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:
While primarily a video producer, part of my job at CNET Networks (soon to be CBS Interactive Media) is to take photographs, when occasion demands. Last week, on a beautiful Thursday morning, SmartPlanet.com journalist Marian Smith and I went out onto the streets to ask people what they thought of World Environment Day.
We stuck mainly to the area around Tate Modern, including the Millennium Bridge. It provided some lovely backdrops for the images, and we met some splendid people who were happy to let loose about how little they knew about World Environment Day :)
Sarah, pictured above, was the catch of the day for me (photographically speaking!) As soon as I spotted her strolling along on the Millennium Bridge, keeping the sun off her back with a parasol, I nudged Marian in her direction. She was one of those disarmingly proper elderly English ladies. Look at that neat, buttoned down collar. They just don’t breed them like that any more.
Kuku on the other hand (below) was on his holidays and didn’t speak much English, though he had a charming way about him, and was at ease while I buzzed around snapping shots off.
The images on the SmartPlanet.com had to be turned around quickly, so I just did some basic touching up and cropping on them and sent them over to Marian, but the versions on the site here I’ve spent a bit more time with, and I’ve got a couple more that I’ll process over the next few days and post up here.
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!