Linger for Longer

Five prints per month challenge for 2016

Printing my music photographs is the way forward. Pulling out my photo enlargements from my portfolio case a couple of days ago, resulted in that familiar warm, excited feeling. It’s that sensation you can only get when you are holding artwork that you had the greater hand in producing.

It’s a weird feeling though because it gets stronger over time. What do I mean by that? If I print a photograph that I took a week ago, I’m too close to the moment of the event to really appreciate it; it was too recent. If I leave the image for an amount of time (I’m not talking years here, maybe only a couple of months), and then I open up Pandora’s box, it feels like the treasure inside is not my own. And that elevates my senses. I start to see things that I never saw before and my eye lingers longer.

With this in mind, I've set myself a challenge for the year: to print five photographs per month over 2016. That may not sound like many, but at £10 a shot for a 12"X18" print, it ain't a cheap endeavour.

But the alternative is to print smaller or not to print at all. Large prints are more satisfying to me. And photographs don't belong on computers, they need to be printed so that we all get a chance to experience our own warm feeling.

Prints will be available for sale and I'm currently looking at ways to make them available through various channels. Also, a photobook idea is developing well; watch this space.

Please get in touch if you're interested in purchasing any of my photographs or commissioning me for a private or live shoot.

Katey Brooks in the Photo Studio

Artist: Katey Brooks

Location: Eyebox studio in St Werburghs, Bristol

Event: 3 hour photo studio session

Recently I did a fantastic photo session in the studio with the talented Indie Nominee singer and musician - Katey Brooks. Katey, who’s just back from a tour of Australia, has a new album in the making and she wanted some portraits taken for promotion purposes. I’ve only previously taken some live photos of Katey, so I was really excited to be collaborating on a studio venture.

Katey is a big fan of my signature style of photography with its filmic, grainy and traditional black and white qualities. Her brief was to capture that gritty, old-school style in the studio. Katey wanted darkness, ambiguity and a mysterious feel to the images to reflect elements of her character and style of music. The grittiness of the photographs needed to reflect the themes and texture of her art, and the black and white treatments had to strip the image to an emotional core. And she didn't want a guitar in the pictures, definitely no guitars.

Take a listen to some of Katey’s music on Soundcloud here.

Over the preceding weeks before the shoot, Katey and I shared a pinterest album of images that have inspired her. This is a great idea and one that I thoroughly recommend. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the collection included some classic old photos of Brigitte Bardot, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith and Jeff Buckley and some more contemporary images of Kate Moss.

Katey knew exactly the kind of images she wanted to get down and she knew that my camera could help her capture that look.

Katey was a joy to work with and I wish her every success with her new album and future music career. Feedback from her management team has been very positive and her plans for using the images are underway.

Here is a sample of the work from the day.

If you are interested in a studio photo shoot, please contact me with your requirements. Prices start at £250 and for that you get a 3 hour slot with me in a studio and a set block of post-production time. This will get you a minimum of 20 professional photos which I will deliver as hi-resolution Jpeg images. I can adapt the session to your requirements, so please drop me an email: john@johnnycajon.com

Other bands and musicians have used my photographs as album artwork and promotion, including:

The Montgomerys - Album liner artwork
The Rosellys - USA and UK tour posters
Jim Evans - Album liner artwork
Lewis Creven - Album front cover
John Fairhurst Band - Album booklet and artwork
Paul McClure - UK tour poster and album artwork
Jane Allison - Album front cover

This is not to mention the numerous bands that have used my live photography work for promotion purposes on social media sites.

News.. News.. News..

In an exciting development yesterday (I’ve always wanted to say that), I started a collaboration with studio owner Steve Haddon on a new exhibition of my photographs at his soon to be opened new premises.

Garrison Studios is 1st floor TR — Garrison Studios is 1st floor TR

Garrison studios www.garrisonstudios.co.uk, is located in Northamptonshire between London and the Midlands. The building is an old Royal Ordinance depot (get it?). Steve has been meticulously converting the grade 2 listed structure over the past year or so to turn it into a contemporary photographic studio, whilst ensuring the work does not break the heritage building regulations. I’ve yet to visit the premises, but I’ve seen the fantastic photographs on his website.

Steve and I met on a studio portrait workshop run by the Royal Photographic Society in Lacock last year. He’s a big fan of my music photographs, and said ‘I can really tell from your photographs that you love your subject’. I'm glad that comes over.

Steve has also been instrumental in setting up an opportunity for me to work with a highly respected and esteemed music photographer (fingers crossed and hopefully more on this soon).

Loads of space and look at that natural light - gorgeous

Speaking to Steve yesterday, he mentioned that the studio is ‘large enough to accommodate a group for doing full band shoots with equipment, and there are partitioned areas to allow many different types of configurations for shoots and workshop purposes'. The main area is also long enough to install a gangway for doing fashion shoots’. He also commented on the fantastic acoustics.

Stud walls in place and partitions going up - opening soon

Steve received some great news of his own recently, when it was announced that he would be the only studio in the UK to be solely affiliated to highly respected Swiss lighting manufacturer - Broncolor. This is a major coo for Steve, and is an indication of how highly his work and the studio is considered.

Things are pretty exciting at the moment for Steve and myself.

The Garrison Studios open day is Sunday 9th August. Now all I need to do is select the photographs to include in the exhibit, and that is no easy task.

New Album Artwork

Lewis Creaven's new album - Folkstar, sports a fine looking cover even if I say so myself. I took the portrait of Lewis late last year as part of an all day studio session with 6 other bands in a small studio in St Werburghs, Bristol.

Folkstar is only on sale at the moment at Lewis' gigs.

I went along to one of his shows on Sunday in Totterdown, and it was a cracker. At one point he picked up a bar stool in his left hand and started using it as a guitar slide. Absolutely hilarious and absolutely fantastic showmanship.

After the show Lewis handed me a copy of the new CD. I was surprised to see that he has used several of my other photographs of him in the liner booklet. He hadn't mentioned this before and it was thrilling to see.

One of the photographs in the liner booklet is a live shot from the Golden Lion. The others are from the same studio session, in which he is joined by Patrick Farrell, who plays bass guitar and upright on the album.

The CD is available to buy in regular outlets later in the summer.