Saturday 13 March 2010

Greentop Circus Cabaret

I was recently invited to shoot Greentop Circus's monthly cabaret (http://www.greentop.org/), considering the wide variety of acts on show I thought it could make some pretty interesting images. Clowns, aerial acts and daredevils were the crop of the nights show.

Starting of proceedings were 'The Condiments', with their alternative clowning routine. A mixture of slap-stick comedy, crowd interaction and a bit of acrobatics for good measure they definitely got everyone excited for the rest of the night.

In the first shot they are stood next to a talking scouse burger!







Nikolaj Munk put on an impressive 7 minute routine on aerial straps; which was a mixture of acrobatics and theatre. Nikolaj told me that he previously worked in theatre and his background definitely shone through in his act.





This lady did an impromptu version of Hanohano 'O Maui to celebrate her birthday and keep with the haiwaiian fancy dress theme of the night.



Last up was Marcelo the Daredevil who put on an incredible show. Check out his website to see a video of him in action on Britain's Got Talent (http://www.marcelothedaredevil.com/). Considering the space that he had available this guy really does have some balls - he kept joking about it saying it could go wrong but he was definitely being deadly serious.

Marcelo used the microphone and a hammer to put different objects up his nose, including nails and a screwdriver.





For another part of his show he dislocated his neck and spun around on the spot at speed (check the video on his site to understand exactly what's going on here!)



The grand finale saw Marcelo dive through a ring of knives, over a bed of nails and onto broken glass. Photographically, this would have worked great from a straight on angle but space was extremely limited and he ended his routine against the wall, I don't think either of us would have fancied me being there to break his movement.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Aviva World Trials and UK Championships

Shortly before my stint down at SWNS I covered the Aviva athletics at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. With local golden girl Jessica Ennis only in attendance as a spectator due to injury, the stage was set for Dwayne Chambers to steal the limelight as he maintained his position as the fastest man in the world over 60 metres so far this year.

Photographing multi-event athletics is a completely different challenge to any other shoot due to the variety; which makes it essential to stay on your toes and not miss anything out. The only thing I regreted was not being able to have the 300 f/2.8 as it would have allowed me to isolate the athletes much better from my position further back (inside track positions were reserved for the big agencies). All in all it was a very enjoyable and hectic two days, the aim now is to get myself to be in a position to shoot the London 2012 Olympics.