Abbey Rd

One of the things I love about this job is that I often get to attend events that otherwise I might never do.
Yesterday found me at Abbey Rd Studios in London, photographing the BBC Introducing's annual Masterclasses - a day of workshops, lectures and Q&A's on all aspects of the music business, given by experts, performers and other industry insiders. Sessions ranged from Tom Robinson describing how to deal with the pub gig from hell (always carry spare strings and make friends with the sound guy), Jamie Cullum talking about his songwriting technique (he allocates a certain time every day for 'stream of consciousness' style musical doodling), to drier but just as informative subjects like how to promote your music with social media, and BBC sound engineers illustrating different recording techniques (my ear must be as un-refined as my wine palate - I couldn't tell the difference, but liked them all).

I often listen to Steve Lamacq's 6music show, so it was interesting to sit in as he broadcast live from the event.

Comedy relief was provided by Radio 1 presenters Dev & Gregg James who'd accepted a challenge to form a band and write a song in 3 days, performing live as 'The Dreggs' (with dubious styling by Fearne Cotten).
n.b. This is the famous 'Beatles' studio, now transformed into a dodgy pub stage complete with flock wallpaper and dodgy lighting!

For the tech-heads I was shooting mostly in the 1600-8000 (8000!) iso range, using Nikon's Q (quiet) shutter mode as all sessions were being filmed & recorded. Nikon's D3s cameras worked a treat at being silent ninja's of light, and my biggest challenge was just avoiding tripping over cables and other equipment as I worked my way round the rooms.