Ocean Colour Scene at The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham
Last night one of Birmingham’s most popular bands, Ocean Colour Scene, played an intimate gig in the back room of The Rainbow pub, around the corner from our studio. It’s always great to see big bands in small venues and I was surprised to find out I was the only photographer to be issued a pass for the gig.
Here are a few photos from the gig. You can see a full review on the Birmingham Live website.
Emalkay – DJ Portrait Shoot
Emalkay is a DJ and producer who has risen to prominence this year with some huge tunes which have been in heavy rotation on Radio 1 amongst others. His tune “When I Look at You” was The Guardian‘s and Zane Lowe‘s Single Of The Week.
On top of that he’s toured the world DJing. His year ends with a huge event at The Custard Factory in Birmingham, where our studio is located.
Emalkay’s management decided the time was right for some new promo shots and so we met up at our studio before heading to the roof of the Custard Factory and then inside the building before finishing on the streets of Digbeth. Here are my faves from the shoot.
UB40 – In The Studio & Live
According to Wikipedia, UB40 have sold “over 70 million records”. So when I was asked to take a few photos of them as they rehearsed, I was quite honoured. The fact that their rehearsal studio is a 5 minute walk from my studio meant that it was quite convenient too!
I’m not a huge fan of their music but you have to respect them for being in the business for 30 years. Coincidentally, their first gig was at The Hare & Hounds pub where I’m shooting Catherine Feeny tonight.
I was given about 30 minutes to just shoot as they practiced their set. Here are a few of the images I captured.
Not long afterwards the band played a low-key gig to support a venue in Birmingham called The Rainbow. I went along to take some live shots…
Anna & Simon – A Rockin’ Engagement Shoot
Here’s one engagement session I’ve been excited to blog!
Anna & Simon get married at the end of November. I’ve known them both as friends for years and Anna is actually my second shooter at most of my weddings these days. After joining me on so many great wedding days I know her own wedding is going to be amazing! Both Anna & Simon are super-cool people and we wanted to try a few new ideas for their engagement shoot, which we actually split into 2 sessions – one in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the other at The Custard Factory in Birmingham where our studio is located.
So first…. Stratford.
Then we stopped on the road out of town as the sun was setting..
A few days later we met up at The Custard Factory in Digbeth, Birmingham to create something just a little different. But first, a disclaimer…
These shots were completely inspired by one of my favourite wedding photographers, Jeff Newsom. The technique used to create them is quite tricky and I’m still trying to play with it and perfect it. All these images are pretty much straight out of the camera. No Photoshop trickery is used. See what you think…
Check back in December for photos from the main event…. Can’t wait!!
Sarah & Tim – Engagement Shoot in Digbeth
This coming Saturday I will be heading up to The Ashes in Endon near Stoke-On-Trent for Sarah & Tim’s wedding. I’ve been secretly looking forward to this one more than most. Sometimes I just get a feeling it’s going to be an amazing wedding, especially when the couple is totally on my wavelength like they are.
For their engagement shoot Sarah & Tim decided to meet us at the studio and head out onto the streets of Digbeth and see what we could find. Sounded good to me but I didn’t want to use any of the areas I’ve used before so we wandered slightly further afield and discovered areas of Digbeth I’d never even seen before, all just minutes from my studio. We came back with some of my favourite images yet. Check ‘em out…
Philippa & Bob – E-Shoot in Birmingham
The summer months not only see us being super-busy with weddings, it also sees us booking in plenty of engagement shoots (pre-wedding shoots). I love doing these shoots almost as much as I love shooting weddings. Unlike the wedding day we don’t have to worry about time schedules, guests or getting the dress dirty and we can do the shoot pretty much anywhere we like. A lot of these shoots happen in the backstreets near to our studio in Digbeth but we’re happy to jump in a car and travel somewhere totally different too.
Philippa & Bob get married at Homme House in Much Marcle, Herefordshire in a couple of weeks. Homme House is a fantastic venue where our friends Charlotte & Steve got married last year. For their E-shoot we started off close to the studio before heading to the greener pastures of Cannon Hill Park
Somebody asked me today how come all my brides are gorgeous! 
No sign of that trend changing any time soon…. You can see Philippa & Bob’s wedding photos here in a few weeks…
Lorraine & James – Engagement Shoot
I have a thing about asking people to smile for photos. I don’t do it. The best way to get natural smiles is to photograph people who are already happy, fun people enjoying themselves while I photograph them. I’m lucky cos most people I get to photograph are seem relaxed in front of my camera; maybe not immediately, but shortly into the shoot they realise that actually having their photo taken is pretty easy and we end up having a great time getting images at whichever location we find ourselves in.
Lorraine & James get married next month and we spent an hour on Easter Sunday walking the streets of Birmingham looking for cool places to shoot. Here’s just a taste of what we came back with… “Say Cheese!”
Sometimes you never know what might happen when you set up a shot…
Can’t wait for the wedding guys. Don’t forget to smile! 
Meet Herman
Herman is South African but now lives in the UK and is a very talented artist, painting and sculpting some incredibly original pieces. He also enjoys photography but admits that photos of himself are rare. He wanted to have some portraits done to give to his girlfriend and members of his family and was looking for something relaxed, natural and maybe something with a little bit of a creative edge. He found our website and booked a session.
Over the course of an hour or so we headed out into the backstreets of Birmingham to see what we could find and I have to say I’m really pleased with the results. I think the images show different sides to Herman’s personality and I hope the people who know him will enjoy the photographs as much as we enjoyed the shoot.
Here are some of my favourites…
The Custard Factory Ducks
As many of you may know, our studio is located at the Custard Factory in Birmingham and overlooks a manmade pool in the centre of the complex. Often this pool is drained to make way for big dance events on the weekend but usually it’s full of water and has a fountain in the middle. This week however it has been home to some other guests… Ducks!
This may seem fairly uninteresting to anyone who doesn’t know the Custard Factory but to those that do, and particularly those that are based here, these ducks are somewhat unusual visitors. To my knowledge the pool has never had ducks on it before.
People have been mentioning them on Facebook, tweeting about them on Twitter and some have been asking for photographic proof. I feel I’d be shirking my responsibilities if I didn’t oblige…
There’s our studio in the background…
I quite like having them out there but I have a feeling they won’t be staying for the hardcore rave coming up this weekend!
Suki – A Portrait Session
A couple of weeks ago Suki came to the studio for a portrait session. I hope she won’t mind me telling you that she wanted the images to use on a dating website as, thanks to a successful but busy career, she wasn’t meeting potential boyfriends. You wouldn’t think that a girl who looks like this would be having any trouble at all eh?! On top of that she’s intelligent and super-nice.
Suki said she was expecting around 4 or 5 pictures from out time together. After going through my favourites, she will be getting 63!
Here are my faves from the bunch…
This was one of my favourite portrait shoots ever and I think we got some great photos. It was great meeting Suki and I wish her all the best with her future. Hopefully I’ll get to shoot the wedding!
