The Last of the Troubadours

24/02/2012 - Bar Solo, Camden.

Video: The Libertines acoustic set

In March 2010 I was lucky enough to be working at MOJO magazine for a few weeks helping out on the picture desk and on my last day there they asked whether I would be interested in going to take photos at the press conference for The Libertines announcement that they were re-forming to play Reading and Leeds festival that year, of course I said yes, definitely!

It was a really exciting experience and I managed to get a really close spot to the band during the conference and then to my amazement they said they would be playing some songs for the press too. I managed to squeeze a little closer at this point as these are more the kind of photos I am interested in taking, as I was snapping away I suddenly remembered I could also record some of it on my camera!

You can probably tell I didn't have much room to move about during this as the rest of the cameramen/women were also trying to get a good angle on the performance!
I can still remember how surreal it felt to put down the camera and realise I was actually there right in front of one of my favourite bands witnessing this performance first person! I think the video portrays a bit like how it was to be there, I was being pushed around a little but had to stand my ground to keep in place, it would have been really useful to have some kind of support for the camera (like a shoulder mount perhaps) to get smoother shots - but i'll expand on that in a future post!

Video: The Shutes - Sweet Marie

Here is one of my earliest video's which I shot at a gig on the Isle of Wight where The Shutes were playing,for this video I used the Canon 5D MkII and a Canon 50mm F1.2 L lens. The sound was also recorded in camera which I thought came out surprisingly well considering how loud the gig was! I think the footage could be improved if I'd started recording earlier obviously... and it would definitely look more professional to have smoother shots and better focus transitions! Also I can imagine it would look better to have a wider shot or multiple angles to then edit together in post-production!