Tag: music

Up The Duffy’s

December was a busy month for me. I guess it can be for a lot of people. Time seems to compress into a rush of things that need to be done before December 25th or the New Year.

This December, I made a trip up to Lancaster to visit my sister and brother-in-law, I photographed the wedding of two great old friends, and I  attended a couple of gigs. There was also excitement around the release of the album “Affinity” on December 5th, an album I provided the cover photo for and one which I’ve listened to a lot since its release. I’m now looking forward to receiving a copy of this on vinyl, and I’ll be interested to see how my photo looks on the front of an LP cover. 

This was all punctuated by catching a nasty cold (I’m guessing at one of the gigs), navigating the rounds of Christmas-related shopping, a broken down oven that needed fixing (great timing, I got it fixed on December 23rd) and visits to friends.

Wedding photography. Yes, I have done it several times before, but it’s something I find very stressful, and I have turned people down on many occasions over the years.

But this one was an occasion I felt more relaxed about. Two very close and special friends had decided to ‘make it official’ after 20 years together. The wedding was on December 16th, 20 years to the day after their first date. They are two lovely people who I knew wouldn’t be putting incredible pressure on me.

Despite this, I decided to visit the wedding venue a couple of weeks in advance to scout it out and see what the lighting would be like. A trademark phrase of a good friend of mine is “set yourself up to succeed”, and I felt better for getting an idea in advance of the conditions I would encounter. As it transpired, I was shown the wrong room when I visited, but conditions were very similar, so it wasn’t a problem.

On the day, as I drove to the venue, I felt incredibly anxious, but this eased once I arrived and started shooting. The couple had booked a lovely old two-tone pink Vauxhall Cresta to transport them to and from the venue, and my brief was to make sure I got plenty of photos of them with the car. I’m not going to share photos here of any of the people attending the wedding out of respect for their privacy, but I wanted to share one of this beautiful old car.

Pink Vauxhall Cresta.
Pink Vauxhall Cresta hired for wedding transport.

Two gigs I really wanted to get to in December both featured JJ Lovegrove. Both were in Leicester, one at the O2 Academy and one at Duffy’s Bar as part of the excellent “Up The Duffy’s” monthly event.

For the gig at O2 Academy, JJ was supporting Then Jerico. It’s a larger venue than I’m used to shooting in, and I decided to leave my camera at home that night. This was mainly because I thought the venue wouldn’t like it. It was only when I was at the gig, chatting with Judi, that I learned I could have requested a photographer’s pass and been allowed to shoot from the ‘press pit’ for the first three songs of each set. I’m kicking myself a bit, as having that kind of access for photography at a gig has been something I’ve dreamed of for many years. It was a great night, and I was delighted that Judi got lots of new ears listening to her music.

“Up The Duffy’s” is a monthly music night held at Duffy’s Bar in Leicester. It evolved out of the brilliant “Soundhive Social” events, which were hosted here to encourage people back to gigs in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. I don’t really do “New Year Resolutions”, but I have told myself that I really need to make it to more nights of “Up The Duffy’s” this year.

As this is hosted at one of my usual smaller music venues, I took my camera along and got a few shots of the artists performing that night: Boilerverse, JJ Lovegrove, Boilers, and Velvet Crisis. There had been an incident of double booking for the room, which meant that things got underway a bit later than normal, and, sadly, I had to cut my stay a bit short, so I was only there for maybe half of the Velvet Crisis set. But I had a great night, excellent music to enjoy, some lovely chats with people and of course, I enjoyed using my camera. I’ll share a few of my photos from the night below.

All photos taken using Fuji X-T5 along with the 56mm f1.2 and the 27mm f2.8.

Boilerverse performing at Up The Duffy's Leicester, 14th December 2025.
Boilerverse performing at Up The Duffy’s Leicester, 14th December 2025.
JJ Lovegrove performing at Up The Duffy's Leicester, 14th December 2025.
JJ Lovegrove performing at Up The Duffy’s Leicester, 14th December 2025.
JJ Lovegrove performing at Up The Duffy's Leicester, 14th December 2025.
JJ Lovegrove performing at Up The Duffy’s Leicester, 14th December 2025.
Boilers performing at Up The Duffy's Leicester, 14th December 2025.
Boilers performing at Up The Duffy’s Leicester, 14th December 2025.
Boilers performing at Up The Duffy's Leicester, 14th December 2025.
Boilers performing at Up The Duffy’s Leicester, 14th December 2025. Yes, the cream cake eating by Barbe is all part of the performance.
Velvet Crisis performing at Up The Duffy's Leicester, 14th December 2025.
Velvet Crisis performing at Up The Duffy’s Leicester, 14th December 2025.

Affinity

 

CD cover for album 'affinity' from monochrome motif records.
CD cover for album ‘affinity’ from monochrome motif records.

 

A few months ago I was contacted by Andrew Harstshorn, owner of Monochrome Motif Records. He wondered if I might have a photo suitable for use as a cover image for an upcoming album release.

The title, and concept of the album was ‘affinity’. It was to be a compilation album by artists who are ‘friends of the label’, and Andrew had requested the artists submit a track based around the theme of ‘affinity’.

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the concept of affinity: ‘a natural liking for and understanding of someone or something’, and started to hunt through my photo archive. Might I already have something in my catalogue which would fit the bill? Would I need to take some new photos based on the concept?

What did ‘affinity’ mean to me? Andrew had set me the same task as he had set the musicians who would be contributing to the album. And my task had the additional requirement of needing to be in black and white (to fit the label’s brand identity: monochrome motif), and I was thinking it had better be something that worked as a square crop to fit nicely on a CD inlay. I was familiar with monochrome motif’s styling from previous album purchases: lowercase text, black and white cover art placed in the centre with a broad coloured border.

My instant response was to look for any photos I had of bees gathering nectar from flowers, ducks on water, frogs on lily pads… that kind of thing.

But at the same time, I knew those things were a little too obvious and clichéd.

I started finding various photos of megaliths at stone circles, and I was particularly looking for ones where the stones appeared to be reaching up to the sky, or had an interesting relationship with the sun or moon. I remembered the stones along the Kennet Avenue at Avebury, alternating between pillar and lozenge shapes and I thought that somewhere in my collection I had a photo illustrating this. I eventually found one, but I wasn’t really satisfied.

I found an old photo of my daughter, taken at sunset on the shore of a local reservoir, arms stretched out wide as she faced the sinking sun. It’s a nice enough photo; it kind of worked ‘ok’ in black and white and was showing a child’s affinity to the natural environment, so I added it to an increasing collection of possible photos to let Andrew take a look at.

Young girl stood by lake at sunset, arms outstretched.
The photo of my daughter I considered as a contender. However, it works better in colour.

 

Very early on in my search, I found a photo I took in June 2015 of the cove stones at Avebury. I considered it for the theme of ‘affinity’, as from the angle I shot this from, the pair of massive stones appear to be leaning in towards each other.

I produced a square crop and did some work on a dramatic high contrast black and white conversion. I quite like the result, and it became my favourite of eight potential photos which I shared with Andrew. A little while later I heard that he liked the photo and planned to use it for the album cover (as shown at the head of this post).

The photo was also printed as the disc label and I think it looks great there too.

Affinity CD.
Affinity CD.
The cove stones at Avebury. High contrast black and white.
The cove stones at Avebury. Fuji X100T, 23mm, 1/180, f8, ISO 200. 27th June 2015.

The image was captured using my little Fuji X100T during a family day out back in 2015. I found myself reflecting upon how fortunate I was to have decided this was worth a quick photo during our exploration of Avebury, ten years earlier. This wasn’t a dedicated photo trip, just a fun day out with my wife and daughter. I didn’t really have the time to wait around for the light to be just right. Fortunately, at the point we were exploring around the cove stones, there was bright sunshine and quite a dramatic sky (which I will confess to enhancing a little with contrast tweaks etc in Lightroom – there is no ‘sky replacement’ here, I really don’t like that kind of thing in my photography).

The cove stones at Avebury.
The original colour photo, as shot. 3:2 aspect ratio. The cloudy sky area at the top served no purpose, so it was no problem to crop that away, along with a little of the grass at the bottom. I only wish I had a little more breathing space to either side of the stones.

 

If I were shooting specifically for this use case, I would have tried to give a little more space around the stones by standing a bit further back (it’s a prime lens on the X100 series, so ‘zoom’ is with your feet). This would have allowed a slightly wider field of view for the square crop. However, I certainly wasn’t viewing this photo as an album cover when I shot it; it was simply a scene that grabbed my attention.

I’ve loved the X100 series of cameras since the release of the original, which I bought whilst it was the current model, thinking it would be nice to have something a bit smaller to carry around than my Canon DSLR, yet still offering a good lens, full manual control via analogue dials and buttons, a good viewfinder and a good sensor. I loved the original X100 so much that I also bought the X100T when it was released, and this was the camera I used to take the ‘affinity’ cover photo. I’d love to add a more up-to-date version of the camera to my collection, but they have become so popular that they can be hard to find at RRP (and already expensive enough at that).

It’s a little too chunky to just slip into a pocket and forget, but if I’m out for the day, I will have at least a small bag of some description with me, and it easily fits in there, or, for that matter, a larger coat pocket. I also have a wrist strap for it, so it’s usually just there at hand and ready to shoot.

“But it’s not full-frame!”… Don’t even get me started on that… I’ll just leave a link here to a video by Zack Arias in which I think he represents my own views on that ‘issue’ very well.

At the end of the day, I happened to have this fun little camera with me rather than a bulkier kit because I was enjoying a family day out and didn’t want to be encumbered. I didn’t have a tripod, a polarising filter, or anything like that. Just the camera.

And I took a photo with it, which, ten years later, was chosen as the cover image for an album.

As I said earlier, the album is a compilation of work from different artists. I was only familiar with three of them before first hearing the album: JJ Lovegrove, Annika Jayne and John Serrano, who features on Annika Jayne’s song, ‘Occi’s Walls’.

Andrew has done a magnificent job of curating this compilation; the running order works amazingly well. The first five tracks of the CD are instrumental, and the second five have vocals. On the vinyl edition, this equates to an instrumental side and a vocal side.

There are several songs here that have inspired me to further explore the featured artists who are new to me, so this compilation has succeeded in its primary goal of introducing listeners to a variety of new artists and musical styles. I found myself loving every track on the album. I think that’s quite remarkable for a compilation album featuring so many artists I hadn’t heard before. I enjoy variety in many aspects of life, so being presented with lots of different musical styles here is a big positive for me. The concept of ‘affinity’ binds all these different artists and styles together and gives them cohesion. I feel honoured that my photo sits on the front of it.

If you would like to explore or purchase the album, you can do so here. It was released on December 5th 2025, on CD, digital download and vinyl. It’s no coincidence that I published this article on the same date.

I want to make it clear that I will in no way gain from any purchases made, other than the satisfaction of knowing that people are listening to great music, supporting independent artists and a great record label. (And also, I suppose, the knowledge that you’re seeing my photo every time you play the album).

You can find out more about monochrome motif records here.

Firebug

Photo of J.J. Lovegrove performing at FIrebug, Leicester. 12th September 2025.
J.J. Lovegrove at Firebug, 12th September 2025. Fujifilm X-T5, 56mm @ f1.2.

The night of Friday 12th September saw me back at Firebug in Leicester for a fantastic lineup of Chris Ilett, Rai Waddingham, L’Ku, Kevin Hewick, Sally Hossack and J.J. Lovegrove.

I was sporting my X-T5 accompanied by my 35mm f1.4, 56mm f1.2 and the trusty 90mm f2. They’re all firm favourites for gig photography. I did also have my 27mm f2.8 in the bag but I didn’t use it.

In music venues like this one I do find the wider aperture of prime lenses more than makes up for the flexibility of a zoom – which will more than likely have a smaller maximum aperture. The light gathering capabilities of these primes is amazing.

I also find myself astonished at the noise control of the X-T5, and indeed most more modern cameras. All of the photos I’m sharing here were shot at ISO 1600 and I feel pretty comfortable going up to ISO 3200, even ISO 6400 at a pinch when needed (but maybe only for black and white). My first DSLR, a Canon 20D, produced very grainy images at these ISO settings. But hey, I need to remind myself that was 20 years ago. What’s also true is that noise reduction in post processing software has improved dramatically over recent years.

What I really should do is take along a second body as a matter of course so I can have the 90mm on one camera and either the 35, 56 or indeed 27 on another. That way I can have most of the utility of a zoom lens but with much wider apertures just by swapping bodies.

Photo of Chris Ilett performing at FIrebug, Leicester. 12th September 2025.
Chris Ilett at Firebug, 12th September 2025. Fujifilm X-T5, 35mm @ f1.4.
Photo of Rai Waddingham performing at FIrebug, Leicester. 12th September 2025.
Rai Waddingham at Firebug, 12th September 2025. Fujifilm X-T5, 90mm @ f2.
Photo of L'Ku performing at FIrebug, Leicester. 12th September 2025.
L’Ku at Firebug, 12th September 2025. Fujifilm X-T5, 90mm @ f2.
Photo of Kevin Hewick performing at FIrebug, Leicester. 12th September 2025.
Kevin Hewick at Firebug, 12th September 2025. Fujifilm X-T5, 90mm @ f2.
Photo of Sally Hossack performing at FIrebug, Leicester. 12th September 2025.
Sally Hossack at Firebug, 12th September 2025. Fujifilm X-T5, 90mm @ f2.

Supporting Independent Music – An Appeal

A little over 3 years ago, I had the good fortune to make contact with independent musician, JJ Lovegrove on what was then a service still called ‘Twitter’. I had a listen to a couple of tracks on Bandcamp and was instantly bowled over, investing in a CD of her then-current EP ‘Things Only THE daRk knows’ in short order.

First, I was captivated by Judi’s voice, then her music, and finally, and most thoroughly, her lyrics. In addition to the EP, I purchased Judi’s entire back catalogue on Bandcamp; this gave me access to  many excellent songs that didn’t feature on the EP.

Moving forward to 2023, I caught news of the impending arrival of Judi’s first album, “The Lines We Leave Behind”. I attended the online listening party before the album launch and was simply blown away by what I heard. No music had entranced me as thoroughly as this for a very long time. Elbow’s ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ was probably the previous occasion that an album had got under my skin and into my soul in quite the same way, but ‘The Lines We Leave Behind’ surpassed even that, by quite a way.

In the autumn of 2024, Judi produced her next EP, ‘Unravelled’, writing and recording the entire project in the space of a few weeks.

In addition to all of this, Judi produces some truly unique merchandise to accompany her music. A limited-edition CD of a live recording of ‘The Lines We Leave Behind’ (entitled ‘Behind The Lines We Leave’) was presented, along with a beautiful handcrafted booklet that tells the stories behind the songs, each copy of which was unique.

Currently, Judi is working on an EP ‘exploring D.H Lawrence, his words, his World & the ghosts we share’, with the Mercury Prize nominated Ed Harcourt in the producer’s chair. However, to do justice to this body of work, Judi wants to be able to book time in a proper studio, which is expensive.

Judi applied for funding for the recording, but wasn’t successful in securing that backing. About a week ago, she took the plunge and asked for help in funding the recording of the new EP. The fundraising has been going well, but any further contributions, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated and could help give this EP the start in life it richly deserves.

You can read Judi’s own account of this fundraiser and a link to support the project via PayPal on her Substack here : https://substack.com/home/post/p-170265860 .

Judi is a tireless supporter of independent musicians who create music I love (in addition to her own), so I wanted to do my part to help her make this project a success.

Reflecting On The Past Year

Eilean Donan Castle at night.
Eilean Donan Castle at night.

It has been over a year since I wrote anything here. I’ve taken a bit of a break from blogging, but I have still been fairly active with my photography.

Why the break?

A couple of weeks after my previous post here, I suffered another bereavement. Much time was spent doing the Things That Need To Be Done. Death certificates, funeral arrangements, solicitors, house clearing…

And I seemed to jump straight from that to happier things – my sister’s wedding and my daughter’s graduation from University of Nottingham. Both happy events tinged with pangs of loss.

My sister and my new brother-in-law asked me to be their wedding photographer. It’s a role I’m always nervous of and I’ve only “officially” shot weddings on a handful of occasions. It was at a beautiful location in Scotland, Eilean Donan Castle. But a beautiful location held its photographic hazards. A big, high roofed, medieval great hall – stunning!

I knew I would need to use flash, but I didn’t get a chance to look at the room before the ceremony. I had a little “soft box” attachment for my flash but that caused too much light loss in this setting. The ceiling was a high timber raftered affair, not suitable for bouncing off. I just had to shoot with full on direct flash which led to lots of nasty glare and reflections. This in turn led to way too much work in post to try and remove or reduce the glare. Had I been able to spend a bit of time in the room before the ceremony I might have been able to find a happy balance of ISO and flash strength. However, a fantastic day.

JJ Lovegrove performing at the final Soundhive Social gig, Duffy's Bar, Leicester. 12th December 2024.
JJ Lovegrove performing at the final Soundhive Social gig, Duffy’s Bar, Leicester. 12th December 2024.

I’ve also done quite a bit in the way of “shooting musicians”. Quite a few gigs in small venues which I’ve enjoyed tremendously. I also did another promo shoot for Bellatones, I won’t share any of the photos from that shoot here as I view them as their property to share as they wish (or not).

Meanwhile I have been working on a photography project which I started thinking about very nearly a year ago. It will be a collection of ten photographs inspired by music from a favourite album. I have a few photos still to take, but I do have plans in place for each photo. I just need to get out and shoot them.

One of these photos involved three or four trips out to the planned location. I would get home, look at what I’d shot and then think of improvements and additional props that would add to the finished result. The residents of the little village I was shooting in must have been getting curious about why this strange bloke kept showing up with his camera and tripod and doing weird things on their main street. You’ll get to see just how weird this must have looked when I finally finish the project and publish the photos. I’m not going to publish any of the photos until I have them all “in the can” but then I will publish one at a time here.

View whilst ascending Moun t Blue Sky, Colorado, looking down towards Echo Lake.
View whilst ascending Moun t Blue Sky, Colorado, looking down towards Echo Lake.

I also enjoyed a trip to Colorado to visit my late wife’s family there. This would have been lovely and a great photo opportunity but for one thing. I had managed to totally evade Covid-19 for four and a half years. I had been ultra careful about it because I had been doing a lot of caring duties for my dad and I really didn’t want to pass anything like that on to him. However, passing through Heathrow and sitting on a direct flight to Denver finally defeated me. I started to feel rough after a couple of days and tested positive on the third day – not before I’d passed it on to the whole family over there. I had no clue I was ill until the evening of the second day and even then, I just thought I had a sore throat.

We did manage to extend the visit by an extra week, but I spent two whole weeks just sitting out on the porch, listening to music and watching the hummingbirds (which I spectacularly failed to photograph – they’re very small and very fast). I felt so very guilty about passing this nasty virus on to everybody over there. Lots of plans had to be cancelled but I was very lucky and did manage to get back up Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans) which was a real highlight of the trip for me. It’s a place my late wife loved and yeah, I’m sure you can imagine the importance to me of getting up there again.

Oak tree in January at Bradgate Park, Leicestershire.
Oak tree in January at Bradgate Park, Leicestershire.

I need to get out into nature more. I watch several photography channels on YouTube and I think the one I have gained most from is by Kim Grant. I love her mindful approach to photography, making sure that you take the time to properly engage with your surroundings when out with your camera. Her channel makes a refreshing change from all those channels that are more focussed on equipment or the technical aspects of photography.

So, I’m back and will be trying to embrace Kim’s approach more often. Hopefully it won’t be another year before I post here again!

Bella Tones

Ian Harmer of Bellatones picked out by spotlights.
Ian Harmer of Bellatones picked out by spotlights.

Bella tones : beautiful sounds! And Bellatones are a Leicester band I’ve been following and shooting for many years now. And they do indeed create beautiful sounds.

I went to a couple of their gigs in December, one at The Donkey on the 3rd and the other at Soundhouse on the 15th. I thought I’d share a few images from these gigs.

I only shot during the first of two sets at The Donkey as 1) I felt I already had plenty of photos and 2) I always feel like I’m getting in the way of the rest of the audience enjoying the show.

I was quite pleased with the shot at the top of this post of Ian Harmer picked out by small circles of light. He (as usual) was positioned right at the back left of the stage so it took a bit of careful aiming. I was quite surprised how well the autofocus managed to lock on to him given the low light and other members of the band moving around in front of him. I’ll share a colour version of this photo below, along with more from that night.

The multicoloured lights at these venues are one of the reasons I produce many of my live music photos in black and white, trying to get white balance right for somebody’s skin tones when the lights are shifting colour all the time is tricky. And then of course I do also just love black and white. As I’ve probably said several times here before : I love the timeless quality of black and white, I love the way it adds another layer of abstraction from reality and I also like the way it removes the distraction of colour. Anyway, on with the photos. There will be more from the Soundhouse gig further down this post.

All photos taken using my Fujifilm X-H1 and a variety of prime lenses (90mm f2, 35mm f2, 18mm f2) and also the 10-24mm zoom.

Ian Hamer of Bellatones on the keyboard at The Donkey, 3rd December 2023.
Ian Hamer of Bellatones on the keyboard at The Donkey, 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (forground) and Sam of Bellatones at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (foreground) and Sam of Bellatones at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (foreground) and Paul of Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (foreground) and Paul of Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023. I went with a very extreme contrast rendering for this photo. New bass player Nigel “Waldo” Underwood is closest to the lens and was lurking in the shadows throughout the gig so I got around the side of the stage to try and capture something. The spotlights made the contrast high anyway so I just went with that look.

Having taken way too many photos at The Donkey on 3rd December I was back to see Bellatones play again at Soundhouse on 15th December. And I need to learn a lesson here. I said above “way too many photos” – there were hundreds. And it being a busy time of year all I’d really done was pick out half a dozen favourites from those in the two weeks before this next gig at Soundhouse.

When I shoot at a gig I’ll start off in “single shot” mode on the camera. One press of the shutter release equals one photo taken. As the gig progresses I’ll find myself switching into “continuous” shooting – keep the shutter release down and keep firing off photos at a rate of many per second. Why? Because with musicians moving around the stage you can find that you’ve slightly missed focus or slightly missed a good pose / expression / moment of action. Great, continuous shooting can help with that but it leaves me with quite a daunting number of photos to work through. I might only process a couple of dozen of those photos but I still have to look through all 400 to find the ones I want to process. I might have a burst of between 6 or 10 shots of pretty much the same scene and I might use one of them – or none. I need to be more disciplined and not take as many photos.

At the Soundhouse gig Not My Good Arm played before Bellatones so I got a few shots of them. There should have been another band playing too, Code Switch Theory, but sadly they had to pull out due to sickness and Not My Good Arm were down one member of the band for the same reason. This becomes significant later in the story, honest.

Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.

And then Bellatones came on and played a great set to finish off the evening. I was right down at the front and having to work hard to avoid the enthusiastic dancers getting into shot. This harks back to what I said earlier about trying to make sure I don’t get in the way of the rest of the audience enjoying themselves. These places do not have “press pits”.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself that night, took way too many photos (!) and heard some great music. However a couple of nights later I started to feel a cold coming on. I don’t remember anyone coughing or sneezing in my face but this is the most likely place that I will have picked up that virus. By the Monday morning I was feeling so awful, every part of my body was aching, every movement felt like I must be 100 years old. And this thing was persistent, it really knocked me out of action for a couple of weeks all through the Christmas and New Year period. I managed to get done what I had to do but it took me a couple of weeks to reach the point where I felt up to working through the photos from that night. It wasn’t Covid-19, I did test myself several times at various points during the illness – all negative. I did find myself reflecting on mask wearing. I was back to wearing one when I went into shops because I didn’t want to spread whatever nasty bug this was to anyone else. If only others felt the same way I might not have caught this.

Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Paul of Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Paul of Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute, Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute, Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.

Pirates at The Donkey

Moody, high contrast black and white photo of Rob Jarram playing bass guitar for Lodestone Pirates at The Donkey, Leicester 28th July 2023.
Rob Jarram playing bass guitar for Lodestone Pirates at The Donkey, Leicester 28th July 2023.

On the evening of Friday 28th July 2023 I attended the debut gig of Lodestone Pirates at The Donkey on Welford Road, Leicester. I have been a friend of drummer David “Max” Millgate for more years than I care to remember so I wanted to be there to support him and his new band. I said I’d bring a camera along if that was ok with the band.

The band’s tag line on Facebook says “4 piece band covering everything from classic to modern rock… and doing it LOUDLY!!” and they’re not wrong. 

They played two 45 minute sets and they rocked! You wouldn’t have guessed that this was their first gig or that they’d only been together as a group of musicians for a few months.

I only took photos during the first set as by then I felt I had plenty to work with and I’m also conscious of getting in the way of other audience members and blocking people’s view.

Black and white photo of David Millgate twirling a drumstick.
David Millgate twirling a drumstick.

I was pleased to get the above photo of Dave giving it a twirl of the drumstick. I had been hanging around the side of the stage hoping to pick up a few photos of drumstick blur. I had to reduce my shutter speed to 1/15th to get this degree of blurring. I was leaning against a speaker stack but was shooting handheld with a 90mm lens at this point so I was grateful for the I.B.I.S provided by the Fuji X-H1. Dave’s hand is obscuring his face but at least I caught the moment.

As usual I was shooting in raw to give me maximum flexibility during post-processing. I did process a few as colour renditions but moody, high contrast black and white is my “thing” and tends to be what I have in mind whilst shooting.

I was fairly happy with my results. A couple more photos from the night can be found below.

Looking forward to future gigs from this four piece.

Black and white photo of Tom Webster on guitar and vocals.
Tom Webster on guitar and vocals.
Photo of Phil Jackson playing guitar for Lodestone Pirates.
Phil Jackson playing guitar for Lodestone Pirates.

Rick With A Silent P

Rick and Warren.
Rick and Warren. Fujifilm X-Pro2, 90mm f2. 1/125 at f2, ISO 6400.

I’m very aware that it has been a couple of months since I posted anything here. Yes, it has been a busy couple of months and thankfully some of that has been photography busy.

This photo of Rick and Warren was taken during the interval at a charity gig I recently attended at The Donkey on Welford Road, Leicester. I was there to support the good cause of the night and also to support my friends on stage : Bellatones.

I still have loads of photos to work my way through from that night which was over a week ago now but this one stood out from the pack for me when I was browsing through to see what I had captured that night.

The vast majority of my photos were of the musicians on stage, that was what I had intended to shoot after all. But at the interval I got chatting outside with Warren (the landlord at The Donkey) and Rick and his good lady, Caroline. It was Caroline who told me that it was “Rick with a silent P” so I do hope he doesn’t mind me using that as the title of this post.

We had a bit of friendly banter during which time Rick, Warren and Caroline got talking about my photography and I snapped one of Rick and Warren together at their request.

It can often be tricky to judge the technical qualities of a photo from the tiny screen on the back of a camera but this one looked pretty good and after showing it to the subjects I ended up being persuaded to take quite a few more of Rick, Warren, Caroline and various of their friends.

It was dark out there.

I had been shooting the acts on stage at ISO 3200 but for these shots I was nabbing outside the venue I had to crank it up a notch to ISO 6400. I’ve always been wary of shooting at high ISO with any camera I’ve owned but I tend to think that it’s better to get something that may have some noise but is free of camera shake so these days I tend to just go with the flow and pump up that ISO as necessary.

And I was not disappointed.

Shot at 1/125, f2 on the X-Pro2 with the excellent Fujinon 90mm lens at ISO 6400. I was even able to focus using auto-focus without any trouble. The only lighting was provided by a string of light bulbs set along the top of the wall about 10 to 15 feet to my left as I shot.

Would this photo have been any better if I’d used my so called “full frame” EOS-6D? I doubt it. I don’t like the term “full frame”. If you mean 35mm sensor then say 35mm sensor. “Full frame” is meaningless – what is full? 2.25 inch square is bigger than a 35mm frame size so how can 35mm be “full”? How about 4×5 inch sheet film? How about 8×10 inch? That makes 135 film (35mm) look tiny. Where do you stop? (I tend to agree with Zak Arias’ point of view on this as expressed wonderfully here).

The best camera is the one you have with you – whether it has a 35mm sensor, an APS-C sensor, Micro Four Thirds or a phone’s camera. You just have to get out there and shoot with it.

Pi Bar 27th January 2017

The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 90mm, 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

Friday evening found me heading out through the cold and wet of an English winter evening to the snug comfort of Pi Bar on Leicester’s Narborough Road. It had been a while since I’d last shot a gig and it was time once again to crank up the ISO, select my fastest lenses and see what developed on-stage.

Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings
Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 55-200mm, 1/60 at f4.8, ISO 6400).

I started shooting with the Fujinon 55-200mm which has the advantage of giving me image stabilisation in addition to a good long reach. However, image stablisation is only half the battle when the light is low, you also have movement of the subject to consider and musicians have a tendency not to have their feet nailed to the floor (excepting Steve Rothery). After a little while I decided it would be better to break out the 90mm f2, trading the OIS and longer reach for some extra stops of light.

Bellatones
Bellatones performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 90mm 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

I did mention cranking up the ISO didn’t I? At many venues I’m often shooting around ISO 3200. Here at Pi Bar I started off at 6400 and soon decided that I needed to up it to ISO 8000. Dark? Hell yes, it was dark. So many of these small venues really could do with better lighting but I guess they’re not really too interested in making life easier and more interesting for photographers. A few well used spots make such a difference, giving me the kind of high contrast look I enjoy and making subject isolation easier.

ISO 8000 is maybe a notch higher than I would generally like to go and it does show in the graininess of these pictures. Having said that I do find the grain produced by my X-Pro2 to be more pleasing and reminiscent of film grain than that produced by my EOS  6D (or other previous Canon bodies). Usually I would much rather have a grainy photo than a blurry photo (unless the blur is intentional). Yet again I was very impressed at the low light performance of my X-Pro2’s APS-C sized sensor. If Fuji can make a sensor perform like this at APS-C then what is the new Fujifilm GFX 50S medium format camera going to be capable of? (Sadly I won’t be getting the chance to shoot with one of those unless I win the lottery).

Bellatones
Bellatones performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017. (Fujinon 90mm, 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

I have to say that in these murky conditions the 90mm f2 did seem to provide a superior auto-focus experience than the 55-200. This is probably only to be expected as the 90mm is the more recent lens by a good couple of years and it’s also a prime. What I lost in reach I gained in consistent results.

During the evening I enjoyed music from three different bands : Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings, Bellatones and finally The Whiskey Rebellion – all of them excellent. More photos from the evening can be found in this album on Flickr. I’ll be keeping an eye on future events at Pi Bar as it’s not far from home and I find it a welcoming, relaxing venue – even if the lights could do with turning up a bit on the stage.

X-Pro2 Meets “Status Trio”

status trio 10032016-1
It’s not that many music venues where you have to cope with a standard lamp on stage.

I’ve written before about my enjoyment of shooting at local music venues (see Shooting Musicians on my previous blog). It’s something which combines two of my loves (music and photography) and often provides a meet up with some friends as I’ve come to know quite a few people in the Leicester music scene over the years.

Up until now my gig photography had been the one thing which seemed to require me to lug around my Canon EOS 6D and a big, heavy L series zoom. I prefer shooting with my Fuji X cameras but whilst my X100T is certainly up to the job in terms of low light performance – both in image quality and autofocus reliability, the focal length is probably not ideal for the job unless I can actually get up on stage (which doesn’t happen).

My X-Pro1 would be more suited to the task as I have the 55-200mm zoom but I found it frustrating to autofocus in the extremely challenging lighting which most small music venues offer. Yes there was the option of manual focus but that can also be tricky to get right when musicians are hopping around a stage.

status trio 10032016-2
This was shot at ISO 3200 which was the lowest I got all night, shot at f1.4 on the 35mm. With the 55-200mm I was up at ISO 6400 and 8000.

When Fuji announced the X-Pro2 I knew that I just had to have one. I already have way too many cameras but the X-Pro1 is a camera I have enjoyed using so much that I knew I simply had to have its successor if I possibly could. Could I justify the not inconsiderable cost of the new camera? Yes, of course I could – photography is one of my main pleasures in life and a body like the X-Pro2 will give me several years of shooting fun. Life is short and if I had the money then I certainly should spend it on something which I will enjoy so much.

My X-Pro2 arrived on Sunday March 6th and I did a little local photo walk, despite the awful grey, flat light here that day. I then noticed that there was a local gig on Thursday which might be a good chance to get out to, take some photos and give the X-Pro2 a bit of a trial.

I ended up packing both my X-Pro2 and my EOS 6D and headed down to The Donkey on Leicester’s Welford Road to enjoy a night of mainly improvised music provided by “The Status Trio” and whoever wanted to get up on stage and join them. My plan was to start off shooting the X-Pro2 and if I got frustrated with autofocus issues I would have the 6D there to fall back on.

The 6D never left the bag all night!

status trio 10032016-4
55-200mm reaching all the way to the back of the stage for this shot of Neil Segrott on bass. ISO 8000, 1/125 at f4.8.

The X-Pro2 exceeded my expectations in every way. Autofocus was just as quick as my DSLR and I think more accurate. All the more impressive as none of my Fuji X mount lenses are ones which are regarded as particularly snappy in the focussing department. I took most shots that night with the 55-200mm, it has the reach to get in close for a head and shoulders of a musician on the stage and the image stabilisation really helps, especially in low light situations. I also had my 35mm f1.4 with me for wider shots. I didn’t take my only other X mount lens, the 18mm and I kicked myself for that. I spent most of the night sat or stood right next to the stage and the 18mm would have been very handy to grab some overviews of the whole scene.

I did have to fall back to manual focussing at one point as I tried to get some shots of the drummer who was sat in such a gloomy spot I think the 6D would have struggled to autofocus too. But this is where the mirror-less camera wins out, it’s very easy to focus manually with a camera which provides focus peaking and digital split frame focussing.

status trio 10032016-3
Some people just look like they were born to be a drummer. 1/125 f3.5 ISO 8000.

I didn’t try anything too fancy, I’m still familiarising myself with this camera so I didn’t play with the continuous focus tracking. One for another occasion.

I ended the evening feeling incredibly positive about the X-Pro2. It performed incredibly well under what are likely to be the most challenging lighting conditions I’m likely to throw at it. It feels solid, positive, reliable and seems to be everything I was hoping for in an update to the X-Pro1.

 

status trio 10032016-6
We even got to enjoy a bit of French rap. My language skills were not up to translating much of it but it was a great improvised performance.

The X-Pro1 and X100/X100T have been my favourite cameras to shoot. There’s this thing as a photographer when your camera feels more like an extension of yourself than just something you’re holding in your hand and all of my Fuji cameras feel like that to me. Shooting with them becomes a more organic process. It feels simple, natural and flowing.

As I write this I’m really looking forward to trying the X-Pro2 in as many different shooting scenarios as I can. And when I do I’ll be sure to write about it here.

status trio 10032016-5
I just can’t quite believe this was shot at ISO 8000.