Lionel Ritchie Rocks All Night Long in Gloucester.

Sunday evening found me at Gloucester Rugby Club and the Lionel Ritchie concert. It was and he was absolutely awesome. The guy is so professional, so polished, I could not fault his performance one little bit. And even if he had made a mistake it would have been forgotten. Within seconds of him being on stage the audience were up out of their seats dancing. And of course I love Lionel Ritchie’s music ever since I first heard him in the Commodores back in the 70’s. Like I say an awesome performance.

Was there any down side. Well yes. Firstly the rain, it poured it down. So on some of the images it is not dust on the lens it is raining so hard it is captured on the image. Even that wasn’t so bad. The real downer was that all the photographers were walked off the premises once we had shot the first three songs. I would have loved to have stayed for all of the concert but the management would not let us. Why? Well at a previous L.R. concert (Cannock Chase I think) the photographers were allowed to stay. Unfortunately one idiot (and there is always one) went into the audience and continued to shoot. I wont go into what happened to him as it is not clear but the result was that management now walks photographers out the pit and out the venue. I can understand why and would do the same. It s just disappointing when you get idiot photographers who do not know how to behave ruin it for the rest of us.

That apart it was AWESOME

The Face of Remembrance Day in Swindon 2015

Today was Remembrance Day in Swindon. I was there as usual and true to (my) form I have recorded some of the faces of Remembrance in Swindon. They are all locals and that includes Robert Buckland Conservative MP for Swindon South and Solicitor General for England and Wales. Along with Justin Tomlinson, Conservative MP for Swindon North and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People.

I had a number of interesting discussions some of which centred around the fact that quite a few of the RBL standard bearers are getting older and wont be able to carry them for much longer there are not many younger people joining and willing to carry the standard at all of these type of events. Despite there being a very large contingent of Army, Army Reservists, Cadets from all three branches of the services not many of them are joining the RBL.

After saying that I am sure this event will continue for many years to come.

James Bay performs at sell out concert at The Oasis Swindon

Last night James Bay played a concert at The Oasis in Swindon. It was excellent. He sounded exactly the same live as he does on cd/radio etc. really good quality. The lighting was also really good (although as usual first three were not as good as the rest of the lighting show). The Oasis was absolutely full with all tickets sold and James Bay worked the crowd like a seasoned pro.

All in all an excellent gig.

The Demolition Crew in Swindon

Some of you may be aware that for the last several weeks I have been photographing the demolition of the Carfax Car Park here in Swindon. It is a long term project to photograph Swindon as it is changing and it is changing quite quickly at the moment.

Now it took me a while to get permission and I have done all the relevant HSE courses etc got my own safety gear and only go where I am allowed. I have t say I am so grateful to Lawsons and SCS for allowing me to do this. The intention is to either publish or have an exhibition but that is some way off at the moment. I am also getting to know the crew really well and they are a really nice bunch of guys. These are just a few of them. I just thought I would put a few of them up on here. There will be more to come as I get more and more access to them actually working etc. I have some several hundred of images of the demolition and I want to make a considered selection before putting any up on line.

Hope you like so far.

Sea Sick Steve at Bristol Summer Series

Third night of The Bristol Summer Series and Sea Sick Steve was the headline act. And very good he was as well. Very entertaining.

Raleigh Ritchie at Bristol Summer Series

First night of The Bristol Summer Series Music Festival. Raleigh Ritchie was the support act for George Ezra.

Paloma Faith at Westonbirt

Well I have not posted on here for quite a while. Problem is I have been really busy. I spent a few days at The Wychwood Music Festival in Cheltenham which was really really good. On the Sunday I ran the Brecon off road half marathon which turned out to be 16 miles. It was really enjoyable however and I came 4th so pretty pleased with myself.
I then spent three days at Westonbirt music events, then 3 days in Bristol at Summer Session music festival. I was also trying to train hard as well as all this as I have my big challenge in July and want to do well at that.
So here are the first set of images. Paloma Faith at Westonbirt.

She was of course brilliant.

Swindon Old Town People watch the Eclipse

Pretty much perfect condition to watch the spring eclipse this morning. The Lawns in Old Town seemed to be a very popular place to watch it. It went really cold and quite dark when it was at its peak. I concentrated on taking photos of the people rather than the eclipse itself. There will be thousands of photos out there of it far better than I could take.

St George’s Day in Swindon

St George

St George

Medieval Knight

Medieval Knight

Ethemia

Ethemia

St George

St George

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

FolkDanceRemixd

Rebecca inSwindon

Rebecca inSwindon

Today I had the pleasure of photographing the Swindon St George’s Day celebrations in the town centre put on by inSwindon BID company. Centre piece of course was the 20 ft St George that after being blessed traveled from the Cenotaph down to Wharf Green accompanied by 100 school children and Ethemia who had written a song especially for this occasion. Once in Wharf Green the children were split up into different groups where they were taught fold dancing around the May pole, made dragons out of clay and took part in sports competitions. It culminated with a performance of Folk Dancing or should I say alternative Folk Dancing by the group FolkDanceRemixd.

It was great fun, the weather held and everybody seemed to have a very enjoyable time.

Holmes Music Store Vinyl Record Weekend

Well, here I am back again. It has been a very busy few weeks and hence no posts for quite a while. Not the least I ran the London Marathon last Sunday. I wasnt happy with my time as I got tripped up at mile 5 and face planted the road. However I was very very proud of Kirsty Heber-Smith who ran it in a time of 3.44, exactly as we had planned it and also raised £2.5K for the charity Goldenhar which is one close to our hearts. If you dont know what Goldenhar is please chaeck it out, it’s worth it.

Anyhow back to photography. I spent several hours over two days at Alan Holmes Music shop where they were celebrating Vinyl Record weekend with lots of live music by local bands and artists. I wont list them all out as there were too many to mention, but I was impressed with all of them. Have to say the lighting was a nightmare as they had a back drop of the window and day 1 was bright sunshine, day 2 was dark clouds and rain!!! good old British Easter eh!!!! However the good thing about situations like that is firstly it is good to work in difficult situations that are out of your control and secondly you can get up close and personal and nobody minds.

It was a good weekend. I have also a very busy week coming up this week, lots of photographic jobs on so should be posting a lot in the next week and less rambling on 🙂