A Mixed Day

There's reason why today should have been a "mixed" day - there's no real reason why I shouldn't be 100% happy. I think a mixture of tiredness/exhaustion and small levels of stress are starting to creep up on me. I've been shooting non-stop since Friday and I have a shoot tomorrow, working Thursday, shooting Friday...SATURDAY = DAY OFF and possibly Sunday, although I might be shooting, and I'm definitely shooting the Monday after. So it's hectic here at HQ to say the least. I have no time for editing - If i'm not out shooting it - I'm on here writing about it when really I should focus my time on editing.
Natasha rang me this morning and offered me some preproduction work on Thursday which I couldn't do - I suppose the "mixed day" thing revolves around that. Dealing with a full high budget feature length on top of all this other work really pushes me beyond a physical limit. I'm concerned that I might have to withdraw from working on the film, which is a real shame but I can't put my own business on hold to work for someone elses - Well I can, but frankly I'd rather not. I totally love doing what I do, I get to work with some great people and have fun doing my job, although I'm trained in Film - I feel very strange working for someone else- it's strange going from being your own boss to being surrounded by people who have more BAFTAs and awards than I have years to my life (exageration) is not only daunting - but just demoralising.
Anywhoooo, today! After all - that is what blogs are about! Did a shoot with two hilarious girls, Claire and Natt. Our mammoth 7 hour shoot consisted of studio work, Selfridges car park, custard factory, millenium point and a train station. Whilst I was at Custard Factory I couldnt resist a sneak peak at Steve Gerrards new business location which I admire and live in total jealousy of.
Todays shoot seemed more about just getting some genuine fun/flattering shots of the girls without having to think "They are using this for a portfolio..." - so without thinking about the constraints of portfolio work - the girls went ahead and posed with lollypops, swang from train station posts and generally enjoyed the shoot.
So now I'm miles behind on all my editing work - I need to go and get cracking, sit down with a pint and work like a crazy man. speak soon!
Chris

I'm abit concerned that...

I no longer have time to edit photos. I spend all day taking them, on the night I am tired or spending time with Dani. I don't want to have to employ someone to come and edit for me so I'm up at 7:30am on my bank holiday Monday - Editing (and writing this...)
Spent a great day yesterday with Synopsis, forgot how I missed the fun element to photoshoots with bands. The photoshoot became a sort of photographic documentary about them going about their everyday lives. Hanging out in derelict warehouses, pointing out rats, climbing bits of broken wall and avoiding the really bad weather we seemed to have all day. But the great thing was - It was on Location! Away from the studio! I think of this like a racing driver. If your a racing driver - you want to be out on the race track - not in a simulator. That's exactly what working in the studio feels like to me. I like the challenge of using natural light, I like the sense of exploration when you first enter a location - I'm like a kid at the wacky warehouse - I just wanna go look in every nook and cranny. Often finding a rat or syringes, which is very different to wacky warehouse...
However, the photos that came out best were from the rest of the day - we went straight to the pub after shooting and I did a few snaps of the guys (and girl!) there, Dan even taught me how to play a new darts game (I suck at darts) but it was a great, that was until Kev (our driver) decided to blow me out of the game. That game is so bitter and full of revenge it's hilarious.
So many highlights from the day - one being timing how long it would take Dan to run in his house and pick up some money. Apparently he's notorious for taking his time at these things, everyone guessed about 10-15 minutes apart from Kev, who we laughed at because he said only 4 minutes. However, Dan came running back from his house at lightning speed and made it back to the car with 3 seconds to spare for the 4 minute mark. So Kev won that.
After the pub and a short stay at McDonalds, we went off to the venue to shoot some live photos. The venue was the newish Roadhouse at waterfront. It wasn't the perfect venue from a photographers point of view - the mic casted a constant shadow over the vocalists face. The one angle was slightly better but you still had to wait for the vocalist to move away from the mic before shooting. However!! This was the first time I had pushed my new 1.8 and camera to the limit, bumping it up to 200/1 and 1600 ISO at 1.8. The result? Sharp (not noisy), movement stopping live action. Not to mention pushing the 6fps, my kit made my job perhaps to easy but far more enjoyable. Can't wait till Glastonbury. 70-200, 2.8? Yes, I think so.
Thanks Synopsis for a great day!

Overdrive

I don't actually know why/how I have found the time to write this. Things are fantastically hectic here at the moment - anyone that knows me well will know that I love to be busy doing what I enjoy, and right now I barely have time to stop and eat (And food is worth stopping for).
So Friday was Lenny's shoot - we got some great photos from that. What I like about what I do is that you get to meet some really interesting people. Occasionally - you find someone who has a real interesting story to tell. In this case Lenny spoke casually about he got into working security and totally changed my perception of bouncers/security guards etc. I wish I had known about his stories earlier and then we could have portrayed that in the photos- maybe another time. Yesterday (Saturday) was the wedding. It was the first wedding gig I have done so I was proper nervous throughout the main ceremony. The fact that you really need to get things right first everytime is a real challenge for photographers that set out to do more than just "get the photo" - I realise now theres so many "Boring" wedding photographers - it's as easy as it looks. But I really enjoyed it, and I want to say a massive thank you to Gemma, Paul and both their families for inviting me along and for treating me to a my chip shop dinner :D haha.
Today is Synopsis's turn in front of the camera. It's currently raining so I really should be working on some new plans. One of my studio lights has packed up so we might hit a few problems today. I'm also meant to be picking up my battery grip before 11am - I doubt that will happen now. Sorry this is fairly short and sweet I will do my best to keep this updated as best I can when I get spare moments.

Chris

Confirmed: Glastonbury 2008

I can't believe it. I will be SUBvert magazines official photographer and reporter for Glastonbury 2008. I don't know what to think right now. There's so much to sort out, I am so lucky. I want to thank SUBvert for such a fantastic opportunity, never even considered i'd find myself in the photo pit of the UK's biggest festival as my first festival job.
Gosh. I'll probably write more later when it's had chance to sink in.

My Camera...

Is now paid off! Woo! I'm sort of proud of myself - all the money used to fund my equipment is made from my photoshoots and from odd bits of TV freelancing so it's nice to own a high value item which I can actually is mine.
Only lenses, lights, and accessories left and I'm ready to roll. Want all my new shiny kit in time for the summer :)
Still no news on the Glastonbury job - should hear by this evening.
Wish me luck, I'll leave you with this image I've just edited from the Wedding shoot the other day.

GLASTONBURY!

After a depressing and frankly bad day - I receive an email in the middle of the night.

"Chris, can you cover glastonbury festival for us?"

I love love love love my job. Photographer at the biggest UK festival? I suppose I'll give it abit of my time...DUH! I'll snatch it quicker than a thief in an unalarmed jewelery store.
I'll do ANYTHING to make this happen, I aint throwing this opportunity away. A production company rang this morning and asked me to work as runner from Saturday - Monday - and I had to turn it down because I have a wedding Saturday and my morals tell me I can't cancel that under any circumstances.
So pretty down hearted untill I got this email. Erh I'll be so gutted now if I cant get this. I will actually blame my internet connection because I share it between the two macs at my home studio which is a pain and I only bothered to set up my email on the one mac and I havent checked it for hours.
I'll keep you posted!

Bridal Photoshoot!

So as many of you are aware, we're looking to break into wedding photography this year. Perhaps (definitely) leaving it far to late for 08 bookings so thinking ahead for next year now. We kick started our portfolio with a Bridal photoshoot, working with our recently acquired make up artist, EmilyJane who brings a little bundle of nutiness to each shoot we work on.

On the theme of nuts - Emily's never seen a squirrel because "they don't live in Leicester" (where she has to travel from each shoot bless her!) The shoot started with a massive logistics nightmare, my experience of producing in film really came handy. The tip is to take your phone everywhere and keep it as loud as possible. I was woken by the "vintage" sound of "DUNN DUNN - DUNN DUNN!" (a text message) from Emily asking whether we should use an extra model for the shoot - she had to leave at three so I punched together a text to just continue with the original plan! Then I realised it was 7am, and the fact that we still hadn't finalised models on the day of the shoot meant it was gonna be a busy day. Thankfully, it wasnt too bad, the two models were travelling from Coventry to Snow hill station, Emily rang me to let me know she'd have to go and find the models herself because she was stuck in traffic and couldnt make to mine and back into birmingham before 11:30. So after a few calls - it was sorted and everyone arrived at mine as planned as if it was well organised, which it wasn't (entirely my fault haha). Emily perfected the make up whilst I pratted around with the precious, expensive contents of her bags including an old mans wig - which nobody seems to have a photo of. I get quite lucky with behind the scenes photos like that haha.

As for Emily and the models - the feel the full force of bad test shots and behind the scenes turd that I do whilst bored, however, today was a little different - we had our own behind the scenes photographer, which was Henry. His Dani (my partners), dad, and he popped down to help us out, he helped alot with holding the reflectors and getting more behind the scenes stuff whilst I concentrated on trying to focus a new lens. anyone who knows photography - knows that 1.8 is very difficult to focus - I looked through the shots on the LCD, thinking they looked sharp and how I wanted - got them back on the mac - and there out of focus or just slightly blurry. Lesson learned, I've never used a lens with anything more than a 5.6 aperture so this was a bad time to start learning. Still - dead happy with the overall photos, they needed some work in photoshop because my LCD seems darker than it should and some photos looked overexposed on the monitor, but I guess it's that over exposed/over saturated commercial look that I was trying to capture in the first place. Really trying to steer clear of anything too arty at the moment, although everytime I hit the shutter- I wish I could just get carried away and do it a way that would push some boundries or atleast a little more creative. today I realised my ambitions are bigger than reality, and that isn't a nice feeling. But once again, lesson learned. I'll move on and learn from previous attempts. I just want to say thanks to Dani and my family for keeping my feet on the ground the last few days - I almost pressed a big self destruct button on CBM and I'm so glad I could took a step back and thought about the situation. "One step at a time, chris" - "Why? I want to take the lift!" - that just about sums it up. I wish I could be more specific.