Festival

Mela Festival 2024

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Photographing Mela Festival at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park.

The Glasgow Mela is Scotland's biggest free multicultural festival of music, dance, and arts held annually at Kelvingrove Park. This year it took place on Sunday, June 23rd, it attracted some 40,000 people and I was there to capture the event for Glasgow Life. Honestly, this was such a joy to photograph and I hope the images below convey that.

GEAR:
Nikon Z8
Nikkor Z 70-200 f2.8
Nikkor Z 14-24mm f2.8
Nikkor Z 85mm f1.2
Nikkor Z 35mm f1.8
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filters

Celtic Connections 2024

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Documenting the 2024 Celtic Connections Festival

Well, this January flew by for a change, thanks to Celtic Connections, the world-renowned folk, roots and world music festival. Glasgow Life approached me late last year asking if I’d be interested in documenting the 2024 outing of the annual winter event and I was, like, hmm, I need to think about it. I’m kidding, obviously, I jumped at the opportunity!

This year’s festival run from January 18th to February 4th, with over 300 events involving 1,200 artists across 25 of the city’s venues. I’m not superhuman and was able to photograph only a portion of that, but hopefully what you see below is a good representation of the 2024 Celtic Connections. I had a blast and am looking forward to the 2025 edition if they have me back. Enjoy a selection of my favourite shots from the past 3 weeks:

GEAR
Nikon D850 x 2
Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Nikkor 35mm f1.8
Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filters

Christine Bovill's Piaf

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I went to see Christine Bovill's much talked-about "Piaf" show at the very beginning of its run at this year's Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and I was floored - by the artist, her performance, her voice, the theatricality and last but not least The Famous Spiegeltent setting. How could I not come back and try to photograph it? I met Christine for coffee in Glasgow's West End, she kindly agreed to let me document the concert and I came back to Edinburgh to photograph the penultimate performance of this year's "Piaf" run. It was quite an unusual setting for me - the only instruments were the piano and the violin (and Christine's voice, of course), The Famous Spiegeltent is a very intimate venue which combined with an incredibly attentive audience made me feel quite aware of my presence there. You don't want to disturb anyone and draw attention to yourself and I did the best I could given that I'm 6' 4" and the shutter on D700 is a rather loud one. Here are some photos for you to see. I have no idea if there are any plans for future "Piaf" shows but be sure to see one if you get a chance, you won't be disappointed!