motorcyclist, mountain biker, rambler, jogger, horse rider, dog walker? If so please click on the links above or below and sign the petition.

The Tea Hut at Crossroads, between the Robin Hood roundabout and High Beach in Epping Forest has been in place and under the management of the same family for 84 years, making it probably the oldest continuously-run tea hut in the UK. It is a meeting point for bikers and classic car enthusiasts the world over. The Corporation of the City of London – who manage Epping Forest – have, in their wisdom and greed for profits after their realisation of what they could spin from the London Olympics, decided to rescind the operating license and hold it to auction as a franchise to the highest bidder. This cannot be allowed to happen – this is a cultural and community hub known all over the globe, not to mention the livelihood of the people that manage and operate the site. Please take time to sign the petition and spread the word – we have the support of two local MPs and 7,500 signatories already, but need 10,000 to present the issue before Parliament… thank you.

       

Ballgowns (well, not exactly) in the Woods, Part II

My last post (“Ballgowns in the Woods, Part I”) was about a photoshoot with model and actor Samantha Tomlin, decked out in ballgowns, and shot in the forest. We didn’t quite finish due to time constraints, and rescheduling our diaries has been problematic, but finish it we did, in the second week in June. It was sunny, and bright, and very, very hot. Ballgowns weren’t really appropriate for the weather (we’d originally planned this for early spring), so I suggested to Sam that she find a brightly-coloured summer dress, and I think she came up trumps!

Our first location was a reprise of the end of the last shoot, at The Church of the Holy Innocents at High Beach. There were a couple of shots I’d wanted to capture before, but now reassessed in light of the costume changes. I had in mind a Mary Quant/1960s Mod look, and also deliberately referenced the opening credits of “The New Statesman” (replacing Big Ben with the steeple, and B’Stard with Sam). When we got back from the shoot, I heard on the news that Rik Mayall had died. Sad coincidence.

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

In this shot I desaturated the red and green channels, giving an almost (but not quite) monochrome effect to the background and to Sam’s skin, whilst maintaining the vibrancy of the dress. In the next I went with full colour, but angled the shot diagonally as well as shooting from below.

Our next port of call was a lovely footpath through the forest, winding down from High Beach to the golf courses. At least it had been last summer, with vivid green moss and russet lichens on the tree bark. They were still there, but now there was the litter. As we pulled up the car in the layby and started walking through the gap in the verge, I spotted cans, bottles, soiled nappies strewn around, and worse still, a used condom hanging off a branch at eye level! I quickly turned Sam around and led her down the hill to a more convivial ingress point onto the path, hoping that she hadn’t seen anything… I think I got away with it.

We’d picked up a prop from the Thai restaurant and pub next door before we left – a small wooden bird cage with a little fat Robin inside. Unfortunately, the little taxidermied fellow kept hanging upside down from his perch – which I temporarily remedied with some long-nosed pliers on his perch wires! It was a bit of a balancing act though, and we had work quickly.

…and then it was off to our next location – Strawberry ponds, a couple of closely-situated waters off a common bridle path.

The following shot didn’t really work: I wanted Sam framed by the curving bough, and it’s reflection in the water – I wanted to call this “Beauty in The Eye of the Beholder”, but the distance is too great, and the subject too small, to engage the viewer. But I’m including it so you can see what I was attempting…

This reflection (at full 300mm zoom) worked better:

And then it was time for our last location, the highlight of this shoot – The Swamp. A magical, sylvan place, it almost defies description, and is best left to visual imagery. Although just a matter of paces away from the larger of the two Strawberry ponds, it might as well be in Narnia, or Westeros, or somewhere between Wart Creek, Duloc and Far Far Away. There is no path, you just have to feel your way there through the undergrowth. When the bushes finally part, you are faced with a black mere speckled with duckweed, broken up by mossy tree boles forming islands. The swamp is framed by groves of giant ferns. The moss islands are interconnected by log bridges, which Sam navigated like a nervous faun:

And that was the wrap. Four locations, all within a mile of each other, the whole shoot completed in an hour and a half. I had a great time, and I think Samantha enjoyed herself too. I hope you like the resultant images also.

On a final note: when checking my equipment before the shoot, I took some test shots, and noticed a lot of blurry marks on the lighter parts of the images – bright skies, especially. This is indicative of dust and other muck on the camera’s sensor, and necessitated the gut-wrenching prospect of a full sensor clean. I’ll go into the details, and options thereof, in my next blog post…

Ballgowns in the Woods, Part I

In a previous post some time back – Winter sun… and opportunities for interesting landscapes (and model shoots) – I mentioned a chance to photograph model and actor Samantha Tomlin slightly outside her comfort zone – the “Frocks in the Forest” project. It’s been a long time in the offing – due to poor weather and diary clashes, but we finally pulled it off in early April (Part I at least – we ran out of time, storage cards and costume changes. Part II will follow shortly). It almost didn’t come off – at the eleventh hour I discovered there was a family funeral on the same day. Not immediate or close family, so I wasn’t required to attend, but it was also the half term holidays, and did mean tramping off to the shoot with model, equipment, make-up, costume changes, three kids and two dogs in tow!

Here’s a small selection of pictures from the day. I’ll let the images speak for themselves, unless I have any specific and relevant information about the shot.

N.B. We never did find a horse.

 

A bit creepy, this one. but I like it.

 

This is my favourite image from that shoot. It was a bright, sunny, midday shot, and the shadows from the leaf canopy of the tree broke it up nicely.

 

This is what I call the “Tim Burton’s ‘Corpse Bride’ shot. It’s technically flawed, in that the white’s of the dress are blown out and over-exposed. but the browns and greens of the stones are superb. Samantha wanted a ghostly look, and I think we achieved that.

Oh, and just for the record, here’s the boys and dogs, looking rather bored:

How I got to shoot Wilko Johnson, and discovered gig photography… (Part II)

In my last post I wrote about how a figurative re-aquaintance with the guitar legend Wilko Johnson got me interested to try out gig photography. With only a few concerts under my belt, I’m certainly no old hand at this, so treat the following observations and comments as just being my opinion – your experiences may, and probably will, vary.

Wilko Johnson, Live at Koko, October 2013

The first thing that I will say is that it is hard work, before you can get anywhere near the stage. Are you allowed to photograph at the venue? At a lot of places, the answer will be no (despite all the people waving smartphones around and pinging their on-phone flash, which only serves to highlight the heads of those immediately in front of them). The best course is to apply for a photopass, but to do that, you have to know who to apply to – it could be the band, their management, promoters, or the venue itself – it all varies. Once you’ve identified the source of a photopass, you then have to lay out a case of why you should be granted one – you have to sell yourself. Often – and especially with established acts – you will only be approved for a pass if you are an established music photographer with a known track record, or represent a music publication (in which your images will appear) known to and approved by the management/promoter. In my case, my first photo gig at Koko was only possible because I knew the promoter, and even then I had to explain that I wanted to develop my portfolio and had no specific route to market for the resultant images. I winged it on that one. At another gig, part of Norman Watt-Roy‘s tour promoting the launch of his solo album “Faith and Grace”, I found myself in a pitch-black room under a pub where the stage filled a third of the available space – no photopass there, as there was no security barrier, and I had to take my chances with everybody else. At the Watford Oceana last December, I’d been assured a pass, but when I arrived no-one there knew anything about it. It is normally a nightclub, so the raised stage where the DJs normally play was where the bands performed – no security barriers here either. A polite chat with the Stage Manager got me permission to get back- and side-stage access, and a pass to the VIP lounge where I could shoot the bands from above, albeit through glass (but thankfully jostle-free).

Nine Below Zero, Watford Oceana, December 2013

Another normal caveat for photopasses is that you are only allowed to take photographs in the photopit in front of the security barriers for the first three songs of each act’s set. Believe me, this is a good thing. Not only does this limit the time you and other photographers are irritating the audience and Security alike, but while you’re taking photos, you’re not hearing the music (and if you’ve got any sense at all, you’ll be wearing earplugs). You’re seeing everything through the viewfinder, you’re hot, you’re sweaty, you’re moving about constantly to get the shots and to avoid being cockblocked (excuse the vulgarity, but it’s apt) by other photographers. Three songs from each set should be fine, unless you know in advance that the performer(s) have a signature device in any particular song.

Whilst talking about etiquette in the pit, here’s a couple more: find a spot, take your shots, and move on. There are one or two sweet spots in every pit, and everyone wants a chance to shoot from them – so don’t block. Your photopass gives you access to a privileged area; it does not give you any privileges within that area. Once you’re in there, make the most of your allocated time – don’t keep clambering in and out over the barriers – nothing is more certain to irritate both Security and the general public.

Once out, I’d advise that you you don’t stray too far, if it’s a crowded venue and you’ve got another timeslot coming up. Pushing your way through crowds with cameras swinging and a backpack on will not only annoy others, but get you hot, stressed out and distracted. Carry some water with you and limit your roaming to when you are actually shooting.

The main challenges in gig photography are low light, changing light, fast-moving subjects and extraneous objects.

Low light: this is a given, in that it’s probably an enclosed, darkened venue with only parts of the stage lit at any given time. This calls for a high ISO setting (which will introduce grain), a slow shutter speed (long exposure), and a wide aperture (low f/number), or all three – but only two are likely to be feasible (see below).

Sometimes high grain is necessary, and can work well

Norman Watt-Roy at The Vic, Swindon, November 2013

Changing light: strobes, spots and lasers may well be flicking around the stage, and being turned on and off, so the light intensity and colour will be changing constantly, so unless you want to be changing the White Balance (colour temperature) and aperture all the time, you’ll probably want to address this in post-editing in Photoshop or Lightroom. Also bear in mind that the strange colours and hues that you will capture in-camera can lift an otherwise uninteresting shot.

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Fast-moving subjects: unless you’re photographing a string quartet, your subjects are likely to be jumping around the stage, so you’re going to need a faster shutter speed. This flies in the face of the advice for low light conditions, so you’re going to have to do a trade-off. Flashguns and tripods are a no-no, so you’re going to have to compensate for camera movement and rapid movement some other way – don’t even think about resting your camera on a speaker or the edge of the stage – the vibration will be appalling. If you have a fast lens, set it to the lowest aperture setting and start increasing the shutter speed until your results start looking unacceptably underexposed. So we’re down to high ISO, wide aperture, variable shutter speed. Don’t check your LCD screen every shot, or you’ll miss the action, but do so every few frames or when you notice the lighting change noticeably, and adjust your settings accordingly.

Extraneous objects: so, what do I mean by this? Primarily stage furniture – speakers, microphone stands, footlights, guitar leads; also other band members or stage hands wandering into shot, and of course, other photographers. You’d be amazed at how often a mike stand becomes invisible to you through the viewfinder because you are looking at the performer. This is not something that can be fixed in camera settings, but rather in careful composition and catching the right moment to depress the shutter. I may add here that you might want to shoot wider than normal and crop in later, rather than have the lead singer or guitarists’ feet missing from your image. Here are some howlers that I would otherwise have been pleased with:

And there’s another thing that stage kit can do… steal your focus! If you’re shooting in AF (autofocus) mode, in low light you may run into problems… as the image below shows – the microphone and stand are in beautiful focus, but my subject isn’t, which is a problem. There are two ways to ammeliorate this: one is to set a single AF point, and use that, but AF may not work well in low light; the other is to use manual focus – but manual focus is a bit of a pain, especially as your eyes will be straining too in the poor light. However, your eyes are far sharper than any lens, so go with it if necessary.

Once we’ve accepted that we’re going to be shooting as wide an aperture as possible, to compensate for low light, we have to realise that we’ll be getting a very narrow depth of field (DoP) – another aspect and reason for the AF problems mentioned above. Use that effect to create compelling images. The image below shows Eddie and the Hotrods‘ Eddie Masters, in focus, partially framed by their guitarist:

Nice enough. But I switched it around, and prefer this one by far, where Barrie is blurred out, while the guitarist is in fine focus:

The one area I haven’t touched on is equipment, and that’s because I don’t think it’s my place to advise you on what photographic kit you should use – the best I can do is tell you what I use myself, and how I use it, and any additional hints I can think of.

I have a couple of Canon EOS bodies. A standard kit lens isn’t much use, I can be clear on that. A fast glass telephoto lens is probably the best bet, if your budget stretches to that – but mine doesn’t. I use a 70-300mm f/5.6 Tamron telephoto zoom lens (which is great in good lighting conditions), and a fixed prime 50mm for darker situations (the photos here were taken on the Tamron and a MK1 ES f/1.8 50mm prime, although I have recently upgraded to an f/1.4, but haven’t had the opportunity to use it for concert photography). Aside from that, essential kit would be spare batteries and spare memory cards, and if you’re using more than one lens, a spare camera body if you’ve got it (you really don’t want to be swapping lenses out in the dark, with beer and vomit splashing around). A small pocket flashlight is very useful, especially when you drop lens caps (you will).

Finally, if you’re shooting gigs at small venues, you might find the performers mixing with the audience at the bar afterwards. Or, you might find yourself invited to an afterparty. If so, play it cool, keep your distance and don’t crowd people – this is their down time. In these situations, the telephoto lens for informal unprepared shots is your friend.

I think that’s it from me… a beginner’s guide to gig photography, from a beginner. Some of what I’ve laid out may strike a note with you, some – or a lot – may not. I’m sure there’s lots more professional advice out there, and I’m as keen as anyone else to see it. I hope you have enjoyed this… in my next post I’ll be returning to more familiar territory!

How I got to shoot Wilko Johnson, and discovered gig photography… (Part I)

(I was going to write this as one article, but it’s grown too big for a single blog post, so I’m going to have to break down into two – or more – pieces. Blog posts should be in short, easily-assimilated chunks!)

I grew up in the glam rock years of the 1970s, and (thankfully) saw the birth of punk. Before that, it was a steady diet of T-Rex, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, The Stones, Deep Purple, Yes, Genesis, Queen… and (gulp, to my eternal embarrassment) Peter Frampton.

But also amongst the rock glitterati were a bunch of shabby proto-punk Rhythm & Blues players from Canvey Island – Dr Feelgood. Their sound was new and electrifying – jagged guitar riffs, frenetic drumming, screeching harmonica and rasping vocals coated in nicotine and tar. But it was their look that was the most iconic – lead vocalist and harmonica player Lee Brilleaux in his stained, grubby white suit, and guitarist Wilko Johnson dressed all in black, with mad staring eyes and his trademark pudding bowl haircut. I remember being transfixed by the two central characters on the album cover on “Malpractice”: white and black, each exuding seediness, menace – and cool.

Album Cover Photograph ©Keith Morris

By the time I got to see them live, Wilko had left the band (this seems to have been a theme with me – I saw The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, after Alex had died; I saw The Stranglers, after Hugh Cornwell had left), and after a stint with his band Solid Senders, he next popped up in the Blockheads with Ian Dury. He went off my radar after that, when he went solo with his own band (bearing his name).

It wasn’t until around 2011 that my attention was brought back to Wilko again, with the recent release of “Oil City Confidential”, the Dr Feelgood documentary directed by Julien Temple. A large poster was on display in the bar of The Ship Tavern in Wardour Street, where I meet many of my customers and contacts in broadcast, post-production and media generally. It was displayed alongside a poster for “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”, the Ian Dury biopic starring Andy Serkis as Dury. It occurred to me that two of my friends who frequented the pub were the executive producers for each film – Richard England and Kevin Phelan, respectively (hence why the posters were on prominent display). Another photographer friend, Duncan Findlater, had taken this shot of Wilko and Julien in the alleyway behind The Ship:

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Photograph reproduced with permission of copyright holder ©Duncan Findlater

Good Lord! he was bald now, but still had the mad eyes… I immersed myself in catching up on his back catalogue, as well as watching OCC… I couldn’t believe that I had let one of my guitar heroes (albeit an unconventionial one) go unseen and unheard for so many years (decades, to be honest). OK, a lot of the albums were just rearrangements of previous works, but there was a lot of new stuff too. And I had no idea that he had strayed into acting – as mute executioner Ilyn Payne in the first two series of “Game of Thrones” (the mute bit probably being a good thing – I’m sure Paloma Faith would make a perfect princess in GoT, but she’d have to be mute too!).

And then the bombshell – in early 2013 Wilko announced that he was suffering from inoperable pancreatic cancer, and had been given 6 to 8 months to live. Given a prognosis of a couple of extra months if he underwent chemotherapy, he eschewed any treatment and decided to carry on working for as long as he could, embarking on a ‘farewell tour’. This was captured in the March 2013 “Live at Koko” gig in Camden Town (at the old Camden Palace), which was recorded and released as a DVD, along with a number of extras, including an hour-long documentary of interviews with him about his life. I have a copy of this, and I admit that it brought tears to my eyes, as did the closing number of the gig footage, “Bye Bye Johnny” (his birth name is John Wilkinson), an arrangement of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”. Wilko denies that this was in any way a swansong, but the audience response indicates otherwise. In any case, Wilko’s attitude is clear – he says he felt euphoric and uplifted when he heard his diagnosis, and has carried on in that vein ever since. I would urge you to get a copy of “Live at Koko”, available from Amazon, here, to judge for yourself.

I was unable to catch that tour, and as it extended overseas into a tour of Wilko’s beloved Japan (and of his devoted fanbase there), I thought I wouldn’t get a chance to catch the great man in action again (my own father died of pancreatic cancer – after lost X-Rays, misread X-rays and consequent misdiagnosis, the cancer took him in three months – and he was extremely fit, still playing league-level squash in his mid-seventies)… the miracle is that Wilko kept on and on and on…

Amazingly, in October of the same year, Wilko played Koko again… well beyond his medically-advised sell-by date. This time I was able to be there. Through a totally unprofessional process of constant begging, pleading and wheedling of Richard England (who was also promoter, having been executive producer of the OCC film) and his assistant Blaise, I got a photopass (and I’ll speak about the etiquette of that later – rest assured it was all an unknown territory to me at the time).

My God, he rocked my socks away (along with his band: bass guitarist Norman Watt-Roy of Blockheads fame; and Dylan Howe, son of legendary Yes guitarist Steve Howe, and superlative drummer in his own right). He had the energy of a man half his age (67), and worked the crowd by commanding the stage with his signature moves – the pigeon strutting, the rapid footglide, strafing the audience with his Fender Telecaster, playing the guitar on the back of his head… not that I was able to appreciate the show properly – again, more of that later. I got my photopass, and my spot beyond the security barriers. Here are some of my shots of that show, in a montage format (they also include shots from a later shoot at Watford Live! at Oceana):

And so he continued his “farewell tour”, adding dates, playing festivals, making unannounced appearances on other bands’ sets. He cancelled some, through illness or fatigue, but more often to receive awards or lifetime achievement dedications. On the 25th February of this year he staged a one-off concert with The Who’s Roger Daltrey at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, showcasing their collaboration album “Going Back Home”, which was released at the end of March and has been cresting the top of the album charts ever since. It is a tour de force by anybody’s standards – you can listen to it here on Spotify, and if you like what you hear, then go and buy it! A second album by the duo is planned… pending the outcome of Wilko’s condition.

Two Wednesdays ago Wilko Johnson was admitted to hospital for an emergency procedure that could save his life – but that was life-threatening in itself (he had been re-diagnosed – or perhaps I should say the original diagnosis was refined – to a neuroendocrine tumour). All future public engagements were cancelled, and his management said that he would be “out of action for the foreseeable future”. Just prior to his admission to Cambridge’s Addenbrookes Hospital, he was interviewed by rock journalist Tony Parsons for GQ. You can read this moving and inspirational interview here. That was Wednesday. On Thursday, after a nine hour operation, he was up again walking, and once again giving inspiration to others, in this case young Antonio Zambonini (this photo was taken by his mother Sally):

Wilko Johnson and Antonio Zambonini ©Sally Zambonini

I wish Wilko a swift and speedy recovery (although I expect a long convalescence). His physical and mental resilience, and his emotional courage should assure this. All being well, he can look forward to a long retirement… but I suspect that we’ll be seeing him gigging and recording again before too long.

Now I know what mesmerised me all those years ago – sheer presence.

(Next – more gig photography, and thoughts and experiences on etiquette, techniques and pitfalls)