This is Hugo – he’s a friend of a friend, who owns a little night spot in Hackney that’s not really a night spot but actually where he lives! He puts on parties and exhibitions from time to time to help pay the rent.
He was a great guy. I had hoped to put a night on with him, but it all came to nothing in the end, as these things often do.
His place was amazing. You can only see a small portion of it here, but behind the camera is a large open space, the walls adorned similarly to the walls you can see in this image. Speakers, wires, cables … all manner of brick-a-brack. There was also a stage where bands could perform.
Being there reminded me of my favourite Jeff Wall image:
If you’re a photographer and you don’t know about David Hobby’s Strobist blog then head over there immediately and absorb everything his wonderful site has to offer. Pretty much everything I know about stobe lighting (using flash guns to light your pictures) I learned from him.
This is the first strobist lighting assignment I’ve taken part in – it involves the use of CTO lighting gel. CTO is essentially just a light orange filter that you place over lights to warm their colour up. The effect that this has when you combine them with the tungsten white balance setting on your camera is what you see above; everything that isn’t lit by your CTO gel filtered light comes out blue, while everything that is lit by the CTO gelled light has true colours.
What’s so brilliant about Strobist in general is the way the site continually throws simple, pratical ideas at you and encourages you to go out and shoot with them. It’s a tremendously satisfying way to learn.
Subscribe to the Strobist flickr group and join in the fun!