Last weekend was the London Tattoo Convention and I went down to photograph the Fuel Girls performing. I've known some of them for a while now and it's always great to see them and hang out. I got to meet a few I'd never met/spoken to before which was pretty cool. It was nice to see some other friends as well (Andy, Ben, Mike, Solamore & Craig).

I really wanted to do some portraits with them but it was impossible to find somewhere quiet to do some shots. Anytime they stepped outside their dressing room them were mobbed (which is great for them).

One of the thing I love about shooting them is I love photographing fire but it can be pretty difficult to get right. I'm still trying to take the perfect (or as close as possible) fire/fire breathing shot. I think I came sort of close to what I want. The girls are pretty talented and I love watching their aerial shows, it was also the first time I've seen Sasha's pole routine which was brilliant.

I was hoping to do some atmosphere shots of the convention but it was a long weekend after a long week and I was pretty shattered. I decided to stick to trying to nail the performance shots rather than stretch myself too thin.

I definitely want to go away with the Fuel Girls when they do some of the bigger shows as I would love to document their travels.

Massive thank you to Teta, Vanessa, Sasha, Von, Leah, Naomi, Colette, Aima, Maz & Richie for letting me come down and hang out.



The rest of the photos of the Fuel Girls are here.

I really can't believe that Bestival was almost a month ago. I've said it a million times but this summer has been a whirlwind and I'm only just getting a chance to catch my breath and and take stock of the things that have happened. As well as I thought Shambala went, I still thought I could do better and it really hammered home my desire to do better. I didn't really feel any pressure before Shambala but I did before Bestival. I was working as part of a larger team including Andy Whitton and Ian Taylor who I hadn't worked with for a while as well as Louise Roberts who I've worked with most of the summer. The pressure wasn't from them but myself, the acts were more high profile and the festival was one of the biggest I've done.

The weather wasn't great at times and that made it a little bit more difficult as it made the conditions pretty unpredictable. Shooting high stages is still fairly new to me and I'm still working on my flash techniques. I also wasn't at my best health wise but despite all of that I think that this was probably one of my strongest sets of photos this summer. There's some things I was personally really pleased with, I have at times struggled with confidence when shooting over several days and some days it's been hard to get stuck in. At Bestival making sure I went out first thing with someone else on the team to do some atmosphere shots got my head in the right place. Going out and shooting along side another photographer can be problematic as you run the risk about shooting the same things but I find it helpful. Seeing someone else shooting or finding things makes me want to look harder for something or someone to shoot. It makes me want to keep up with them.

Getting to shoot Paloma Faith, Yuck and Fatboy Slim are things I won't be forgetting in a hurry and they really made my weekend. Our photos from this weekend made it onto the MTV, NME & BBC websites as well as being printed in NME.

I've learnt a lot this summer, especially about myself and as much as I'm getting into the swing of want I'm doing, I don't want to be safe or stuck in the same place. I want to progress and I want to be excited about the shots I produce and to continue to push myself forward, focus on what I'm doing while continuing to learn.

Whether I'm shooting festivals next summer or not I want to be in a position where I fucking smash whatever chances come along. I'm really getting the desire to travel and progress a documentary style. I'm actually pretty sad summer is over.

You can see the rest of the photos here.

It's also worth checking out the rest of the teams photos on the Bestival website.

On Saturday Johnny Cupcake released a range of t-shirts as part of a collaboration with Nickelodeon. As a massive collector, I'm fascinated by other collectors and die hard fans. I sadly missed the opening of the Johnny Cupcakes London store but after meeting some of the staff at Hevy, I really wanted to make it down for one of their launches.

As a lot of the product JC releases are limited editon and become insanely rare any new drop of clothing gets a lot of attention. The face that the new t-shirts were Nickelodeon added to the usual hype. I went down a little before opening and there was a decent number of people already queueing who had Spongebob to keep them entertained.

The staff in the London store are fantastic and JC is a great brand. Thank you to Kellen, Josh & Maisie for letting me come down. Hopefully I'll get to do it again as I would really like to do more of this sort of thing.



The other photos of the launch can be seen here.

I photographed a Dr Sketchy event several years ago and it's been on my massive list of things I want to photograph but timing and other things meant I never got round to shooting it again but like the burlesque show, when I saw Dr Sketchy was at Bestival I jumped at the chance to shoot it again. I met Clare who runs it and once I was back I noticed that the founder of Dr Sketchy (Molly Crabapple) was over and guesting at the next event. Molly is an amazing artist and thankfully Clare allowed me to attend and photograph the event.

If you don't know what Dr Sketchy is, it's a burlesque life drawing night where they have a couple of acts perform and then pose for the audience to draw. It doesn't really matter whether you are artistic or not, it's about having fun and just drawing.

While the night was going on Molly Crabapple was drawing a large mural at the back of the stage which was stunning. She managed to cover such a large wall in no time at all while making it insanely detail and look effortless. Getting to meet her and photograph her was the highlight of my night.

I'm definitely going to try and make attending Dr Sketchy a regular thing.

Thank you very much to Clare and Molly Crabapple for a great night.





You can see the rest of the photos by clicking here.

At Bestival, I shot my first burlesque acts in about a year and a half. I stopped shooting burlesque shows almost a year ago for personal reasons but recently I've been missing it and wanting to dip my toes back in. Bestival was a good opportunity to do this. Thanks to a recommendation from Tigz Rice, I got invited down to shoot Hot Sundae! in Tooting (which is just down the road from me). I was a bit nervous as I wanted to make sure I delivered and while I'm not 100% happy with my shots (mostly due to the combination of low lighting and my equipment), it was good to get back into the swing of doing it. I also got to see people I haven't seen for quite a while.

  My good friend and talented performer, Dolly Rose was stage hand for the night while Kiki Kaboom (one of the first burlesque performers I ever photographed), Ginger Blush, Coco Deville, Bettie Bottom Dollar and Eastend Cabaret (easily one of the best acts around) performed. There were a couple of performers I hadn't seen before (host Ophelia Bitz, Hooray Henry & Craig the Incredible Hula Boy) but everyone was great and it was such an awesome show. One of the best things about it was the fact that it was free and quite a good way of getting people into burlesque.

Thank you so much to Bettie for letting me come down and take photos. I really hope they organise more shows soon.

The rest of the photos from the night are here.

Tara Mcpherson was over in the UK for a couple of days while on a promotional trip to promote the Kidrobot Swatch collaboration (she did one of the designs) in Madrid. She was very kind and did a signing at Forbidden Planet which had a great turn out.

Tara is fantastic and I love getting the chance to see and talk to her and I was hoping that I could grab some time to do some street portraits of her but we didn't get the chance. She's recently opened a boutique/gallery in New York with her partner Sean and hearing all the things they've got planned and all the shows they are put on made me wish (more than ever) I was in New York. I'd love to be documenting Tara's work and all of the gallery shows. They have had (and are going to have) some of my favourite artists and it would be a great thing to be involved with. Sean is awesome to and had some great stories about everything, it was a pleasure getting to meet him and hang out a little. I really need to make it over to see them.

In terms of photos, I'm really trying to work on my colour balance when shooting in doors and trying to just tighten everything up a bit. I am also trying to make an effort to keep myself busy photography-wise but still trying to recover from a hectic few months. There should be another couple of updates on the site soon.



You can see the rest of the photos from the signing here.

It's definitely worth checking out Tara & Sean's boutique (Cotton Candy Machine).

Been back a few days from my last festival of the summer so I thought it was about time to get my Shambala photos up on my site. I got to work with Louise Roberts and Conor Mcdonnell and going into this one we were trying to do something a bit different. Shambala is a great festival with so much going on, it would have been impossible to cover the festival completely so we aiming to try and show all the aspects as well as the atmosphere and people.

This meant trying to take a step back and shoot wider. I tried to mix doing posed portraits like at other festivals but also shooting more in reportage sort of way, catching people having fun and doing things without them nessicarily being aware of your presence.

I made a massive effort while at Shambala to try and get to grips with using my flashgun. It's something I definitely struggled with in the past but I'm feeling slightly more comfortable with it. I quite enjoyed doing a lot of the night time/party shots.

You can see the rest of the shots here.

I'll probably be uploading my Bestival shots at the weekend. I've also made some small tweeks to my site and added some social media buttons in the sidebar.

This summer has been relentless. It's felt pretty non stop with not a lot of room to catch my breath since the start of June. I mentioned it in the last blog but last month was Hevy Fest and my first outing with my new camera. It really was a great weekend. I got to hang out and take photos with my friends and some awesome people, photographed some great bands and did some quick band portraits too. Band Portaits is still something I'm trying to find my feet with. Confidence and social anxiety have stopped me from doing these sort of things in the past but this summer has been a big step forward in terms of putting myself in situations that I'm comfortable in but working through it. I did quick portraits with The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Ghost Of A Thousand and While She Sleeps.

It was TGOAT's last show and luckily their tour manager was someone I met through a Gallows show and through that I got to shoot the set from the side of the stage which was pretty special. I think I nailed possibly the best jump shot I've ever taken.

After lots of recent ups and downs, Hevy really reminded me that I'm doing the right thing and I just need to keep pushing myself. One thing thats made a huge difference is being around other photographers who constantly are pushing and encouraging me to do better. It's been such a positive experience.

After Hevy I got to shoot Shambala Festival (festival number 6 this summer) and if all goes according to plan I'll be at another this week.



You can see my photo highlights from Hevy here.

With the new camera, the lens I have has a couple less F stops than I'm used to so it's going to force me to use flash more which is something I'm still learning and getting to grips with. I'm still trying new things, find a balance and learning what works best. As a bit of practice and to keep my head thinking about photography I went down to this months Facedown Club. Kids Can't Fly and Scarlett Girls were performing, not sure I got the best results but I'm happy with a chunk of the shots nonetheless.



You can see the photos from Facedown here.