2013 Round Up

2013 was a strange year for me. A lot of changes, some life-changing decisions, a few very fortunate encounters and lots of work. All in all not a bad one just a bit strange on both, personal and professional level. So here we are now, in 2014. I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions (I know myself all too well to pretend I'd ever stick to any of them) but I do like to look back at the previous 12 months every January. We've got this ritual in my household where on New Year's Eve we try to list the high points of the passing year and I would recommend this to everyone. It somehow makes you feel that little bit more optimistic at the dawn of new annum once you realise that there were good things that happened even in the shittiest of years. Now don't worry, I will spare you my list, what I will do instead is share some of my shots from 2013 that I'm particularly proud of for one reason or another:

And since we're summarising 2013 I will indulge a bit and make a list of music that I happened to fancy last year. Feel free to shrug your shoulders, raise your eyebrows and comment on my choices:

ALBUMS OF '13

Beyoncé BEYONCÉ 

Lorde Pure Heroine 

Janelle Monáe The Electric Lady 

Hot Natured Different Sides of the Sun 

Daft Punk Random Access Memories 

Horse Home 

Little Mix Salute 

Goldfrapp Tales of Us 

Morcheeba Head Up High 

Blood Orange Cupid Deluxe

SONGS OF '13

Lorde Royals 

Daft Punk Get Lucky 

Destiny's Child Nuclear 

Hot Natured Alternate State (feat. Róisin Murphy) 

Little Boots Motorway 

Miley Cyrus We Can't Stop 

Petula Clark Cut Copy Me 

Naughty Boy La La La (feat. Sam Smith) 

Rhye Open 

Sky Ferreira Everything Is Embarrassing

Sean Kennedy

Sean Kennedy is an up and coming Scottish singer-songwriter with whom I did a shoot last summer (you can read about it here). The results of that first session ended up on the cover of his debut EP "Love Don't Live Here" (as seen here) and I was looking forward to working with him again. This time it was an indoors shoot and we used Contrast Studio in Glasgow's city centre. Since the studio we used had plenty of natural light and it was a beautiful, late spring evening (something you don't get in Glasgow that often) we decided to split the shoot into 2 sections - one for shots with available light only and another using studio lighting. Huge thanks to Laurabelle, my light assistant supreme.

The Great Outdoors

I was recently asked to photograph a young, up and coming Scottish singer-songwriter Sean Kennedy. He's just about to release his first EP and we went to Mugdock Park to shoot the cover for it. Outdoors shoots in Scotland can be pretty tricky as the term "summer" should only be used very loosely here - even in July/August you can never, ever guarantee good weather. We had a back up plan in case it was pouring down on the day of the shoot but, luckily, after a gloomy morning we ended up having a beautiful, almost Indian summer-like afternoon.

The lovely Laurabelle was there to help with light and everything went pretty smoothly. Yes, we got shouted at by some territory-precious archers and spent a lot of the time jumping over cow dungs (I ended up on my knees in one - the sacrifice for art theme continues!) but overall we had a fun, productive afternoon which resulted in some cool images:

Sean Kennedy Photoshoot. Mugdock Park, August 2012.

You're more than welcome to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Till next instalment then!