Happy New Year

I hope you had a good Christmas & New Year.
I spent mine back with family in the North West and had a great time.
But back to work now, rested and ready for 2012. December was a busy month to finish the year off and 2012 is beginning in a similar style. There will be new work from some of the recent shoots added to the website portfolios soon but first the website itself is being completely updated with a new design which should be up next month. It's coming along well and I'm very happy with the new look.
Anyway, more news soon.
mx

Recent Stuff Update;

I've not posted for a little while but it's been a very full period. A number of shoots, including The Maccabees who I'm a fan of, plus meetings; new contacts and future work. Went to Kurran and the Wolfnotes gig in London, I shot them last year for a portrait shoot, and talked with Kurran after the gig - they are recording an album soon, so may do an 'In The Studio' shoot with them during the recording. Look out for them, a great new band.
Also went to my friend Roxanne de Bastion's single release party/gig. I shot the cover for the single (below).

Roxanne de Bastion 'Buckle Up'. 2011.
Photography © Michael Robert Williams

Also took a little, much needed, break. Just a simple week in Spain, drinking lots of wine and eating too much. Note to self - must make time for a proper, long, holiday next year. Took my usual snaps while travelling - here's an almost postcard picture from Malaga... It's really not a sunset - I just really like shooting into the sun :P

Malaga, Spain, Nov 2011 © Michael Robert Williams

Things I heard or saw recently;
Loved the movie 'Drive'.
Loving Lana Del Rey's song 'Video Games'.
Ryan Adams new album 'Ashes & Fire'.
Watching 'Boardwalk Empire'.
Listening to lots of Prince :)

mx

One From The Archives - REM, Live In London;

Michael Stipe, REM, Live in London, 30th August 2008
© Michael Robert Williams

I thought I'd pull another photograph out of my archives as I've been sorting them out recently. With the news a couple of weeks ago about REM calling it a day, this is a photograph I shot at what turned out to be their very last show in England. I don't shoot gigs very often now, I prefer to actually just watch the show when I'm at a gig, but as an REM fan I decided to get a pass for this one.

Mx

Guillemots Shoot;

Guillemots, 2011 © Michael Robert Williams

These are a series of portraits from my shoot with Guillemots this summer, photographed out in North London...









Mx

Archives & Unpublished Portraits:

I've been sorting out my archives, organising the files, etc. Not exciting work in one sense but its been interesting to see many photos I'd forgotten I'd taken. Often only a few portraits from shoots get used at the time and many others never get finished at all. If its a magazine shoot say, and they run four or five photographs from a shoot, there are others that are edited out and not used for whatever reason, maybe they didn't fit the feel of the feature, or were similar to another that was used.
I'll have to find a way to use some as I really like many of them. I'll just put up one example below. Its a shoot I did with Kasabian in 2006 for U.S. magazine Filter. A few portraits ran with the story, one of them is the landscape format portrait of the group on a city rooftop, below. The other two, the playful group shot, and the photograph of singer Tom Meighan on his own were not run with the feature, so I thought I'd share them here today.

One of the published portraits. Kasabian, 2006 © Michael Robert Williams


Tom Meighan, Kasabian, 2006 © Michael Robert Williams


Kasabian, 2006 © Michael Robert Williams

I may post others from sessions but I thought these may be interesting to see as an example. Some may be posted on my Facebook page too, here; Michael Robert Williams FB.

Mx

Behind The Scenes; Klaxons Shoot.

I've been spending a lot of time recently sorting out archive images, organising, etc. Getting new promo cards and stuff done too, and need to update, maybe completely redo, my print books.

While sorting through files I found these behind the scenes photos taken by my photo assistant Clare Lewington. They were shot during the 2010 shoot with the band Klaxons. I thought I'd post them here as I always like behind the scenes photo's myself :)

Below; one of the finished portraits of
Klaxons © Michael Robert Williams


Opening spread from a magazine feature.

Mx

Metronomy; How we wrote... The Bay

As anyone who follows my Facebook page knows already I love the new Metronomy album The English Riviera. I was lucky enough to spend a little time in the studio with Joseph Mount while it was being made and I heard a few things then and knew it was going to be great. I found this video on the Guardians website and thought I'd share it here too;

These are a few of the photographs I shot while Metronomy were recording The English Riviera
album.





Michael