Shoot It Loud: Launched!

So after much time, thought and planning, I've decided to go ahead with launching a new online blog committed to bringing the forefront of Birmingham's live pop acts into pictures and words.

Shoot It Now is simply a blog and online store, which is strongly affiliated with Chris Barber Media. It's going to take around a year before we build the reputation and material to make it a success, but by covering everyone from The Killers to Cliff Richard in the next 6 months, I really do think they'll be something for everyone.
The blog is based across numerous websites, including the main Chris Barber Media website, which now means that fans have the chance to purchase prints of their favourite artists.
I've been extremely fortunate to be offered passes for these, frankly HUGE gigs, and I'd like to take a sec to thank all the publications that have offered and provided passes for the gigs over the next year.
Stay tuned to the Shoot It Loud myspace for details on upcoming gigs, if you're gonna be at one of the gigs we're covering - give us a shout - we'd love to hear from you.
We'd also like to hear from photographers, reviewers and the average gig goer so we can get you involved.

You're all welcome to check it out, although I'd recommend going back to the site in about 6 months time, when we've kickstarted everything!

www.myspace.com/chrisbarbermedia
www.shootitloud.com

Someone said to me....

The other day, someone said "Chris-you've done really well for yourself - your so lucky!" Which is possibly the funniest compliment I've ever heard. Luck isn't waking up every cold winter morning and working from 5am till 9pm. I'm not taking it seriously, but hey, next time say something nice lol.

Moving on, I'm shooting Guillemots next month! For those who don't know, I'm a massive fan of their music and it's been very frustrating seeing them three times in the last year or so and not taking one photograph. So when I got the thumbs up from the publication I work with - I was well chuffed. I come back from my break on November 7th and shoot Guillemots on the evening. That's not a complaint - more of an extended Holiday.

This weekend saw Avay and Allbright infront of my lens. The Allbright lads came down and got a few promo shots for their upcoming album and promo material for tours with Army of Freshmen and Weatus. I introduced them to my local Chip Shop, Dan somehow seemed to think that Dudleys chips were better, but he's wrong.

Avay was our shoot on Sunday. The whole shoot was abit last minute but she came along with some great stuff and totally knew what she was doing infront of camera, which made my job alot more enjoyable for a Sunday shoot. We started in the studio and progressed onto two outdoor locations which was where I learnt an important thing about myself.

I love Autumn.

As a kid - I really couldn't care less that the leaves were turning red (I remember getting in trouble at school for throwing red leaves at the other kids and pretending they were fireballs...or something?) Anywho - whilst looking through the viewfinder, I see all these funky colours in the background, which just set off the whole photograph. I'm thinking of taking a little journey up there on my own tomorrow to get some nice autumn photographs.

I'll leave you with an example of how I like to work when I'm on a shoot. Most photographers choose step ladders or specially adapted tripods to get ariel high angled shots. I choose tree climbing. Once climbed, I could not get down and was forced to preform an unmanly collapse from the tree whilst pretending I hadn't crushed my ankle on impact. I haven't been feeling too well recently either - I'm not going to go on about it though, I've been accused of man flu far too many times to mention anything again. right, I'm off to a wedding consultation with Vicky and groom to be and then a busy day shooting The Hoosiers tomorrow, if you're going - Come say Hi!

Big Bad Blog

So it's been a bloomin long time since I last update me blog.
Everythings changing here at Chris Barber Media HQ, a total new direction to our work in order to seperate us from competition and expand our services.
For starters, me and my beautiful lady are getting our first house together at the start of next year. Which means it'll probably actually happen around mid-2009. Alot of our time and finances are being thrown at that at the moment, which has sadly meant less shoots. But the shoots we have done have been very much focused and it's been nice to offer a more individual approach to each shoot. With the previous 10 shoots a week, everything became abit "run of the mill" - which isn't my idea of a good time.
So I'll update you from way back to last month which saw Jennifer and Steves wedding. This great couple were treated to some fantastic weather throughout the whole day and made me and Dani feel more than welcome so a massive "Thank You" to you both and your families. We're sending their photos (hopefully) by this weekend, I hope you like them guys!


Going back abit further, me and my family attended a massive family reunion with some people I haven't seen in around a decade and people my Dad hasn't ever met, which was great. I thought I'd upload a few nutty pictures from the night. I appear to be mid-head banging quite fiercly, I can assure you that this is just an average expression of mine. Photoshop it to your hearts content...

This last month has also welcomed our new make up artist - Sophie! We've only had two shoots together so far but the results from both Helens and Mandis shoots are fantastic! Helen came to the studio in a suit, she came straight from an interview in town. She left loooking like the photo below. Notice the expression similarity between the photo of me and Dani (above) and Helen's below...


This weekend also marks the end to the production of the calendar I've been working on for like the last 2 months. It's a bit of a weight off my shoulders if I'm honest, but the photos look good and I'm looking forward to seeing the final product on sale around the Midlands within the next few weeks. Photos from that should be coming soon!
Incase you haven't noticed, I shot "Last Shadow Puppets" last week in Wolverhampton, some of the best shots are online now. Thanks to everyone whos gave such a positive responce to the photos, I look forward to seeing you at more gigs in the future. Our next gig will probably be the Hoosiers (in Wolverhampton again) and then Goldfrapp - which I'm hugely honoured to be photographing, IF the passes get sorted. Big if.
Right then, I'm off to go and shoot those "Allbright" lads at the studio followed by a wedding consultation and an interview at a tanning salon in Birmingham tomorrow. More info on that soon, I'll do my best to keep this better updated from now on. For more frequent updates, follow me on Twitter. www.twitter.com/chrisbarbermedi

Coffee, Buses, Plans and Photographs

Just about sums up the last couple of weeks. I simply haven't had a chance to update this blog as I've been working on location for the last 2 or 3 weeks solid and I can never seem to connect to a wireless in old factories or weird old houses.
But I'm finally back at home and enjoying some time to recoup and edit before launching our new project next week. It's already been plastered around the new website etc but we're launching "Shoot It Loud" very soon which is a new music blog and shop. More about that later.
So since the last blog I've been shooting weddings, bands and the occasional glamour model. I even went from shooting with monkeys at Dudley Zoo to shooting one of birminghams most promising glamour models within the space of an hour - although let me insist that the two shoots were completely seperate...
We're very near to completion with the calendar with just one more girl left to shoot. It's taken us everywhere from monkey enclosures to the not-so-cobbled streets of Black Country Museum and should be ready for purchase sometime next month.
Also working on a few more calendars up in Derby over the next few weeks for a magazine and a few fashion outlets, which i'm looking forward to.
Working everyday for the last two weeks has finally taken it's physical toll on me, I've had some severe Man-Flu the last few days - although it's not really flu, just a tad under the weather, I've been advised by Dani to take it easy for abit so I'm just kicking back for the next few days to regain some energy and eat some proper food. Rustlers 60 second burgers are nice once - but living off 60 second food for two weeks is not fun.
So back to Shoot It Loud - our new online music publication. It'll work as a blog system and can be accessed at shootitloud.com (when it's ready) - it'll link between the new Chris Barber Media website so you can purchase prints from the gig online. The reason I've set this up is for two reasons.
First of all, when I'm at gigs, I always have someone ask for more information about where they can view the photos from the set. Usually I work as part of other publications which is great, I can just refer to the publications website and they can view them there. But I want somewhere to host my music portfolio seperate from Chris Barber Media, which is currently in a fairly awkward hybrid of Music, Lifestyle, Wedding and Model Portfolios....lol. So hopefully the launch of Shoot It Loud will help to seperate my varied portfolio. Also - I've had alot of people contact me after the gig requesting prints from the night. Most of the time this is of the band, however, I've had requests to purchase photos of themselves at a gig (I try and get a few shots of the crowd at each gig) so Shoot It Loud will take a similar stance to succesful nightlife photography website - Tilllate, with emphasis on photos of the crowd as well as the band playing.
Below is the current planned gigs for the next year or so. As I said, most of my work is done for other publications, but this work will still be uploaded to Shoot It Live.

Spinto Band
Last Shadow Puppets
Towers of London
Foals
the Courteeners
The Hoosiers
The Fillers
Weatus/Frontline
Katie Melua
McFly
Ida Maria
Pigeon Detectives
The Script
The Fratellis
Stereophonics
The Enemy
Jason Donavon
Boyzone (Yep..)
The Killers

All the above are scheduled to go ahead within the next year, some of which starting from this Friday, so keep your eyes peeled and if you see me at a show - give me a wave. I'm usually eating Smarties Cookies or something :)

Chris!

Everythings about to become easy...

Well atleast that's the plan. We've been working away to try and launch a totally different approach to our shoots which aim to support clients through each step of the shoot and help us appeal to more potential clients through Winter 2008.
We're hoping to launch this October 1st, but there's a million things that could go wrong so that's not an official date. Everythings gone abit quiet on the blogs as I haven't had any time to sit down and write this and I can't see it getting any better, our schedule is packed for a while now with shoots or other hard graft.
Worked on possibly the biggest team shoot ever the other day at the agency, the team included,
Photographer, 3 models, film crew, agency manager and assistant manager, make up, hair, location manager, assistant, and a few "extras" models to assist the main models. It was a crazy day but we seemed to manage and the location was fantastic. We even got a bit lucky and we were allowed to shoot in a sweet shop. Although - it could have been better if I knew we were going in there as the lighting sucked, but still - great shots all the same.
Anyway, I've started using "Twitter" which is far easier than writing lengthy blogs every time something happens, feel free to take a look - www.twitter.com/chrisbarbermedi (Yes, without the "a")(?) It's alot easier for me as I don't always have access to the internet when im out on a shoot but I can still update it from my phone so keep an eye out there.
Look forward to unvieling our new system very soon!

Chris

Artfest Incident

Just a quick update following my promise to contact The Levellers concerning the way I was spoke to whilst photographic their gig on Sunday. It seems alot of you are interested in what the heck is happening/happened.
I've been in touch with a few of the photographers who happened to be nearby at the time and helped me to understand the situation far better than I did at first.
Just to briefly overview what happened, I was taking pictures on stage left when one of the technical crew chose to start shouting all sorts of obscenities at me (I couldn't understand a most of what he said, just the odd word. His gestures and the odd words I heard suggested that he wasn't in the best of moods).
So I speak to a few of the other guys who were around the time, and (although I'm unsure how) I seem to think I may have stood infront of him whilst he was pressing buttons and twiddling his knobs and what not.
It all happened VERY quickly - we're talking in a 10 second time frame. I remember him waving his arms around and some freaky veins popping out his throat the moment I turned around. I immediately reacted to what I believed to be "Can you please just step aside" (Add unessential expletives) and continued shooting with another photographer towards the front end of the stage, about three metres from the techi's "cove".
So following this, and the opinions from other photographers who saw what happened, I understand that I was in the way of the techi (in some shape or form), so therefore, I raise my hands and apologize for that (just like I said and did at the gig when he rudely waved and whistled me away).
However, this was in no way reason for him to act and speak to me the way he did, the sheer unprofessional-ism and almost laughable approach to those who publicize and review everything he and the band work for.
This unprofessional-ism was not denied when I later wrote to The Levellers record label, OFT Recordings, who replied,

"Hi Chris,

Sorry to hear about this. Usually, we hear only positive things about the crew.

I have passed on your message to the tour manager and agent."

As much I really just wanna let this go now, I look forward to their response.

Artsfest 08 Rant...

I found myself at the mainstage photo pit at Artsfest this Sunday, looking forward to an evening of live music entertainment. This is by no means a review or overview of the event but instead a few thoughts based on last night.
I'd like to start by saying a massive thank you to the great crowd who were all very up for it and most of the bands who put on a great show.
However, why on earth was half the crowd in the photo pit? Whoever was in charge of designating photo passes on Sunday has alot to answer for. The pit was filled with people who really shouldn't have been there, making my job (and other photographers who were working for local press) extremely difficult.
I constantly found myself having to work around 15 year olds holding their mobile phones in the way of each shot. Most "photographers" I spoke to were not there on behalf of a magazine or press. For this I blame a Flickr group that sent in atleast 20 "photographers" to shoot the event, with no intention of the photos being used for press. Surely, the pit could and should have been reserved for photographers whos photos will be used commercially to promote the event. At times, I was tempted to just leave the pit and shoot from the crowd as I would have had more room to move.
The proof is in the pudding - I walked straight up to security and asked where and if I can get a photo pass, within 5 minutes I had full access backstage to the whole event with no evidence of working for local press, hence why there was SO many amateur photographers in the pit, and, even worse... people who just got in there to watch! I saw one girl just leaning up against the stage with no sense or purpose. I spoke to a handful of the headlining bands after their sets, and every band seemed frustrated and frankly pissed off with the sheer amount of photographers. I quote one band saying "It's like being at a f***ing Canon convention" - I'm sorry but in future, please allow the photographers who ARE there to shoot for local press and magazines to be prioritised over amateur photographers.
Second part of this rant is to The Levellers, or more so - your ignorant and rude technical crew on stage. Throughout the day, the photographers had been allowed on stage to shoot the band. This obviously goes back to my previous rant about photographers access and who security and admin had been allowing into the photo pit. During The Levellers set, I, along with every other photographer that night, spent two minutes getting a few shots from behind the band looking over the crowd. I was stood on the very far left hand side of the stage, far away from any action and creating absolutely no disturbance to The Levellers performance, when I was greeted by the grunting technical total twat who introduced himself with "OI F***ING S**T, F*** OFF". Hit by the sheer rudeness, I moved straight of his way and continued to shoot, along with two other photographers who were on stage at the time (Nothing was said to them). Out of his way, he then whistled and told me to leave the stage. I'd like to add that I was IN NO WAY disrupting or disturbing him or The Levellers from their performance and I was a good 3 metres from him when this happened. As a polite, respectful person, I left the stage at his command and even apologised for any inconvenience. At this point he shrugged me away and threw his hand in a "Just leave" gesture.
Never have I had to put up with such total rudeness from someone who was clearly just having a bad night. 20 minutes later I was back down at the pit and I could still see him shaking his head in disapproval of something else.
So, thanks to you, The Levellers set was totally hindered. In future, I'd like you to remember that some of the photographers that night were there to review you and actually publicise and promote the band you work for. Thankfully, The Levellers put on an entertaining show, as I said, this isn't a review, just an opinion on a poorly operated (from a press point of view) and ignorant technical crew that work with the Levellers.
I look forward to reviewing this, I'll make sure the technical crew get a copy.

Fool.

Shooting The Prime Minister.

My day was totally turned upside down yesterday. I was scheduled for a portfolio shoot at 10:30am at the agency. I was almost there and in the space of 10 minutes my commute went from boring to super exciting as I found myself face to face with Gordon Brown.
10 minutes is a total exaggeration, I waited amongst the other paps for over an hour or so before the PM arrived. I got a great spot after fighting my way through the other photographers. There was atleast twice the amount of armed police as there was people who came to see what was happening, even the press didn't seem to excited when the PM arrived. I always thought it was a joke when they say that security talk into there watches, but it appears to be true...

Prior to his arrival, I got a few shots of the ICC, and just spent some time zoomed in and scanning around the building when I noticed two guys standing on the roof looking straight at me with a telescope....and a sniper (Y) - At that point I thought I should just start minding my own business lol. So after getting in the way of Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary) and throwing my lens in other politicians faces, Gordon Brown arrived, about 2 hours of waiting came down to about 6 seconds of him leaving the car and going inside. Enjoyed every second of it though, was good fun.