Portraits

Going down to the tube, I spotted Joe Evans singing and playing. He had a good voice, and I asked him if it was OK to take his photo and he was happy for me to do it.

The only problem was that I had a 16mm lens on my Canon R6, which is a full frame camera. So here is the result with the dynamic that only a short focal length lens can achieve.

Joe had lights set up, reflecting light onto him, and they kept changing colour, so he was lit with pink in one shot and green in another, and so on.

If we cross paths again I shall photograph him when I have a more suitable focal length lens on the camera.

Click to see the photo larger.

I was invited to photograph Filthy Talk for Troubled Times in 2015 at the venue in Edinburgh during rehearsals for The Festival Fringe. Matthew Lillard, whom I recognised from the Scream movie, directed. Holly Williams (see below) mentioned TV actresses Zibby Allen and Erin Pineda in the cast.

One of the photographs I took was in The Times, and I remember thinking – Oh, that’s what it takes to get a photo in The Times. I thought it was well-nigh impossible unless you were X, with skillset Y.

I googled the play just now and this first thing that came up was a review by Holly Williams, and she wasn’t too positive about it.

Why revive Neil LaBute’s 1990 debut play? It’s a short, unpleasant, rarely-performed piece set in a strip club, where dumb, cruel men and a couple of waitresses banter, each breaking out to address the audience with tales supposed to be out-there in their honesty. Maybe they had bite 25 years ago; now they reek of cliché.

For me, I was surprised that the shots came out as they did, given that we were in a dark theatre and I had a fixed lens Fuji X100s shooting at ISO 800 and no additional lighting.

Awards ceremony for Off The West End nominees and winners held at Central Hall, Westminster. I shot about a hundred frames, most with people standing alone and some with couples and groups. it was speed, speed, speed and still some people didn’t get a chance to be photographed before the management shut down the room because of health and safety, so many were crowding in. For me it was a great experience making contact with people and establishing a mood immediately. Buzzing, rather than exhausted at the end of it.