Author: delta

My brother works for a travel company so can get some good deals. He decided to take me on a mystery holiday to somewhere in the world… He actually didn’t know for definite where we would be going until 48 hours before flying! This is due to some rules to the way the discounts work which I can’t really go into. So we were due to flew out the day after my birthday, I found out in the check-in line in the airport! Was such a surreal experience as I had no idea what to pack for or even get travel insurance for. (Spent an hour in Barclays bank sorting that out without finding out where I was going!) We get on the 10 hour flight as I am shaking with excitement! On our way to MEXICOOO! Was such an awesome holiday! So grateful for my bro taking me on the BEST holiday ever! This will be a short blog in text as I want the videos to show off Mexico as I’ll never do it justice! Here’s the highlight video: Here’s a longer video explaining what we got up to! Go watch!

In September I was approached by the band Some Time Today about making their music video for their single Another Way. The song is about the bombed out church in Liverpool, Church of St Luke. There were talks of the church being turned into a hotel and basically ruining the unique look of the church. Tom Ashcroft, the lead singer wrote about how there must be another way to preserve the ageing building; explaining his displeasure as the iconic place being seen as a money making exercise. Through conversations with Tom and the band they said how the bombed out church has been a place for people to chill out and relax, musicians to perform and even weddings. As a photographer I LOVE stories, and this one got me straight away. We started to plan exactly what we’d do, first trying to get permission to shoot the music video in the bombed out church itself. This basically wasn’t going to happen as they were renovating parts of it as it had become unsafe in parts. So then thought about where else we could shoot the video. At first, we thought of just doing it in a church but this seemed to lack the impact of the lyrics. Then Toby, the drummer reminded me of St Catherine’s Chapel in Lydiate which is a ruin of a chapel built in 1500! We both knew of this place as my friend proposed to his now wife there as she would go visit there from time to time and Toby also proposed to his fiancee there too. The band had decided to do a performance music video inside the ruin! The ruin made perfect sense, now we just need to get permission to shoot there… which we did, we just had to make sure we didn’t move any of the stones or dig there. Easy! Oh and you need public liability insurance for £10m. Yep, ten million. Done. Now lastly we just need a generator on site. Done. Two cars full of gear and we arrive bright and early and there’s morning dew making it… interesting where we can and can’t put equipment. Apparently amps don’t like moisture, who knew?! As we set up the first scene inside the ruin with the full band the dew evaporates and the day looks like a good’n! We started by shooting the opening sequence where Mike is on the wall with the band behind him as the camera moves in closer. This was done with a dolly off Amazon and wooden planks. Nothing fancy, but looks cool, right? As you might have worked out by now, the reason for the generator was so the band could play the song so they could mime along to it. But how did they hear it over Toby’s drums? You may ask. Well you can get dampeners for them and apparently putting gaffer tap underneath cymbals works. We then recorded the performance from inside the ruin, doing a main camera shot head on and then two where I roamed around with the camera as they performed. I then shot the drummer, Toby using the dolly going from side to side this time. I wanted to get a slow motion shot with the DSLR but then thought I’d try my iPhone… I ended up preferring the iPhone shot! So that’s what you see at 2 minutes 6 seconds! We then moved to outside the church ruin and shoot each artist in turn playing through the song leaving Toby till last. I purposely left Toby till last as his had the biggest setup and as we were going to set up the whole band as the last shot on this side of the Abbey. We then moved to the back part of the ruin to shoot Mike’s acoustic part again with the dolly setup. The things you learn! I actually learnt a load on this video shoot! I love the band, they’re babes! Go check out the music video:

It’s this time of year everyone makes new year resolutions and then smoothly forgets over the next few weeks/months. So here’s what I want to start/continue this year! 1. Continue to shoot awesome artists and bands (duh!) and tell their stories. This year I want to photograph a load more people I’ve not shot before and continue to work with bands/artists I’ve shot several times now. 2. Create more music videos! I really enjoyed the two I made this year and would LOVE to do so many more! Such a fun process working with artists so closely, definitely recommend! 3. Start the live stream video podcast! I’ve enjoyed doing live streams this year and intend to do a monthly podcast with musicians on! Now got all the technicalities of it sorted, so should be good to go! 4. Make “how to” and “quick tip” videos for other photographers to help them learn their craft. I learnt solely from online videos and one thing I hated was how long they’d take to explain a really simple technique. So I will be making short simple videos explaining everything from settings to lighting to editing to different types of photography. I plan to make these weekly going up on my Youtube channel (go subscribe here) and my Facebook page. 5. Blog at least once a week! Whether it’s what I’ve been up to, thinking about or a story about my photography from times gone by it’ll all be in there! So get ready! It’s going to be one hell of a ride 😉