Old Hollywood

I've always been obsessed with portraits from the Golden Age of Hollywood, especially the ones taken before World War II broke. I remember cutting out those Dietrich head shots by Don English or numerous publicity stills taken by George Hurrell from newspapers and magazines whenever there was an article on stars or films from that era. Sure, more often than not they were the results of painful sittings with subjects who were contractually obliged to have their shots taken by this or that particular photographer whether they approved of them or not and the end results were retouched to within an inch of their life (I find it funny when people go on about Photoshopping these days as if retouching was the digital age's invention) but when you look at those images today you cannot deny the fact that they are timeless. They will never age and they also seem to have a certain air of melancholy about them. I think my preoccupation with that particular style of photography can be seen in my work at times - the shadows, rich blacks, the drama, use of wide apertures, etc. It's not necessarily something I do consciously  - it just happens to be the kind of aesthetic I'm drawn to. I've always wanted however, to do a shoot that would directly pay homage to that era and this summer I was finally given an opportunity to do so.

I've written previously about the amazing Christine Bovill and her Piaf show at last year's Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and this July I was asked to take some publicity shots specifically to promote her Piaf performances - perfect opportunity to indulge my vintage Hollywood glamour obsession. The super-talented Caroline Stewart was in charge of hair and make up and here's a sample of what we managed to create:

At some point during the session I asked Christine to sing a song in order to get a few performance-like shots. After a few spine-tingling verses sung A capella in French, Caroline was reduced to tears. If you've not been as lucky and haven't had the chance to hear Miss Bovill live I urge you to do so immediately - she currently has a residency at Swing on Hope Street in Glasgow and you can see her perform live with The Shiverin' Sheiks every Thursday. Oh, it's free too!

I'm leaving you with a couple of images of a more dressed-down version of Christine take that same day:

New & Old Beginnings

Uhm, yeah, so I have no clue what happened to me and the whole idea of rebooting this blog, i.e. writing regularly. You know, like maybe more than once in 6 months. It's been a weird year so far though, both personally and professionally, so sitting down and writing about pretty pictures wasn't at the height of my priorities. Anyways, onwards and upwards and since photography has recently officially become my sole source of income and full-time occupation I should hope I'd be able to blog about it more regularly. Famous last words, right? Anyways, since this is a new beginning of sorts for me I thought it would only be fitting to talk about my actual photographic roots and I've recently found a picture that might be a great illustration of this:

This is my younger sister Ania, victim of many photographic experiments since her early years. I'm pretty sure this was around 1992 so I would've been 12 - 13 years old and as you can see this was a high concept shoot - set decoration included exotic plant and the subject's hair was styled on Lisa Stansfield during her "All Around The World" phase. The camera was a semi-automatic Samsung if I'm not mistaken and some basic Kodak film was used. And of course, we need to give a special mention to the innovative use of white background here. The point is, I clearly didn't have the tools and knowledge to execute what I had in mind but the concept was there. I'd like to think I've come a long way since then but the truth of the matter is I still quite often feel like I'm basically winging it.

The aforementioned Samsung camera got eventually stolen and to replace it my parents got me a proper SLR, a second-hand Zenit 11, and that's when I got a bit more serious about photography - learned how to develop film, prints, etc. I've still got that Zenit kicking about:

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

Blog Reboot

OK, I think it's time to re-boot this blog. I mean, my last post was in August and that's just embarrassing. In my defence, when I started this whole blogging idea I still had a full time job which combined with shooting over the weekends/in the evenings and editing till late at night left little room (let alone inspiration) for writing. That's one side of the coin. The other one is that I've admittedly been struggling with the concept - who, in all honesty, cares about my latest photography commission? Turning this into a kind of photo advice blog is not gonna work cause that's just not me. Focusing on the technical aspects of the photos would bore me to death and I'd probably burst into tears if I had to come up with those lighting set up diagrams. Plus, there are people out there who do it already and with more competence than I could ever hope for. I keep reading online advice about how your blog should be SEO friendly, have meta here and bollocks there and while I'm sure it's all very important I simply cannot write having all that as my main focus. I used to keep a regular online journal a decade ago (before the word blog entered our collective lexicon) but that came quite effortlessly and I truly enjoyed it at the time. So I've decided to hell with trying to be Google-friendly (not like that was working anyways, let's face it) and write for the fun of it. Well, that's the idea anyways. Cheers to that then and Happy New Year!

Christine Bovill's Piaf

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!