"We have no budget for photos"

Tony Sleep sums it up perfectly - nothing I can add...

http://tonysleep.co.uk/no-budget-for-photos

Enough said!

Belladrum Festival

Earlier in the year, I won the Pop Cop 'Best Scottish Music Photo 2010' judged by Harry Benson.
One of the prizes was weekend guestlist and photo-pass for the Belladrum Festival in Beauly, Invernesshire.

This was my first outdoor festival, as a punter and as a photographer, and my first time sleeping in a tent since 1975. It turned out to be a fantastic experience - the weather (contrary to the weather forecast) was glorious, right up until the end of the last night. The atmosphere was fantastic, the food was great and not overpriced, I met some great new photographer friends, and got some great images of some great bands.

Highlights for me photographically, were Texas, Deacon Blue, Vintage Trouble, Metaltech, Echo & The Bunnymen, Newton Faulkner and the Gerry Jablonski Electric Blues Band.

I got quite a few fun crowd shots too!

Without further ado, here are some of my favourites from the weekend:

Ian McCullough - Echo & The Bunnymen

 

Easy Star All Stars 

 Texas

 

Texas

 

Vintage Trouble

 

Vintage Trouble

Vintage Trouble

Ricky Ross - Deacon Blue

 

Lorraine McIntosh - Deacon Blue

 

Deacon Blue

 

Gerry Jablonski Band

 

Gerry Jablonski Band 

 

Metaltech

 

Metaltech

 

Newton Faulkner 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Country Communion

Playing catchup with the blog again, as I've been really busy.
I had the honour of photographing and reviewing Anglo-American supergroup Black Country Communion at the end of July.

This is one I was really excited about, as I love their music.
The band consists of Glenn Hughes (Trapeze/Deep Purple/Black Sabbath) on bass, phenominal blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham (son of Jon Bonham/Led Zepellin) and Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater) on keyboards.

As an added bonus, Micheal Schenker was supporting, and as a double added bonus, I met Glenn Hughes, got to shake his hand and have a quick chat.

As a triple added bonus, the band's PR agency were bowled over with the images and have been using them in PR. One of the images of Joe Bonamassa has been submitted to Guitar Techniques magazine as they are running a big story on him in the October issue (due out in September) and my fingers are crossed that I get my first magazine front cover.

As a quadruple added bonus (there's a pattern here!) the PR company have invited me down to Blackpool in October to photograph Bonamassa's concert as part of his solo tour.

I wrote up a review on the BCC concert for Mudkiss, which you can read here