FRANCES THORBURN & FRIENDS

Frances Thorburn is a fantastic singer-songwriter and an actress, known to many for her role as Kim Monroe in River City, and a couple of weeks ago she put on a truly splendid evening of music to raise funds for Moe Abutoq, a film director and a friend of Frances who was diagnosed with MS 2 years ago. The illness has been rapidly advancing and its treatment requires travel to Mexico and some £60,000. Frances invited a host of musicians for the night including Martha L. Healy, Kathryn Joseph, Angie Darcy and many more. "Celebration of Songs", as the event was called, took place on February 8th at Saint Luke's and featured material ranging from show tunes to Americana, Broadway to Paula Abdul (yes, really). I was lucky enough to be there and capture the night (see images below). If you didn't manage to attend the fundraiser you can still help Moe by donating to the JustGiving page Frances set up: 

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/frances-thorburnmoeabutoq.

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SOUNDCHECK

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CELEBRATION OF SONGS

Kathryn Joseph

Joyce Falconer

George Drennan & Frances Thorburn

Moe Abutoq

Angie Darcy

Frances Thorburn

Martha L. Healy

Frances Thorburn

Ryan Joseph Burns

Frances Thorburn

David Farrell, Frances Thorburn, Kathryn Joseph & Chris Stout

Nicole Caldwell

You may have seen Nicole Caldwell belting out "Purple Rain" on the X-Factor recently. I've been a fan of her voice ever since I've heard her perform with Soul Nation Choir a few years ago. Being able to finally work with Nicole on her very first photoshoot as a solo artist was a great opportunity. And a lot of fun! The brief was "bohemian/hippie/natural" so off we went last month to Mugdock Country Park (one of my favourite places to shoot) with Caroline Stewart on makeup duties and spent an evening walking about, laughing and talking nonsense. Oh yes, and we took some photos too. Enjoy!

PS. Big thanks to David for all the help!

The Dolls - Behind The Scenes

The Dolls are Louise McCarthy (Only an Excuse?) and Gayle Telfer Stevens (River City) and I wrote about working with them before. When their Dolls Abroad tour finally hit the King's Theatre in Glasgow earlier this spring (for 3 sold out shows no less) I was asked to document the process of putting the show together. It was a very, very long day but in all honesty, it was one of the most rewarding working experiences I've had. Have a look at some of the shots below:

Celtic Orbit

Celtic Orbit is a musical collaboration between acclaimed pianist Barry Douglas and Eimear McGeown (Flute), Catriona McKay (Harp) and Chris Stout (Fiddle). I photographed and filmed part of their rehearsal process at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall earlier this year, have a look below:

Christine Bovill Album Promo

I've written about working with Christine Bovill, the chanteuse supreme, on a couple of occasions (here and here) but we actually go way back. When I was a student in the early 2000s, I used to work at this Italian coffee shop in Finnieston called Espresso. Christine may be best known for singing in French but she also has a soft spot for all things Italian and was a frequent visitor at the café as she lived nearby (she named her debut album Derby Street after all). Eventually, I quit that job, Christine moved flats and we lost touch for a decade or so until we bumped into each other at a function in the summer of 2013 (she was singing, I was taking pictures). After so many years it took us a while to figure out how we knew each other but it eventually clicked - Espresso! What followed was not only a brilliant working relationship but also a treasured friendship.

When Christine Bovill was getting ready to release her sophomore album The Sentence That I Serve, I was brought on board to oversee the whole visual side of the project - from photographing the recording process as well as the single/album covers to designing the CD packaging and finally filming the EPK. It was a lot of work but I couldn't have been happier to be involved.

EPK Video:

Recording/Rehearsals (with The Strange Blue Dreams):

Single Cover Shoot:

Album Cover Shoot: