James Nachtwey - War Photographer
It’s rare these days that I watch a film which leaves me humbled, excited, moved and full of admiration all at once but last night Evelyne and I watched a DVD which was recommended by one of my favourite photographers, Jeff Ascough.
The film is called War Photographer and is a documentary about the incredible James Nachtwey. Below is a taster of the movie but I just want to recommend that anyone with an interest in the world we live in and/or photography watch this film. Put the DVD on your Christmas list. It’s 96 minutes that will stay with you for a lifetime.
Fruit Picking With Elliott
Being so busy with the business means we value our family days off more than ever and always try to find something fun to do. Now that Elliott’s able to run around a little it opens up a few more options of places to visit which is great. Clive’s Fruit Farm is a great little farm where you can pick your own fruit, meet the farm animals, play in the playground, buy fresh fruit and veg (and home-made jam) and even drive without a license! 
Elliott loved running around exploring but never got to try out Clive’s Wobblejuice Cider!
Off to pick some apples…
After all that effort picking apples we stopped to enjoy the fruits of our labour
Errr… we didn’t pick all those but Elliott was happy to share!
Then it was off to introduce ourselves to the local farm animals and for Elliott to drive his first tractor…
I think he likes driving!
.. but he didn’t know how to reverse
The real tractors aren’t nearly as much fun.
Cute photo but about 2 seconds later Elliott got his finger pecked!
We finished off by checking out the pumpkins and treating Elliott to a (very messy) ladybird lollypop.
We went home with lots of apples (the people at the farm even gave us some great recipes to try), some fresh pasta sauce and plenty of great photos (of course).
Now.. where shall we go for the next day off?
Happy Halloween
The variety of photography that my job brings me is something that I keep coming back to and last week was a great example. I began the week photographing thrash metal legends Slayer in Manchester and Wolverhampton. I ended the week photographing Barney the dinosaur!
As a parent and a photographer I feel it’s my duty to make sure I get at least one photo which we can bring out in 30 years when our kids get married. Of course, dressing kids up for Halloween is great fun (although in England the dressing up part is still somewhat half-hearted compared to the other side of the Atlantic) and Evelyne went to great lengths in her search for an original but cute Halloween outfit for Elliott.
On the night we headed out to Walsall Illuminations which is an event I’ve never been to before and it made for a fun way to spend Halloween as Elliott (or as we called him for the evening, Ellion) ran around in his outfit, giggling, checking out the lights and getting plenty of “Ahhh, how cute!” comments from people. He got bored with Barney quite quickly (the boy has taste) but enjoyed being out past his bed-time and running around amongst all the people…
After all that Elliott was asleep within minutes of getting back in the car!
Happy Halloween
Happy Birthday Mrs Gerrard
Whenever we have a day off we try to make the most of it and take a trip out with the family, so Evelyne’s birthday was no exception. The weather wasn’t great so we opted for the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham where we introduced Elliott to a few creatures he hadn’t met before.
One of Elliott’s favourite parts was the Hall Of Mirrors..
But he loved the weird and wonderful new creatures he met just as much..
The Sea Life Centre is somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for years and I wasn’t disappointed. It was fun to watch Elliott as he witnessed so many creatures for the first time. He may appreciate it more when he’s a bit older but we still had a great day out…
Happy Birthday Evelyne. I love you…
Baby No.2 - The countdown begins…
There are some images which, even with my most amazing lens, I could never capture. Below are the first pictures of Elliott’s future brother/sister who is doing well and expected to arrive into the world around 24th February 2009.
There’s only one word for images like this - Amazing!
We cant wait to meet the new addition to the family. And when he or she arrives you can guarantee we’ll be making a big noise about it right here on the blog
Devon knows…
Hey, am I blog-update king this week or what?! I wonder if it’ll last…
A couple of weeks ago I got to shoot Liz & Simon’s wedding in Devon and we decided to make a weekend of it with Evelyne and Elliott joining me for the trip down south. The weather was glorious all weekend and Liz & Simon could not have had a more perfect setting for their big day. (photos here soon)
The day of the wedding was also my 40th birthday. During Simon’s speech he called me up in front of everyone before presenting me with a bottle of champagne and getting all the guests to sing happy Birthday to me! How nice is that?! On their wedding day!
They even got me cake..
The next day Evelyne, Elliott and I headed out into the Paignton sunshine for a great day. We played with my 50mm macro lens and came home with some super-funky pics for the family album.
Don’t I have the cutest family… ???!!
The great British seaside…
Too much seaweed for ya? Just say “No!”
Elliott can’t decide from today’s menu..
Watch out Emily! I can do flowers too 
(Ok, not as good as you!)
Stella owe me some free beer in return for this one.
The sun in my sky..
Evelyne gets all arty on us..
After a fantastic weekend away, Evelyne surprised me with breakfast…
Off To Sunny Spain..
At the beginning of this month we treated ourselves to a short mid-week break to Barcelona, a city Evelyne and I have been wanting to visit for ages. It was our first ever foreign trip as a family of 3 and we had such a great time. It’s certainly different trying to get about places when you have a 9 month old with you but Elliott seemed happy to just go with the flow…
The city itself is beautiful. Travel writers recently voted it the Number 1 city to visit in the world and it’s easy to see why. Here are a few images from our trip:
Some of Gaudi’s architecture and design…
The sun shone pretty much the whole time I’m happy to say and Evelyne and I took a lot of photos..
Cheer up Elliott!
The incredible climbing baby..
I’d highly recommend Barcelona if you haven’t been and we’re sure to return when we have chance.
Weddings Rock!
Tuesday evenings aren’t meant to be this manic! In the past 6 hours I have met Steve & Debbie at Weston Park (home of the V Festival and the site of their upcoming wedding), photographed a fancy French restaurant for Live 24-Seven magazine, shot 3 bands including the Futureheads at the Barfly and finally DJ’d a set of 90s alternative music. Talk about multi-tasking! Add to that working as roadie for the bands (well I lifted an amp to their car) and I’d say it’s been a pretty full evening. Most of it was fun…
The gig tonight was pretty good actually. Futureheads don’t normally play such intimate venues and, with their new material sounding better than anything they’ve done before, I’m looking forward to the new album. They were supported by a band who make a photographer’s work somewhat more enjoyable thanks to half the band being extremely easy on the eye. Gundogs also have some great songs to back it up and I wouldn’t be surprised if they went to the next level fairly soon. There’s a review of the gig on Birmingham Live! where you can also find some photos of the Envy & Other Sins gig I shot on Friday night.
Saturday was Charlotte & Steve’s wedding at Homme House in Herefordshire and it was a fantastic day and definitely the most rock & roll wedding I’ve covered yet. The groom played a 40 minute set with his band The Batemans which featured songs by Motorhead, Foo Fighters and even System Of A Down. The bride looked stunning in a gorgeous dress and I came home with loads of great pictures for the couple. Charlotte even brought a present for Elliott. She runs a company called Traces Of Rock which sells cool kids’ clothes with a rock edge. Have a look at the website. Here’s Elliott in one of her baby-grows…
After getting back from the wedding at 1am you’d think maybe I’d get a lie in on Sunday morning but oh no! Instead I was over the other side of Birmingham to photograph an event for Aston Martin with probably my favourite cars on the planet. The same model currently driven by a certain Mr James Bond was just one of the cars I got to admire through the lens of my camera. Probably the closest I’ll ever get to one too! The lovely Daniela from Aston Martin looked after us and it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday morning after all.
From there I went to meet Lyndsey and Simon whose wedding we’re covering next month. We did their pre-wed shoot over near Brindley Place in Birmingham which was great fun despite the lack of really great locations. They’re a very laid back, lovely couple and I’m looking forward to the big day in a few weeks time.
When I got home Elliott was wide awake and practicing his newly acquired kissing technique. He’s also started pushing himself up on his arms. I had my camera out anyway so…
It’s always nice when we meet a couple who are looking for a wedding photographer and there’s an instant rapport. It was like that with Alex and Richard on Monday evening and I really hope they book us for their wedding next June. We got on so well I was with them for almost 2 hours chatting about everything from weddings to Peter Kay to Steven Gerrard (the footballer)’s wedding photos. Richard will even be at the Velvet Revolver gig I’m shooting in a couple of weeks.
Evelyne has been busy this week too. She’s been redesigning our company branding, using new colours and trying to improve the look of our stationery. I have to admit she’s done a great job and the new look will help re-launch the business when we finally move into the new studio.
Album of the week for me is the new one from Kathleen Edwards, Asking For Flowers. I’ve been listening to it repeatedly. I’ve yet to see her play live so I’m keeping my ear to the ground for UK dates.
Icons and Anniversaries
My “to-do” list has been steadily getting more and more out of control of late. It’s a good thing really. Work is busier than ever and we’re getting regular bookings for the year ahead, with wedding bookings confirmed up to August next year already.
On the music photography side I have a few projects on the go as well as regular gigs for mags like Rock Sound and Terrorizer. Shooting Despised Icon in Nottingham last week was a particular highlight for me. A fantastic small venue and a rowdy crowd for some extreme metal shenanigans. Despised Icon were amazing live - one of those bands that you have to witness on stage to truly appreciate. They’re from Montreal like Evelyne and we had a quick chat about the scene over there. Who knows.. I may even end up moving there some day.. Here’s a few pics from the gig:
Another gig last week was Bullet For My Valentine in Wolverhampton which I was reviewing and shooting for Rock Sound. Not my favourite band by any means but they had 2 good supports in the form of Skindred and Still Remains. My friend Lee Allen and I were the only photographers there and had plenty of opportunity for good shots.
I’ve spent some time this week setting up a new blog especially for reviewing local gigs. I’ve named it BIRMINGHAM LIVE! and added a few recent gigs just to flesh it out for now but I’m trying to encourage photographers and writers in the Midlands to get involved. A lot of people ask me how they can get into shooting gigs and it can be tricky getting photo passes for gigs unless you can show that the pictures will be out there for people to see. Hopefully this site will help people get their work seen, help them get passes for gigs, support local music and let people see images and reviews from gigs they may have been to. You can see the work-in-progress site at www.brumlive.com. There’s also a FACEBOOK GROUP
Being so busy with everything means I need to make a proper effort to schedule in some days off. Sunday was Evelyne and my first wedding anniversary (from the first registry office wedding for those that are keeping up!) so the computer was switched off and we headed out to Wales on what was a gorgeous sunny day with my newly dark-haired wife, our boy Elliott, our 2 dogs and, of course, my camera. We stopped off for a picnic by the canal and made it to Aberystwyth beach just in time for sunset…
Movin’ on up..
The new issue of Live 24-Seven magazine came out and, apart from featuring some of my photography, also features a 2 page spread on our wedding! It’s quite amusing but also a really nice momento of an amazing day…
Back behind the camera things have been busy again after New Year and my first job for Terrorizer Magazine saw me down in London to meet with industrial metal band, Prong. A great band who I last saw live at the beginning of the 90s and I’m glad to say they’re still a fantastic live act.
The shoot was at Camden’s Underworld venue where I met with vocalist, Tommy for a quick portrait before sticking around to shoot the main gig.
While I was in London I popped over to the Rock Sound offices to meet everyone there and came out with a handful of great albums for my trouble, including Biffy Clyro, Bloc Party and Converge. It’s good to put a face to the people who I’m working for.
The big news for us this week though is that, since viewing the space in the Birmingham Jewelery Quarter for a potential studio for Steve Gerrard Photography, our friend Claire Evans contacted us to say she’s leaving her studio in the Custard Factory in Birmingham and would we like to take it over when she leaves? The Custard Factory is a great little area (originally the home of Bird’s Custard) with a very creative and funky vibe to it. Claire’s studio is already decorated nicely and pretty much ready for us to move straight in. We’ve met with the people concerned with the space and it’s all looking good for us to launch our first studio space just before Easter.
It’s an exciting time and Evelyne and I are already throwing lots of ideas around. It’ll be so much better to invite clients to the studio rather than meeting them at home or the local pub. And it’ll mean we can separate work and home a lot more which can only lead to a better quality of life for the family. Hopefully things will go smoothly and we’ll be in there by mid-March. Then we need to have a little launch party!