2016 Photo Wipe

January 2016

First photo job of the year was heading up to my hometown Norwich with friend and gloomy blues grunge expert Bryde to document her day before her performance at the excellent Bicycle Shop with co-headliner and fellow Norwichian Jess Morgan. 

This particular shot was taken at the excellent St. Gregory’s Centre for the Arts where there’s a massive indoor flea market.  I think I bought 2 records here - Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush and Glen Hansard’s Didn’t He Ramble.

Cheers, Norwich :)

February 2016

First London gig of the year was Lissie at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town.  Easily the biggest venue I’ve had AAA access at and it was a lot of fun just wandering around the place all afternoon trying to be inventive.  I captured this GIF during soundcheck from high up on the balcony where I was the only person there.  

I like moments like that. 

March 2016

I remember this afternoon/evening well - it was a bloody cold one in early March and I headed to the beautiful St John on Bethnal Green church to document Anna von Hausswolff’s headline show there as part of the Convergence 2016 festival. 

The church had stunning balconies upstairs with lots of natural light and lines everywhere so I couldn’t resist shooting a few portraits of Anna there.

Probably my favourite venue I shot at all year.

April 2016

The first non-music related shoot of the year(!)

Did a test shoot with Hannah on an exceptionally gloomy day in North London.

I like this outtake because Hannah made it clear early on that she was a huge animal lover and even a pigeon fell victim to her affectations.  A bloody pigeon.

May 2016

Next up, more behind-the-scenes for The 405, this time with Paradisia at The Waiting Room.  Featuring a harpist, these girls are a joy to watch and listen to - check out Silent Lover and their cover of Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark :)

June 2016

In June I was assigned to follow Globelamp around for a morning starting at The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History in Hackney.  Super strange place.  There was a lock of Bowie’s hair in a bottle in one of the cabinets. And a book simply-titled ‘Wasps of Surrey’ which sounds like something from Alan Partridge.

July 2016

My photography highlight of the year.  I spent an afternoon in Urchin Studios with the brilliant Siv Jakobsen and producer Matt Ingram capturing some moments during the pre-production of her forthcoming record.

By far my favourite way to take photos - just pure fly-on-the-wall stuff and I recall being fascinated hearing a song take shape starting with just an acoustic guitar intro and ending with them both running to the studio behind the glass and building it up with drums.  

I ended up publishing a collection of shots of the afternoon into a little book :)

August 2016

Citadel Festival!  I blagged a press / photo pass for this festival primarily to see Sigur Rós again.  I also decided, rather than lug a D3 and 4 lenses around all day I’d just take along my tiny Olympus OM-10, 2 lenses and a few rolls of Poundland AGFA film.

It was a good decision - my back isn’t fucked and some beautiful late-afternoon light allowed for some nice scenes to capture around the site.

And Sigur Rós were phenomenal as always.

September 2016

The last time I had been home was January so was pleased that Jess Morgan got in touch asking if I could document her homemade record-making process for items in the crowdfunding of her wonderful new record Edison & Gloriette.

Always a pleasure to hang out with Jess and loved hearing stories from her year-long process of figuring out how to make records at home!

October 2016

Ooops.  Just realised I didn’t take anything worth in October.  Have a random photo that I like instead :)

I finally went to Norway in July and it lived up to my expectations and then some. 

Spent almost a week in Arendal with dear friends, enjoyed lots of boat trips, island-hopping and just being a lazy git.

Took this photo in Kristiansand somewhere.  Hope to return in 2017.

November 2016

As usual, the latter part of the year yields tons of gig requests and I chose to hang out with Fenne Lily at St Pancras Old Church (a bit of a church theme going on this year, huh?) for her debut headline London show.

As usual, I headed upstairs and this venue has a nice little spiral staircase leading up to where the organ sits.

December 2016

Phew, got there in the end.

Technically speaking this was shot in November but it wasn’t published until December so, up yours.

This was taken in the dressing room (I say dressing room, my shed is bigger) before Tusks’ show at The Waiting Room (again) when we just had a sole spotlight with wires hanging out for a light source.  Hence the worm-like shadow on her face.  

Win.

Thanks for reading this, if you got this far.  I hate blogging. 

A big thank you to everyone who has let me shove my camera in your face this year and here’s to more and more in 2017.

Carl ¯_(ツ)_/¯