Enrique Iglesias (and Lemar) at the O2 arena in London

Enrique Iglesias

I've been really lucky to get ask to photograph a few music events recently. As I'm a musician it's always good to do concerts. The only downside is, I have to concentrate on taking pictures more than the actual concert itself. Friday March 25th Enrique Iglesias was performing at the O2 arena on London.

Prior to the concert I tried to find out the shoot position. This would usually be; front of the stage or the mix position (half way up the auditorium). We were told front of stage. Great, no need to carry super long and extra heavy lens with me. I took my 24-70 and 70-200. When I got there, I was told, we're shooting from the mix position. Great! While it's not great to hear that, it's not so bad, as shooting from the front of the stage, you tend to have shots looking up the performers nose. Not very flattering. Despite not having the correct lens with me, Enrique did walk down a long walkway. When he done that, I got most of my shots. Lucky for us, he done that on the 3rd song and not after we had to leave.

Lemar

The support act was Lemar. We were front of the stage for him. Notice the up nose type shot.

You can still see the audience hands in the way, on reflection I perhaps should have done a few shots and made the audience part of the shot, rather than try my best to avoid it. The things you think of afterwards eh. Something to consider next time. A great show and my sister was quite Jealous at me getting there and doing it.

JLS and others perform at Rays of Sunshine Concert

JLS performing at the Rays of Sunshine Concert

Friday 11th March I was lucky enough to be asked to cover the Rays of Sunshine concert held at the Troxy in East London. This was a charity event, the Rays of Sunshine charity raises money to turn wishes into happy memories for children living with serious or life threatening illnesses between the ages of 3 and 18.

Performers at the concert seemed to be all x reality tv talent show contestants, including JLS who were headlining the event, Olly Murs, Joe McElderry, George Sampson and Spelbound. Also performing were Tinchy Stryder and The Saturdays. Spelbound were amazing to watch, but difficult to photograph. As I was at the front all night, I made sure I had some hearing protection, this wasn't because I don't want to listen to the music, just to stop my hearing getting damaged.

Pictured is JLS performing at the concert.

Jet Harris 1939 - 2011

It is with great sadness that I write this post. Jet Harris the original bass player with Cliff Richard and The Shadows passed away last night 17 March 2011. Jet had been ill with cancer for the last few years and struggled on with performing. The Rapiers worked with Jet for the last 25 years. He will be missed by us all any many others that have known him and influenced in those early years by him.

This is a rare picture I took of him playing and using my bass guitar. I was normally on stage with him.

Jet Harris in Weymouth, 2008

Here is some more information on Jet Harris's career:-

• Jet Harris was a UK pioneer of the electric bass guitar.  He was the first person in Britain to play the Fender Precision Bass guitar in a band.
• Jet Harris was the original bass player with world-renowned instrumental group the Shadows.  Some of (Cliff Richard and) the Shadows greatest hits came during his time with them.
• Jet Harris thought up the name the Shadows 
• With Cliff Richard and the Shadows - Jet's chart career was staggering.
• When the Shadows won international fame in their own right with their chart-topper “Apache” in 1960, Jet’s driving and innovative bass playing was central to their sound.
• Jet Harris left The Shadows in 1962.  He broke new boundaries in the 1960s by transforming the bass into the lead instrument on his number one hit “Diamonds” and chart-topper “Scarlett O’Hara”
• Jet has appeared on 24 No.1 hit recordings - the singles include: "Living Doll", "Travelling Light", "Please Don't Tease", "I Love You", "The Young Ones", "Diamonds", "Apache", "Kon-Tiki" and "Wonderful Land".… Jet was a pioneer of 6-string bass playing.  The sound was dubbed “The 6-string Thunder Thrill”
• In 1964 Jet received the New Musical Express Award for Top Instrumentalist of the Year
• Jet has inspired and been revered by guitarists who followed in his wake including, Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, Bill Wyman and Fleetwood Mac’s John McVie
• "Nivram" has become a 'standard' and is acknowledged as a classic example of a bass guitar solo.
• Jet received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Fender guitars in 1998 and he continued to actively tour until a few weeks before his death
• In January 2010 Jet Harris received an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s New Year 2010 Honours List 
• In 2009 Jet Harris was diagnosed with a form of cancer.  The primary site of the cancer was unknown.   CUP (Cancer of Unknown Primary site) accounts for 4% of all new cancer cases*

  *Figures taken from the Cancer Research UK website www.cancerhelp.org.uk/type/unknown-primary-cancer/

X factor live tour - Cher Lloyd

I was lucky enough to be asked to cover the Matinee performance of the X factor Live tour on Sunday 6th March at Wembley Arena. Normally with live shows photographers will only get the first 3 songs. I once had 1 song only. With the X factor show, because they had pyrotechnics, we weren't allowed to shoot any acts then. In addition, all the top 10 acts from the X factor finals were spread across the whole show. This meant for some a long day, or a chance to see more than one song from the show. Great. 

 Cher Lloyd © Nathan J Hulse

I was very pleased to see they actually used a real band with real musicians, playing real instruments rather than just backing tracks. It was good to see more of a show than normal, I still left just before the end to avoid thousands of people all catching the same train.

Simon Cowell's Syco had a 6 month restriction on use for any photography from these concerts. They were only available for 6 months from the date the picture was taken. Other use had to be arranged via syco. 

Usually photographers photograph the first 3 songs of a concert. However, because this concert had many performers, we were there for almost the entire duration. After standing at the front, I managed to blag some ear plugs from a security officer. When I got back I decided it was time to get some proper ear plugs. Best decision I made.

Jaime Winstone and Paloma Faith at PPQ fashion show during London Fashion week

Pandemonia at PPQ Fashion show

At the time of writing, I'm in the middle of Jury service, which is interesting, yet it restricts me be able to get to events to photograph. It's a busy time at the moment as well, London fashion week is in full swing. I manage to get to one event to photograph some outside arrivals. Really I need to do much more than just one event, it's still great fun to get out to one though. I managed to get to the PPQ fashion show at Somerset House. A few people arrived including Paloma Faith and Jaime Winstone. I don't just photograph celebrities arriving at these event, here is one character that looked great Pandemonia. 

Nancy Sorrell at Stephane St Jaymes fashion launch

Nancy Sorrell

Currently I'm doing Jury service, which restricts my work for the next few weeks. It seems to be usual that I miss all the fun stuff when I'm busy with other commitments. I did manage to get to one last event before my service started. The  fashion launch for Stephane St. Jaymes Spring/summer collection. Just before London Fashion week starts, although by the time this post goes live, LFW will have ended. I could have stayed to cover the actual fashion show, I decided not. Here is a shot of Nancy Sorrell, wife of comedian Vic Reeves. Also in attendance was ex Eastenders actor Ross Kemp and Princes Michael of Kent.

As I normally mention, all the photos on my blog and on the first link included are taken by myself (except where I state otherwise). In this instance they are available for commercial use via Famous Pictures. If you are interested in prints of my pictures contact me for details.

Berlin - Brandenburg Gate on Fotolia

I recently went to Berlin, Germany to Visit a friend. I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked to have done. Also the weather wasn't in my favour for quality images for stock use. I did however, manage to capture a few of the Brandenburg Gate, or Brandenburger Tor, if you live in Germany.

NatJag - Fotolia.com

As they were only taken on my 8MP camera I didn't feel the quality would be good enough to upsize and submit to my collection at Alamy. Instead I sent it to a microstock site called fotolia.

There have been many discussions about micro stock sites on photography forums as they sell pictures at a very low price. This is very good for many people that have personal blogs and want quality images to use without the huge cost that businesses would be able to afford for slightly more exceptional images. I only have a small collection on this site as I removed much of it a few years ago. They still have strict quality controls and one of my images wasn't accepted. Next time I visit Berlin, I will perhaps take my tripod and get some exceptional images of the city.

Also see a rejected image by fotolia on my rarely used blog site at Shutterchance.com