Jazz

Week 75 - ON AND OFF

PRE-2020 BACKSTAGE RIDER

  • 20 lines of coke

  • 15 spliffs

  • 5 bottles of Jack Daniels

  • 4 cases of bear

  • 2 fireman’s buckets filled with red and blue M&M’s

POST-2020 BACKSTAGE RIDER

  • Lots of Covid tests

  • 2 packs of face masks

  • 10 bottles Hand sanitiser

It felt good to be on my way to photograph real live musicians again. I had 5 concerts to shoot during the second half of 2021 but they didn't feel anything like normal or the way they used to be. This was the first concert of the year by The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and it kinda did feel like it used to....until I got there!

The orchestra had played the night before, but I was joining them on the second of three nights. One musician had already dropped out at the rehearsal stage after testing positive for Covid 19. But it was only 4pm the day after the first concert and two more musicians had tested positive. Once again deps were found and the gig was going ahead. The beauty of jazz musicians of this calibre is that they can sightread what's put in front of them.

As restrictions are being lifted, and in some parts of the country being scrapped altogether, I've been seeing first-hand that things are worse than ever out there. People are not bothering with masks more and more, even though, unlike England, we have not had the mad government instructions that all restrictions are over. Do what you like. Tounge kiss as many strangers as you feel is appropriate.

Day 3: I'm editing the pictures from the night before when I get an email to say that this evening's performance has been cancelled.

Guests Joe Locke (vibraphonist) and Kenny Washington (vocalist) flew in from the US to perform with The SNJO. Months of writing arrangements for Joe, concerts postponed from 2020, and in the end, the plug had to be pulled due to Covid. It's only going to get worse in my opinion!

The music was brilliantly arranged by Joe Locke and the musicians played flawlessly as always!

This was an amazing start to the year for The SNJO which was cut short. I hope this project can be resumed at a later date!

ALL SHOT WITH THE X-PRO2 & THE 50/2 (75mm FF equivalent)

One of Fuji’s most underrated lenses!

September 10, 2018 at 15:15 PM (Motherwell, Scotland)

By Derek Clark

It’s been a heavy weekend of music related stuff. Rock on Friday, Jazz concerts on Saturday and Sunday, then throw in a white seamless shoot with a mobile setup. That would be all well and good, but try fitting sixteen musicians on a 6’x7’ background. I did manage five at one stage, but that was pushing it. I’ll probably end up using the single shots of each musician and then making a composite.

I’m now at my desk. 1:1 preview's have been built in Lightroom and I’m ready to start editing. This is where I tell myself to be ruthless when culling, but I always end up giving myself more work than I need to.
Okay. Cappuccino in front of me. Sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

MODERN JACOBITE: ANATOMY OF A CD SHOOT. PART 3

TOMMY SMITH AND THE BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA:

THE PROMO SHOOT & Jazzwise Cover

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

This final part of Tommy Smith's Modern Jacobite CD shoot was a straight ahead portrait gig to produce pictures for promotional use. I used a Westcott Apollo Octa with a Yongnou 560 IV for the main light and a smaller inexpensive Octa (from Amazon) with another 560 IV for the fill. A 12' roll of white seamless was used for the background and a large piece of tuffened glass for a reflection on the floor.

This shoot was mainly for promotional pictures, but at that point it could have yielded something for the CD cover if the castle shoot hadn't worked out. I was using two X-T1’s, but ended up shooting mostly with one body and the 16-55mm f2.8. I have two 560TX wireless transmitters for the Yongnuo flashes (one for each body), but I have to make sure I adjust power settings on both units simultaneously, so it makes sense using the zoom and shooting mostly with one camera.

Peter Johnston (tailor) of Edinburgh had made a suit for Tommy, the same one used for the castle shoot, so it made sense to use it for the promo stuff too. The suit is grey, very James Bond (Daniel Craig era) and unbelievably well made.

Tommy has been the subject of countless photo shots over the years, which can be both good and bad. He knows how to pose for sure, but how do you get something different? I shot with two lights for a while, letting the background fall to a mid grey and looking a little more interesting than white seamless. We ran through a series of poses and then Tommy lifted the sax over his shoulder and pretended to throw it. Maybe the shoot was taking longer than expected, or he was fed up being blinded with flash guns, but I'm glad he didn't actually through it at me...Selmer mkVI saxophones are expensive and getting rare :o)

Shooting with one light on Tommy and another one facing my lens at 45° gave me some interesting bubbles in the pictures. I'd love to say this was intentional and pre-planned, but I had moved one of the light stands to the side and forgot to switch the flash off on the commander. But I like the effect and I will definitely use it again on a future shoot.

I added a couple of lights facing the background to blow it to pure white and shot a few pictures of Tommy in various poses. Then we carried in a leather Chesterfield chair to use as a prop. I moved the chair into position and asked tommy to sit down, but when he did, he had brought a tiny cup. He actually had a few of these, one of which his teacher had given him many years before. Again, it seemed to work as a prop, so why not.

Jazzwise magazine wanted to do an article on Modern Jacobite and seemed to take a liking to this picture (above) straight off. I wasn't sure if they would use one of my pictures on the cover or send one of their own photographers to shoot it, but I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the final cover on the Jazzwise website just before it went on sale. A good selection of the pictures were also used inside the magazine and for a full page add for the CD too.

Modern Jacobite has been a great project that has spanned three styles of photography. From the first session at rehearsals with Tommy and The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, shooting old school documentary pictures and listening to this amazing music as though it was my own personal soundtrack. 
Then an outdoor location shoot with a mixture of flash and ambient light. A freezing cold day, but one that thankfully produced the goods.
And finally a studio shoot using 100% controlled lighting. It's good to specialise, but it definitely pays to be proficient in various styles of photography.

When I look back on this project, I have a thought that keeps running through my mind. I wish I had allowed myself to take in more of the performance on that first day, and I wish I could go back and shoot for one more day with the orchestra, knowing that I had enough shots already in the bag. 

As Bill Murray said in an interview with Charlie Rose " I'd like to be more consistently here.....I‘d just like to really see how long I could last at being really here...really in it...really alive, in the moment!"

Click HERE to buy Modern Jacobite. Click HERE for part 1 of this series, or Click HERE for part 2