Aydin Rocks!
Just before Christmas I received an email from Los Angeles. It was from a band manager looking for a photographer to shoot some portraits of a guitarist called Aydin who is hoping to take the leap into the big time and a potential sponsorship with Fender Guitars.
Aydin came to the studio and, after a quick simple portrait against the white studio wall, we headed out into the streets of Digbeth. In just over an hour we got a great collection of varied images and Aydin was super-cool in front of the camera. Here’s just a few of the finished photos…
FAVOURITE!!!
A little bit of Oasis attitude 
Good luck with everything Aydin. Don’t forget me when you’re famous! 
Portrait Shoot in a Blizzard (almost)
Anneliese was on her way over for a family shoot in the park when the skies blackened. By the time she arrived with her husband Richard, their three kids, her brother and his family, the weather was looking somewhat grim! I put the kettle on…
Luckily it wasn’t too long before the skies began to look a little brighter and the rain eased off. We decided to head to the park. I grabbed a few shots of the kids and some group shots and then the weather turned again. It was even worse this time and we ran for cover.
We must have only had about 20 minutes to get some images but I reckon we got some good ones. Here are my faves…
OK… cute alert!!
08 becomes 09…
At the end of each year I like to put together a round-up of the past 12 months as a way for friends and family to see what we’ve been up to. Quite a few read my blog regularly so will know already but for those that don’t it’s a quick catch-up. It’s also good to look back occasionally and see how things have changed, hopefully for the better.
2008 has probably been our busiest year ever! The photography business has gone from strength to strength with us shooting over 30 weddings this year, including our first overseas wedding in New York. Along the way we’ve made some fantastic new friends and had the privalege of sharing some amazing days with our clients. We love shooting weddings and every one is different. Thanks to all our couples for trusting us to capture such an important event for them.
On the music side of things it’s been an incredible year. I’ve photographed so many gigs and added some genuine legends to my portfolio… Elton John, the Sex Pistols, Liza Minelli, Bon Jovi, Kiss, Oasis, Jay Z and even Cliff Richard! I’m hoping to add AC/DC to that list in 2009. On top of that I shot my first magazine cover, featuring Napalm Death, which hits stores this month and I realised one of my ambitions by having a photo in the legendary Rolling Stone magazine.
At home, 2008 has been fun-packed and magical as Elliott continues to grow and keep us entertained. The most watched TV show in our house is now In The Night Garden and we’ve almost given up trying to keep the house tidy! CDs and records have been thrown out to make room for more and more toys and, with a new baby due to arrive next month, it’s only going to get worse! And I wouldn’t have it any other way Evelyne and I took Elliott to Barcelona in April and in July we celebrated his first birthday. We must have taken thousands of photos!!
Every year I put together a list of my fave albums from the year and below are the ones which have been on heavy rotation this year. It’s a varied mix for sure. So here they are, my top 20 albums of 2008:
1. Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Without a doubt the album I’ve listened to more than any other and, in my opinion, one of the most underrated artists in the world. I love all Kathleen’s albums but this one is so packed full of emotion and incredible songwriting it has to be my favourite. Oh, and Kathleens’ profile picture on her MySpace page was taken by me! Check the clip below..
2. Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh
Brutally heavy yet intricate, intelligent and quite unique.
3. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Winner of this year’s Mercury Prize and stunning from beginning to end. A thing of beauty.
4. The Gaslight Anthem - The ‘59 Sound
Imagine The Clash jamming with Bruce Springsteen and you’ll be halfway there. Soulful americana meets punk rock. A fine album and a great live band.
5. Meshuggah - ObZen
Relentless, technically mindblowing and immensely heavy. Love it!
6. Rise Against - Appeal To Reason
They just keep getting better.
7. The Bronx - The Bronx III
One of the best live bands on the planet.
8. Gemma Hayes - The Hollow Of Morning
The lovely Gemma returned to form with this gorgeous record.
9. Norma Jean - The Anti Mother
Who says christians and rock & roll don’t mix? Actually, I think it was Billy Connolly. He’s wrong!
10. Unearth - The March
Rifftastic!
11. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Even an average NIN album is better than most other bands.
12. Sara Bareilles - Little Voice
Perfect pop music.
13. The Kills - Midnight Boom
Cool as hell.
14. Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Took me a while to get into this but it eventually got under my skin.
15. Cancer Bats - Hail Destroyer
Pure down n’ dirty rock n roll with riffs and grooves galore.
16. The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
Deep, dark, brooding. Two of my favourite vocalists ever.
17. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night
Now bonafide megastars, the Kings delivered an accomplished album this year.
18. Bleeding Through - Declaration
Brutal!
19. Mark Geary - Opium
Took me ages to even find this album but it was worth the effort.
20. Weezer - The Red Album
Elliott’s favourite. He loves dancing around to Pork & Beans.
Other albums worthy of attention - Coldplay, Metallica, Pete Murray, Killing The Dream, This Or The Apocalypse, The Stills, Whitechapel, Beneath The Massacre, Cold War Kids, The Haunted, Snow Patrol, Sigur Ros, City & Colour, Johnny Truant, Beck, Slipknot, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Joan As Police Woman, Shawn Smith.
So there you have it, another year over and 12 months of the unknown ahead. I look forward to plenty more adventures and good times in 2009. If you have the inclination, you can keep up with our exploits on the blog or Twitter. For those on Facebook have look at the Steve Gerrard Photography page on Facebook.
Thanks to all our friends, family and lovely clients who made 2008 such a great year for us. Best wishes for 2009.
Steve
x
My new nephew
After a relaxing Christmas with the family, this morning we woke up to the news that my brother and his wife, Goong, had had a baby boy at 6am.
It’s their first baby together and everyone is doing well. As they live in Dublin I’m not sure when I’ll get to meet my new nephew, whom they’ve named Hugo, but hopefully it won’t be too long.
So I just want to congratulate Paul and Goong on a job well done.
It seems to be the time for babies. Our friends Charlotte & Steve (whose wedding we covered back in March) just had a baby girl before Christmas, Alan & Sara had a boy, Emily & Stef are all set to have their baby in the next few weeks and Evelyne’s sister is due in 3 months. And, of course, our 2nd baby boy is due to arrive in February! It’s an exciting time. Wish us all luck
A Very Merry Christmas…
T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even Elliott! He’s a bit too young to be excited about Christmas yet I suppose. We have all that to come in future Christmases I’m sure. Hopefully he’ll still enjoy opening his presents in the morning
So, I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to anyone reading this. Thanks for all the comments and support over the months of 2008 and I look forward to a fun-filled 2009. It’s sure to be interesting, hopefully in all sorts of fantastic ways.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this little ditty… Have a great Christmas!
Steve
Tony Iommi
As a Birmingham photographer and life-long music fan I was honoured to be invited to shoot a portrait of Black Sabbath guitarist, Tony Iommi. This man has played alongside Ozzy Osbourne for 40 years and is responsible for some of heavy metal’s all-time classics. “Paranoid” anyone?
No big productions, just a simple picture of a music legend…
I made it onto a list!
Stef Lewandowski is the “ideas guy”, super-blogger, man behind Odadeo (a great site for dads) and a good friend of ours. He has just published his list of “50 Birmingham Twitter users you need to follow” and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself about halfway down his list! Since he published his list I’ve had more people begin following me on Twitter than ever. Thanks Stef
People still seem very much divided on the whole Twitter thing. Those that use it become somewhat addicted. Stephen Fry has over 35,000 people following him on Twitter and updates (or Tweets) regularly. I have considerably less than Mr Fry - 122 to be precise. Then there are those that see Twitter as a completely pointless idea. My wife is one of them. I’ll let you make up your own mind but one thing’s for sure - Twitter is a phenomenon which continues to grow at an astounding rate and shows no sign of going away.
If you’re clueless as to what I’m babbling about, you can find me on Twitter HERE
In the meantime, this clip might amuse you..
Mon The Biffy!
I’m a big fan of Biffy Clyro, especially their latest album “Puzzle”, so I was pleased to get a call from Rock Sound magazine asking if I could shoot their Birmingham gig on Thursday night at the Academy.
My friend Dave Musson was covering it for Birmingham Live… or so we thought. His pass had been arranged through the support band and, on the night, he was informed he couldn’t shoot the headliners. I felt awful for him but it was lucky that I was there too as it meant we still had some images of Biffy for the review.
The band were spectacularly good and came on all guns blazin’ with some of my favourite tracks played while I was down the front photographing them.
This is almost certainly my last live gig of 2008 and was a great finale. I’ll be posting about my highlights of 2008 here soon but for now here are just some of my pictures of Biffy Clyro…
Wedding Photographers in Birmingham & The West Midlands
There are so many Birmingham wedding photographers (go on, Google it!) that it must be daunting for couples who are planning their wedding and have no idea where to start when it comes to finding their photographer. I often mention to couples that they spend thousands of pounds on the day itself but it’s only the photographs (and occasionally a video) that will stay with them until they’re old and grey.
Obviously, given my choice of career, I place enormous value on photography and the clients we tend to meet generally feel the same way and invest their money accordingly. Some couples spend more on their cake than they do on their wedding photography. As amazing as some wedding cakes are (see Ben the Cakeman for example), in twenty or thirty years time, having a beautiful wedding album which brings back all the memories of your wedding is priceless.
With so many wedding photographers in the West Midlands many people imagine us to be in fierce competition with each other but, in reality, many of us are friends who are more than willing to help each other out. Photographers like Emily Quinton and Claire Evans are good friends of ours and we often recommend each other to clients when they enquire about a date where we’re already booked.
A lot of people also seem to think that they have to choose a wedding photographer from their local area. I was recently asked if I would travel as far as Lichfield for a wedding. Lichfield is less than 30 minutes from our studio! After doing weddings in Devon, Cornwall, Brighton, Newark, London (see image above) and more recently New York, Lichfield seems almost walking distance! But maybe not with all that equipment! This weekend I’m shooting Kate & Dan’s wedding in Somerset
So, how do you choose a wedding photographer?
For me, the first thing to decide is if you like their style. Every wedding photographer is different and each has their own unique view of the world. Some are very formal and traditional, others specialize in reportage photography where they document the wedding without interacting with the couple or their guests. Some photographers are influenced by fashion magazines, others by movies. For me, our style incorporates many different influences to produce a style which is unique to us.
Once you’ve found a photographer whose style you like, the next thing is to get to know them. It’s important to gel with the person who will be so involved in your wedding day and to understand how they like to work on the day itself. We hear so many stories of nightmare wedding photographers who throw strops, boss people around, take hours to do the formal photographs or don’t even turn up to the wedding! None of the photographers we know would act like that, but there are still plenty of wedding photographers around who give the rest a bad name.
Obviously meeting photographers in person is a great way to get to know them but these days you can also get a sense of a person’s style and personality through their blog. Not all photographers have blogs but, for those that do, it’s a great way to see their recent work as well as getting a sense of who they are as a person. It’s the reason I post about days out with my wife, Evelyne and my son, Elliott, as well as weddings, portraits and my band photography. You could even keep up with what I’m up to on Twitter.
There are plenty of other questions to ask when choosing your wedding photographer but, for us, most clients book us because they appreciate good photography and we get on well when we first meet. They may also love our Queensberry albums or the fact that we stay for the whole day but if they don’t like the images we capture they obviously won’t book us.
Many couples remain friends with Evelyne and I long after the wedding day has passed. Some book us to photograph their newborn babies. Some arrange to meet us when they go to a concert. And it’s great that many will recommend us to friends when they decide to get married.
Whoever you choose for your wedding photography, we hope you have an amazing day that you’ll remember for the rest of your lives…. with a wedding album worthy of the occasion
Cancer Bats
Last week I got to shoot one of my favourite live bands - Canada’s Cancer Bats. This is a band who put 110% into their live shows, the whole thing becoming a huge party involving both the band and their audience. Singer, Liam Cormier, has trouble staying on the stage, preferring instead to interact with the crowd by climbing all over them!
Cancer Bats’ latest album, Hail Destroyer, has just been voted the No.3 album of 2008 by Kerrang! magazine. Here’s some pictures from last week’s gig which you can see reviewed on the Birmingham Live website.
After the gig the band were good enough to let me take a portrait of them in the car park around the back of the venue. If you like bands with energy, big riffs and plenty of punk rock attitude, make sure you check Cancer Bats out next time they visit your town.
