Dodgy promo & music photography!

The music loving people of Crewe were treated to a fine performance from Britpop legends Dodgy at The Box last week. They were kicking off their new tour of their latest studio album.

I met the guys during their rehearsal day and we did a photoshoot at The Box. I did portraits of the three band members as well as a set of group shots. The images will be on my website very soon as well as appearing on my Flickr stream and on the official Dodgy Facebook page!

The images are being well received and someone commented that it was a “good, honest photo” of the band. I love that description and its really what I strive to produce in my work!

The gig itself was amazing and Tina and I got loads of images of the performance!

Its been all go with music photography lately. I’ve also done a very interesting photoshoot with local legend Tom Seals. It was a very well organised shoot which was fairly technical but very rewarding. I won’t go into detail as I am sure Tom wants to have a grand launch of his new website which the images are for!

The same weekend saw the Reign Of Sirius shoot. They are a metal band from Macclesfield and travelled over for the shoot with their new members. It was a very pleasant shoot and I really like the final images (as do the band more importantly!!). I played them on my Radio show on Monday and I am sure that will be the first of many plays!

Tomorrow I have yet another shoot with emerging Crewe band Rockwood. Looking forward to photographing a band I have been friends with for ages now!

Quite a bit on next week musically as well. The Beautiful South are now The South and after a recent request for some images I did of the band a while back I am off to Birmingham to photograph them at the O2 Arena. Another band I photographed last year was the Australian Pink Floyd. They were at Chester Rocks. I supplied them with the images from the event and I’ll be photographing them next week at the Manchester Apollo.

Sandwiched between those two events I have an after dinner event to photograph with Yvette Cooper MP and a Christening!

Review of the Year – 2011 – Part Three

I’ve been the official photographer at The Box in Crewe since 2009. I’ve watched it grow and go from strength to strength. This year has seen an amazing set of bands and musicians appearing at the venue, as well as the capacity increase.

One of the best nights I had photographing at the Box was when Guillemots played. Fyfe Dangerfield and his band all posed for portraits and a group shot before a wonderful performance in front of a brilliant crowd. My monochrome portrait of Fyfe is one of my favourites of the year.

The immense Funeral For A Friend were also just amazing. A ram packed Box lapped up the Welsh rockers who headed off to Download the following week. Another great set of portraits, again all monochrome!

One of the nights that took me by surprise was the UK Subs. A brilliant night was had followed by some green room documentary photography and a pint from Charlie, the lead singer!!

My annual charity event Boxjam (all in aid of Oxfam) extended to 2 days this year. Boxjam III crammed in nearly 60 acts over 2 stages and raised £720! Really pleased to bring My Preserver and Benjamin Bloom back to Crewe as well as a host a brilliant local acts.

A fine night was had in the company of Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly! Aka Sam Duckworth. Arriving late due to traffic hold ups we did the portrait shoot after the gig. One of my favourite portraits of the year and also a great set of live images.

Amongst the other (hundreds) of bands stopping by were Futures, Tellison, James Cleaver Quintet, Sham 69, Adam Ficek & Gary Powell and Blitz Kids!

I’ve also worked with many great local bands including: Junker, Skeletal Damage, The Escape, Violet Omen, The Retrospective, Hayley Strangelove, James Gardiner, Chloe, Revelation, Midnight Lycan Party, Longshanks, The Resistance, and Sumofly.

I also travelled to Birmingham’s O2 Academy to photograph The Bluetones on their farewell tour at their penultimate gig.

I’ve also covered some big events this year. Working with WTD Promotions I have photographed some great professional darts exhibitions. Simon ‘The Wizard’ Whitlock, Terry ‘The Bull’ Jenkins, Andy ‘The Pie Man’ Smith and John ‘Darth Maple’ Part all headed to Crewe for some great evenings down at Crewe Alex. I’ve also covered some after dinner speeches including Alastair Campbell and Labour Leader Ed Miliband MP at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.

I was also booked to be the official photographer at the North West Regional Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. This inevitably led to loads of MP portraits!