Farewell to Elias Quartet

The Elias String Quartet said (another) farewell to some of its Sheffield audience on 25th June, in the intimate setting of Patrick Vaughan's home. The Quartet have rehearsed there regularly during their time in Sheffield. Evidently a win-win for both sides, as Patrick has enjoyed and learned from their music-making.

The Quartet played Schubert's Rosamunde Qaurtet D804, followed by a very satisfying selection of movements from Britten, Mendelssohn, Bartok, Schumann and Mozart. This served as a timely reminder of the breadth and range of the quartet repertoire.

I photographed them rehearsing prior to the concert; images are posted on my site.

The concert was sublime, the atmosphere warm and friendly, and the food was excellent. Their Sheffield fans will follow the Quartet's future career with great interest.

Ensemble 360 @ Millennium Gallery

On 22nd April 2009, members of Ensemble 360 performed in Sheffield's Millenium Gallery, with a promenading audience. I had a go at photographing this event. Not easy, as the light levels were diabolically low and flash would have spoiled the experience for the audience. The required wide apertures, slow shutter speeds and maximum camera sensitivity conspired to limit the quality of the images, but I've put a few on my website.

Artists Open Studios South Yorkshire 2009

Enjoyed two weekends visiting studios around Sheffield during this year's Open Up event. There were way too many to get round all of them, but those I did manage to catch included:

• Penny Withers' fine ceramics
• Kristan Baggaley's dramatic paintings, including atmospheric seascapes alongside Derbyshire's gritstone edges
• Cath Dunn's semi-abstract landscapes, in a fascinatingly distinctive, almost constructivist, style
• Katherine Rhodes, whose excellent flowers and landscapes I've reproduced, also showed impactful figures
  
• Strong colours in acrylic and gouache from Terry Brooker
• Simon Clements was showing prints, etchings and watercolours, including cityscapes, landscapes, industrial scenes and musicians in concert. Simon told me he'd sold some of my prints of his watercolours.
• Erica Just, an out-of-town guest with Sheffield friends, with finely executed original watercolours inspired by grasses. I sought these out as a challenge for my Imaging for Artists service. Any attempt to reproduce these paintings must leave the large areas of unpainted white space untouched by ink in the reproduction. But Erica declared herself robustly uninterested in reproductions of her work, preferring these to remain prized as originals.
• Toby Hazel's colourful abstract acrylics, including some made whilst blindfolded. I was drawn to those reminiscent of Miro and Kandinsky. In a classic "village Sheffield" moment, I enjoyed telling Toby that, in the 1970's, his neurosciences PhD supervisor, Paul Dean, had stayed with me when I lived opposite Toby's home and studio.
• Neil Kay's small-scale but highly atmospheric acrylic and soft pastel landscapes of mountains, moors, wetlands and seashores. Neil's name was familiar to me as Sheffield's Director of Social Services way back when ...
• Alison Down's evocative watercolours and mixed-media paintings of landscapes, streetscapes, still life and gardens
• Steve Elliott's impressively large display of Derbyshire pastels and oils, which showed a compelling evolution over time towards increasing abstraction as well as an increasingly distinctive and dramatic colour palette.
• Martin Field's splendid photography -- landscapes and seascapes -- using square format and wide angles to great compositional effect, with a delicious range of tones and colours
• Lyn Littlewood's brilliantly colourful Derbyshire landscapes and flowers. Her home and studio nestle deep in the hills beneath Stanage Edge. When I got into embarrassing difficulties turning my camper van in their narrow lane, Lyn's husband kindly and expertly rescued me.
  

Extreme Cellists Attacked by Japanese Cats

I was amused to see a post from kebaneco in Japan, whose prints of my Extreme Cellists images were subject to unwanted attention from cats! I can't read the Japanese but recognise the pics well enough. Kebaneco's shiny cello case doesn't look as if it's been up many mountains. Not yet, least ... Many thanks, kebaneco, for showing me this.

Silverdale Pupils Get Fighting Fit

Earlier this month, I was pleased to be commissioned by the Fitness Industry Association to shoot a showcase event with pupils from Sheffield's Silverdale School -- my daughters' old school -- at Ladyzone on Ecclesall Road. Pupils enjoyed a Boxercise class, then posed for for a group shot with instructors and local MP Richard Caborn.

Sheffield Chamber Orchestra

I've now completed post-production on a shoot with the Sheffield Chamber Orchestra. This long-established group of around 40 players gives three concerts a year, under their two resident conductors, Robin McEwan and Richard Haworth. I was commissioned to provide rehearsal images, formal shots of the orchestra and conductors before the concert, and shots during applause. The occasion was a concert at Firth Hall, University of Sheffield. The soloist in Beethoven's Violin Concerto was Jiafeng Chen.



Before the shoot, I found inspiration in the work of David Bazemore. I wonder how he achieves such fine images? They set a standard for photographers working with classical musicians. Of course, actual performance in concert dress gives stronger images of musicians at work than does rehearsal. But camera noise can be an issue, more for audience than for performers. A sound-deadening enclose for the camera, known as a "blimp", is very expensive.

Of course, the quality of imagery you can get is constrained by the extent to which the players are able and willing to adjust to the needs of the photographer. Most of my work with classical musicians has been opportunistic -- and, hopefully, minimally obtrusive -- rather than resulting from time having been dedicated to a photoshoot. For example, cleaner images of groups of players could be obtained by re-arranging the platform to isolate small groups. But this would not be compatible with effective rehearsal. However, the SCO rehearsal shoot could have been improved simply by taking the time to clear the auditorium of musicians' belongings and darkening the windows.

So I tried to convey the atmosphere of rehearsal, including visual communication among players and conductor, and including the informalities of the rehearsal context. I hope SCO members will feel free to add their comments as to how far we succeeded in this.

As always, I found it hard not to be distracted from my work by enjoyment of the music. But I was free to enjoy the concert itself. Although an "amateur" orchestra, SCO members have all achieved at least Grade 8 on their instruments, so their playing is excellent. And Jiafeng Chen was stunning in the Beethoven, obviously a rising star of the violin.



I'm grateful to SCO for favouring me with this commission and hope the images do not disappoint.

Getting Colours Right

Gearing up for my Imaging for Artists service, this week I've had my system colour calibrated by the excellent Simon Clifford-Smith. Although Simon travels over a wide area -- his car has 200k miles on the clock-- I'm fortunate that he's based near me in Sheffield. An accomplished landscape photographer, he combines technical mastery with a keen understanding of photographers' needs. His charges are reasonable and the results consistently excellent. He's also a mine of information and helps his clients understand what's going on. In addition to calibrating my printer for the fine art papers I'm offering to artists, he showed me the correct use of advanced settings with my eye-1 monitor calibrator. Result of Simon's visit: total confidence that what is seen on screen will be faithfully reproduced on paper.

To complete the flow of accurate colour information from the digital file to viewing of the final print, I've also recently invested in a GrafiLite desk lamp. You can't judge your print output under biased lighting, and Simon's measurement confirmed that this lamp is, er, spot-on.