Glastonbury

I was working in the Guardian Lounge for most of the festival, but managed to get out to see Lady GaGa among others, and then fell in love with Little Boots when she came into the lounge. The Specials were special, and I'm trying to find out more about a band called Ebony Bones...
But I still managed a night or two in Shangri-La, Horsemeat Disco's tranny bar, and made it to the Stone Circle for dawn. Every year I find myself there, trying to capture something of the atmosphere that made Glastonbury so special the first time I went. Or maybe I'm just embracing the inner-hippy?

Window of Opportunity

After keeping all the photographers on tenterhooks all day at Glastonbury, dangling the carrot of 'maybe we'll let you in to shoot Bruce Bringsteen, oooooooooor maybe we won't' - Brucie's people finally gave a list of the hallowed few 5 mins before we were due in the pit (I wasn't on the list, but managed to get in with a bit of secret squirrel). When we got into the pit, we were told we'd have to shoot from the sides of the pit. As you can see from the pic above, we were miles away from him, with stairs, TV camera jibs and numpty security men who kept standing right in front of us. I've marked on the pic with a box the actual area where we had a clear sight of Brucie boy. Wow. There'll be a lot of keepers out of that set. The guys who weren't on the list and who went into the crowd on ladders cleaned up, because after our 3 song limit, Brucie came out and ran up and down the barrier, right in from of them.
'F*ckwit of the festival' goes to whoever in Brucie's camp thought they could control pictures by restricting who got in and then restricting where even that golden few could shoot from. All they did was push all the other photographers into the crowd, where they couldn't exercise any control over them at all.
This was one of only a few usable shots out of my time there. I almost wish I hadn't bothered.

Heart Throb in The Mall

A friend recently asked me if I could help out by contributing some photos of Amy Winehouse, for a collaborative exhibition on pop icons. The exhibition is called "Heart Throb" and features sculptures, paintings, prints and photographs of and inspired by pop/rock icons.

My contribution is a tryptych (three pictures in one), showing Amy at different stages of her career.

I was pleased enough to be invited to take part, and was impressed at the posh location, but absolutely gobsmacked when I saw who I'd be exhibiting alongside. Other contributors to the show include Sir Peter Blake, Terry O'Neill and John Lennon.

Gulp!

"Heart Throb"

10am-5pm, 25th June-3rd July

The Mall Galleries

The Mall

London SW1

Grade A

I had a nice compliment the other day. I bumped into the producer of the Pot Noodle ad's I'd recently shot set stills for. He was telling me that they were so happy with my pictures, they used them to grade the film.

"Eh?" I asked.

"It means, we used your photos as a template, and adjusted our video to match the colours and contrast of your pictures".

Cool.

Pants

Oxford Street was closed for the unveiling of the latest David Beckham/Armani pants poster today. The banner was the full height of Selfridges, and the organisers had a three minute window where traffic would be stopped for the unveiling.

I was working for the production company responsible for the event, and they wanted wide shots of the banner, store and street. Thanks to Westy from PA who swapped places with me, allowing me to shoot from a window across the street.

50mm ƒ1.4

I've been using my 50mm ƒ1.4 lens quite a lot recently, for portraits and personal work, mainly because it's very shallow depth of field gives a quite distinct look. I've also come to realise that this £200 plastic cased lens absolutely p*sses on my considerably more expensive zoom lenses in terms of sharpness.

These shots were for a friend of mine who has a traditional barbers shop near Leicester Square.

Cannes it be true?

Here we are again, another year, another Cannes. This year's festival felt busier than last year, in terms of running around, yet without the big name celebrities to go with it. And combined with the poor exchange rate, which made it the most expensive year to be in Cannes, it wasn't the greatest year.

The nearest I got to a scoop was the night a few of us sat in a bar, me with my camera at my feet having come straight from a job, till daylight crept across the marina. The bar was all but empty, and as we got up to leave so too did one of the other remaining tables - including Paris Hilton. Four photographers and two celebrity journalists, sat for 4 hours in a bar with Paris Hilton, and not one of us spotted her! And did I suddenly leap into action to get that exclusive papp shot?

Umm, nah.

Mariah Carey at a photocall for her new film 'Precious'.

Altogether now: "he's behind you!" - old leather face himself Johnny Haliday.

Sophie Marceau & Monica Bellucci, at the premiere of 'Ne Te Retourne Pas'.

Verne Troyer is 'dwarfed' by photographers at the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS benefit.

(see what I did there?)