So I popped into Rock ‘n’Roll Rescue for a pre arranged photoshoot with Knox and I now have four of the twenty images I hope to have for my college project.

I’m a little concerned about the time frame because I need to have the edited images ready to send for print in mid February to allow time for any re-edits and printing if needed.

Its going to be a bit of a push to get this done while working full time & that also being shift work…. I start a three week training course at work and that is either really gonna screw me over or work out very well by freeing me up in the evenings. Positive thoughts….

In reality I need ten portraits but twenty would allow me to produce the project in a way that if the results are as good as I hope, I might even be in a position to raise some money for two charities.

You might be wondering who I’d pick? Personally it would crisis but in this case maybe Jail Guitar Doors would be one. I hadn’t heard of them until I attended a gig & film screening in Camden earlier in the year; ‘I need a dodge’ They (the charity) recently started doing some work in the UK and I’m guessing it seems to be a worthy charity that the subjects I am photographing would all agree on.

The other that I assume would meet the subjects approval is Rock ‘n’ Roll Rescue.

As I said, I popped into the Camden shop on Wednesday to photograph Knox. I had an idea of how I wanted to shoot him but the shop does not offer much space. At the time I visited there was a lot of coming and going so the shoot was a bit quick with only eight frames being taken. My lecturer will have something to say about that.

I had a good chinwag with knox after and a great photo opportunity arose when he was sat on a small bench seat with a very friendly dog called “fatty” that he was dog-sitting.

Unfortunately I had already packed my kit away as I was heading off to see someone else. My lecturer don’t need to say anything about that! I didn’t even have my point ‘n’ shoot handy. Ahhrrggg!!

Disappointingly the later shoot fell through at the last minute.

It was an interesting visit to the shop. I met Johnny Deluxe not to be mistaken for the band with the same name. Mr JD would be an awesome voice over for my film noir images. I may well have to approach him about potentially doing a collaboration project. I think he’d also have some cracking stories to tell; some outrageously scandalous and some very very funny. An interesting character.

I also bumped into Sulo Karlsson (what a nice Fella) of The Crunch who incidentally played at the Camden gig mentioned above.

He told me about a project he has completed with Gary Johnson Punk/Oi! Poet who is on some of my old compilation albums. They put some of the work to music and I had a chance to listen to a couple of the tracks. I am under strict instruction to not reproduce any of the work here.

I have mixed opinions on what I heard. The reggae style tracks sound very polished and are not to my personal taste. I do like old ska, two tone and I guess what we might call third and fourth wave ska-core but there is something very European about what they have produced; its almost to well timed if that makes sense? That is not necessarily a bad thing and I can see a lot of people liking this very polished sound.

There are a couple of tracks that really stand out for me and I think the album will get the rightfully deserved attention from those that like this style of poetry (There are still some spoken word tracks) and the genres of music produced.

Sulo said he was meeting Garry Bushell in studio to produce a podcast. Garry is also on my list of people to photograph for this project and I would have loved to have been able to take a portrait in the studio environment.

I would guess that he will be reviewing the reworking of Gary Johnson’s work with Suol. I’m also very sure it will be a much more considered and in depth than mine. As you’d expect with him being the professional. You can follow the link to find out what he has to say.

I caught up with Garry prior to this blog post that failed to post so the title should be changed…

No photos in this post…. Okay maybe one.

This is not the photo of Garry that I will be using for the project but one I thought would be fun & thankfully he was up for the challenge of holding a guru style pose.

The location was cluttered so I had the challenge of removing Garry from one image and using another background. Easy! I can hear a huge number of photoshop, gimp, (other software brands are available) say… well yes if you use those tools frequently. My general photography is more honest and you tend to see what I shoot. So this was a challenge. A time consuming challenge when I have numerous email to fire off and a deadline that seems to be closing in faster than I imagined it would.

Garry is the man to ask about punk, oi!, ska & such related subjects. He is also the front man for The Gonads. Making him an obvious candidate for the project. I’m also very relieved to say that I can report to y’all that Garry is a sound bloke.

I am going to have a few busy weeks ahead of me… so may not be back for a couple of weeks. However, please feel free to comment or share any handy editing tips.
TTFN
Jim Jimmy James