Music

Emma Dunlop

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Editorial shoot with singer songwriter Emma Dunlop

I met Emma Dunlop when she came to the opening of my exhibition Women At COP26 last autumn but actually, as it turned out, I photographed her many years ago as part of The Kennedy Cupcakes dance troupe at a corporate event in Glasgow. We chatted very briefly at the launch and I remember thinking it would be great to photograph her at some point. We managed to make it happen last month when we spent a day in a studio with a small, yet brilliant team, trying different things and just having fun. We wanted a lot of shadows, shapes, androgyny, oversized suits and playing with the ideas of masculine and feminine. I never shoot with hard light, like ever, so this was something new for me to try as most set ups we prepared for this session were all about hard lighting. See our initial references below as well as a few of the final images.

Hair, Make Up & Styling: Michelle Watson
Assistance: Jack Thomson
Studio: Basement49

Visual References

Behind the Scenes (taken by Jack Thomson):

GEAR
Nikon D850 + Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter
Profoto B10
Profoto A1
Profoto OCF Softbox 3' Octa

Profoto OCF Beauty Dish White 2'

Neewer 120cm Octabox
Reflector

Agnieszka Opiola

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Portrait session with violinist Agnieszka Opiola

I met Agniszeka Opiola, a brilliant performance violinist, while we worked together on an opera project for NOISE. We struck a relationship that continued beyond the opera and eventually Agnieszka approached me last year to do some promotional images for her. We spent a few hours at Basement49 studio last March blasting Chopin (See? It isn’t only 90s R&B and Madonna with me…), chatting and taking photos, of course. Have a look at a select few below.

Big thanks to Greta Kalva for assistance on the day.

GEAR
Nikon D850 + Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter
Profoto B10 + Profoto OCF Softbox 3' Octa
Reflector

Justyna Jablonska's Lost & Found

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LOST & FOUND: A CELLIST’S JOURNEY

This was probably one of my favourite projects last year. Performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in August, Lost & Found: A Cellist’s Journey, was a rumination on Justyna Jablonska’s personal and musical journey from Poland to Scotland after finishing high school in her hometown of Łódź. It mixed cello, electronica and video projections to tell the artist’s story.

Justyna and I have worked together on several projects in recent years and it’s always a joy and a challenge. For Lost & Found, my task was to take promotional images, design the artwork and produce a trailer for the show. Justyna wanted everything to have a vintage, analog feel so most of the images were shot on film and I tried to incorporate that aesthetic in the promo artwork and video.

While Justyna is based in Edinburgh, we took the main promo images in Glasgow as its industrial history and vibe are closer to Łódź, where Justyna is originally from. Have a look below:

Promo Poster for the Edinburgh Fringe

GEAR PHOTO
Nikon FM + Nikkor 100mm f1.8
Kodak 400TX

Nikon D850 + Nikkor 85mm f1.4
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter

Sony A7III + Sony 85mm f1.8
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 Filter

GEAR VIDEO
Sony A7III + DJI RS 2
Sony 35mm f1.8
Sony 85mm f1.8
Tiffen Black Pro-mist 1/4 FilterS

Remembering Rab Noakes

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Rab Noakes 1947 - 2022

It’s truly surreal and heartbreaking to write a heading like this. Only a few weeks ago I was in a recording studio with Rab where he was working on a new album with Brooks Williams. He was in great form, cracking jokes, and his voice sounded great. And yet here we are. I got a message from a friend on Friday asking whether I’d heard the news about Rab. I did not and my heart sank.

I met Rab Noakes through Jill Jackson, his close friend and a frequent collaborator, who enrolled me to take some promotional images for their upcoming tour. Rab and I got on very well, he liked the images and would get me to photograph him for his following projects with Barbara Dickson, Brooks Williams as well as solo. I loved taking pictures of him, he was one the most impeccably dressed men I’ve ever encountered and his charisma and charm were a joy to capture. While we didn’t always see eye to eye (Rab thought ABBA was nothing special and Ella Fitzgerald was overrated - gasp!) we always had a great time together and he was incredibly supportive of my work, kept recommending me to other artists and attended my exhibitions.

I leave you with some of my favourite images I took of Rab throughout the years.

He’s greatly missed.

A Decade with Horse

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10 Years of working with Horse McDonald

Horse was a customer at a coffee shop I used to work at in Finnieston when I was a student in Glasgow in the mid-2000s (waaaaaay before the area was deemed the new Shoreditch). I didn't know who she was at the time, just another person I was making coffee for, and I certainly couldn't have predicted we would not only work together but also become close friends in the future.

Our first proper introduction happened during a Jill Jackson gig at the Renfrew Ferry in early 2011 (I wrote about my decade of photographing Jill here). We recognised each other from the coffee shop and briefly spoke about the possibility of working together at some point.

That opportunity came along when Horse was gearing up for the release of her album “Home” and needed some publicity shots. We spent a brilliant day with her band in Strachur in October 2012 and it marked the beginning of a fruitful working relationship which eventually turned into friendship. There have been photoshoots, countless live gigs and most recently, a music video for her banging single “Leaving”.

It was actually working with Horse that lead to me exploring video work. I was doing some behind-the-scenes shots on a music video of hers and the guys filming asked for assistance. I’d been asked by clients to do filming many times at that point but I always refused, I was too scared of the medium and worried I wouldn’t be able to translate the visual style of my photography work into moving image. Having helped on that video for Horse demystified the process for me and made me go “Oh, that’s really not that different from photography, I can do it!”.

You can see the “Leaving” video, shots from every collaboration we’ve done over the past decade (including previously unreleased images) as well some personal snaps below.

“Leaving” Music Video.