I met up with Clive Barnes (legend!) for a photo-shoot yesterday morning, with Clive looking for promo-shots to use for upcoming tours and me only too happy to get him in front of my lens.

As we’ve said on the Sound System Podcast, myself and Ken will be providing some P.R services for Clive’s upcoming tour with Australian legend Jeff Lang this July. We had initially planned to do the shoot last weekend but with the unpredictable weather we had to post-pone, giving me time to do some research and get some practice before the shoot.

Over the past few months I’ve been looking at a lot of different music promo photographers, with so many different styles and techniques to try. One of the great things about this shoot was Clive knew exactly the kind of shots he wanted and was able to give me plenty of suggestions on work to check out. The only problem being that he wanted some black and white promo shots, which firstly I’ve never done and secondly I tend to stay clear of black and white when I can.

It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I think it’s very hard to do well. A lot of photographers tend to simply shoot normally and then change an average shot to black and white to make it look a little better. It’s more attractive to the eye. But it just isn’t the same as shooting with the intention of getting good contrast black and white shots!?

My next problem being that we’d be doing the promo-shoot outside in natural lighting, yet another thing I hadn’t done. So with the shoot being delayed a week, it gave me time to get in some practice. Taking short breaks from working on my thesis, I played around with shots using natural light coming in a window to get a feel for how to go about the shots.

Yesterday morning, Clive picked me up and we drove to a quiet railway crossing just outside Bennettsbridge, hoping the rain would hold off long enough. The sky was clear and perfect for what I wanted to do; getting it to completely white out. We were both kind of surprised by how quickly we got shots we were happy with. Shooting on a 50mm (cheers Ken. I’ll give it back…someday), using the small depth of field to throw focus on the background and using the train tracks for forced perspective, I got plenty of shots. Then I just removed the colour and adjusted the levels slightly for my first series of black and white music promo shots.

It wasn’t long before we were back in the car and on our way to Woodstock in Ennistioge, for the second part of the shoot. I won’t go into the exact details of conversations in the car but I have to say that Clive has some of the coolest and funniest stories I’ve ever heard and upon arriving in Woodstock I discovered that he also has a surprising amount of knowledge about trees!?

Our first stop was in an avenue of huge monkey puzzle trees (Clive told me!), with the idea to use the background like the train tracks for forced perspective. But the sun had gone on us and the trees were just too big to get the shots we wanted. So we moved on to a small wooden cabin type structure, just in time for the sun to reappear and provide great natural light beams and awesome colours in the background. Clive took out his guitar and did his thing whilst I got out the camera and did mine.

Waiting for bursts of sunlight through the clouds I once again got shots we were happy with, very quickly. Straight away dismissing the idea of black & white for these ones, meaning I could try out another completely different style of promo shots. I could have played around for hours but the clouds said no. We made our way home and just as I got in the door, the rain came down in buckets.

I ‘d really love feedback on these new shots (comments, criticism, anything) and you can check out the full series of shots here on Clive Barnes MySpace Profile, where you will also see a long list of gig dates all over the country. I’ve seen him live three times so far and he’s awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing him again over the summer and hopefully getting him in front of my lens again.

The last few weeks have been crazy with primary research due on my thesis, a long list of assignments as well as a whole host of photo-shoots and work. But, I’ve slowly but surely been making my way through my huge backlog of shots from my adventure.

And so I present the latest series of shots; full-body Bio-Organic designs by tattoo artist Sean Boon of the Vibe Studio, Mullingar.Once again transforming Ani’s kitchen into a paint shop (you’re a legend); with half-naked people walking around covered in paint, everywhere you looked (you’re all legends!).

It took Sean over 5 hours to paint the bio-organic design on Tanya (thank you both so much for your patience). As he began with the outlines; myself, Ani and Mark went on a separate paint-shoot in an amazing forest (photos coming soon). By the time we came back, Sean had most of the outlines done and had colour-coded areas so people could then lend a hand.

For the shoot, we once again moved to Helen’s house, and once again I rearranged the furniture in her sitting room, to try take advantage of the white walls (cheers Helen, I still want your cat!). Just like the Puzzle Shoot, all of the shots were taken using natural house lighting, shot using a 50mm lens at f1.5 (cheers Ken).

I did some initial test shoots using my 18-135mm lens and SB 800 flash, but like the Puzzle Shoot couldn’t get the “white out” effect on the background and the flash instantly killed the vibrant colours of the paint, so I had no choice but to shoot with the 50mm. The main problem being with the limited shooting space and lighting, I now only had a very small depth of focus, which made getting full-body shots with a background burnout next to impossible. And I couldn’t get a good shot of the awesome bone designs on Tanya’s legs.

To compensate for all of this we used a large mirror, which helped to bounce the light around the room and gave me a little more room to work. From then on it was just a matter of finding angles to capture as much of the designs as possible whilst still managing to get the background to burn out. I did have to remove one of two objects but overall I think the series looks like it was shot in a studio enviroment.

At this point I would like to say a huge thanks to Sean for his awesome designs and hard work (I hope you like the shots and I’m sorry I couldn’t get more of the leg patterns), and of course a huge thanks to Tanya, Ani, Helen, Mark and all the gang from the madhouse. You’re all legends and sorry about the huge delay!

There’s still plenty more body-paint shots to come, just as soon as I can get through them but for now comments and feedback on the Bio-Organic series would be greatly appreciated.

For over two years now I’ve been shooting live gigs in Kilkenny and constantly struggling to get shots of bands who are either badly lit, or not lit at all.

At the moment, Cleere’s Theatre has two working lights; a crappy white spotlight and an even crappier yellow one. The Zoo club has one four-colour light, which only lights the back of the stage and two of the colours are pretty much useless to shoot in. It leaves very few options to keep gig photos interesting. On the plus side it means I have to be constantly re-inventing my approach to shooting gigs if I want to avoid all my photos looking the same.

Over the past few months I’ve started branching out in styles and learning lots of new techniques, in particular studio photography. When I heard 23 were playing the Zoo, I saw the perfect opportunity to try adapt some of these techniques to a live environment. Last time I shot 23, they were awesome and I knew that they’d provide the perfect display of energy and what I like to call “rockin out” for me to get the shots I had in mind.

I already knew the shots I wanted well in advance of 23 taking to the stage. As I shot the support bands I was making little mental notes of angles and positions I needed to be in. During Na Damanta’s set I played around with the flash, figuring out settings and for Chemical Addiction, I was figuring out angles and how to use the crap light to my advantage.

The only problems being I would have to avoid people constantly flying through the air and I would have to reverse everything I was doing if I was to get the studio effect to work. For most of the gig I climbed up on the amps at the side of stage and sat waiting for the shots I wanted to happen in front of me. With 23 “rockin out” throughout the set, I didn’t have to wait long.

Using the flash to direct where I wanted lit I could darken most of the background in the frame. Instead of getting the background to white out, it would black out. I’m not sure of the correct technical terms but tech-talk is the reason I don’t talk to a lot photographers in this town. That and most of them won’t talk to me. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)

I did have to remove certain things from the shots afterwards, for example that horrible orange poster at the back of the stage which was impossible to get the effect on. But overall the effect worked perfectly to provide a series of studio-style live promo shots, that I’m quite happy with.

On a 23 photo related matter that I would like to rant about; last week three local newspapers printed my photographs to promote the upcoming gig. Whilst I was asked for photos which were printed in two of these newspapers I gave them under certain terms; I did stress that as I was not being paid I wanted to be credited for the photos. Once again I was not.

The third newspaper didn’t even have the courtesy to contact me and instead took one of my photos WITHOUT PERMISSION. I believe the correct term is “stealing”. How do I know it was mine, well two reasons; the first being that it contained the oss237.com watermark. The second being that all the newspapers PAY and CREDIT other photographers in this town every week. Photographers who I must point out don’t bother their asses to cover the Kilkenny music scene and even when they do, they sure as hell don’t take shots like I do. I must also point out that most photographers paid by papers to take photos in this town take photo’s your grandmother could take with a phone and then throw me dirty looks!? (Note: I said most photographers. Hi Dave)

So if the local media wants quality photos that obviously aren’t being provided to them, then why not give me a job!? You obviously think I’m good enough if you’re stealing my photographs and you’re reading my blog! And I’m actually more qualified than some of your journalists!

However, if you’re not going to extend professional courtesy by crediting me for my work then you simply will not get any of my photographs from now on. The next newspaper to print one of my shots WITHOUT PERMISSION will win themselves a prize; I’ll visit your office and explain to you the principles of Irish law, in particular terms such as copyright infringement and how you now owe me money!

As I’m on a bit of a rant. Local venue owners and gig organisers; whilst your lack of buying lighting for your venues and gigs means I must be creative when shooting gigs, I seriously doubt that is your intention. The words “being cheap” come to mind. Despite several factors such as elitist crowds boycotting any band that doesn’t contain their friend, Kilkenny has an awesome music scene, with awesome bands like 23 (who rock!) continuing to visit us. You make a lot of money from this music scene so how about actually putting some of that money towards decent lights!? So the bands play in venues fitting of their high quality and music fans can actually see them. Hey, if the venues are better quality, more bands will want to play, maybe more people will come to gigs, you’ll make even more money and maybe the papers will credit me for my hard work.

To my normal blog readers and 23; sorry about the rant but it was necessary at this stage. I hope you like the shots and I’d really appreciate feedback on this new style of live/promo shots.

First off, welcome to my brand new blog! For the past few months I’ve been using my KilkennyMusic Staff Blog to give details and information behind photo-shoots and projects I was working on.

But I was growing increasingly aware that as my work progressed and I branched out into different styles of photography, it was becoming less relevant to KKM. And so thanks to Ken McGuire, I now have this separate blog for Oss237.com. It’s in the early stages now, but over the course of the next few weeks I’m also hoping to incorporate a gallery.

The homepage will still display recent shots, my favourite shots from whatever series I’m working on. This blog will give all the details behind the shoots and then the gallery will contain the full series and behind the scenes shots.

At the moment I’m scattered all over the place and it’s getting very difficult to maintain everything, between a photography account on MySpace and Bebo, plus over 1000 live shots in the KilkennyMusic Galleries. I’ll still be using those accounts to display some new shots but some of my upcoming series contain nudity which isn’t allowed so they’ll be displayed in my new gallery instead.

At the start of this week Oss237.com reached a total of 50,000 hits, I was delighted but already in just a week it’s over 51,000 hits!? In less than two years I’ve had visitors from all over the world commenting on my work. The comments and feedback I’ve received have been a constant encouragement, and given me enough confidence to continue experimenting and learning. And so I have to say a huge thank you to all who visit and comment on my work, and I ask that people continue to tell me what they think, be it good or bad, feedback is always welcome, especially as I continue to expand.

So it begins, a new blog and plenty of new shots coming soon.