Barber Photography » Barnaby Aldrick

Cities Between Us –‘Dirty Money’ Music Video

Phil — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:08:10 +0000

A few months back 3B Media were approached for some promo snaps by a band calling themselves ‘Cities Between Us‘. After checking out their myspace we arranged to meet them at one of our fave Leeds haunts, The Reliance for a pint.

We were more than impressed with the sheer energy & enthusiasm coming from these dudes. They told us their story & how they’d come together from Iceland, New Zealand & Canada (hence ‘Cities Between Us’) and were currently rocking out some new tracks in the UK/Canada, whichever kept them busiest. Here they are are: L>R Valdimar, Jo, Josh, Stefan & Nimal

As with all photography, wedding, music or otherwise, if the other side ‘puts in’, the results are all the sweeter. After they’d left, we were buzzing on their enthusiasm and decided to crank things up a bit for them. Instead of just a photoshoot, we were going to make them a music video. This became my baby (as we’ve found it easier in such projects to take on roles, so I took the role of ‘Herr Director’), I went off and plugged myself into MTV and have never downloaded so many music videos in all my life.

Meanwhile, in July they began work on their debut album, with star producer Matt Hyde – the grammy award winning engineer who’s worked with Trivium, As I Lay Dying, Bullet for my Valentine & Slipknot – and came back to us with a tasty number called ‘Dirty Money’.

We had a good listen, booked a date, hired a warehouse & some pokey TV lights & settled in for a day’s filming. This was a long and intense day. Barns had another job on so Rob & I asked aboard the helpful hands of James Lester (an ace tog pal who manned camera B & shot the images in this post) & Hannah Reynolds (James’ art college pal who manned the mac desk & file conversion).

Here’s a view of the warehouse, from the back looking towards us (you can see our macbook pro desk between the left guitar & bass amps) and below is a closer shot of mission control we had set up. Far right is the sound desk which was used to play back the track. Next table in had all the memory cards (Unused / Used / Downloaded etc) and then you see the two MacBook Pros that were converting footage all day and being backed up.

Above are a few shots James caught of the band in action.

Gearwise: We filmed on Canon DSLRs (2 x 5DmkII’s & a 7D for slow mo footage), a gib (a video crane) & a bunch of TV studio lights & a strobe…

…but really the show was run on CBU power! Seriously: all credit to the band, who rocked solidly for like 7hrs.

We felt for Stefan, the drummer, who was in shreds after givin it beats all day

Anyhoos – After looking at some rough footage in the pub that night, Rob & I excitedly rocked up to Barns house with a hard disk full of Hannah-converted-footage & said “there y’are!” and toddled off.

Barns was taking on the role of editor.

That’s a screen grab of the final track, chopped & laid out in Final Cut Pro.

It was a seriously interested experience & learning curve for us all, not just on the day – playing with lighting, slow mo and cranes etc – but in post production – converting, syncing & chopping the footage – to pump the vid with life & pace.

But we’re totally pleased with the final result. Check it out below, in crispy HD:

If you can’t see the vid for whatever reason, check it out on vimeo here.

Hope you enjoyed watching that as much as we did making it! Massive thanks to Cities Beween Us, who are up in Iceland recording the 2nd leg of the album, for being absolute legends on the day and in general. It wouldn’t look anywhere near this ace if you didn’t put in 100% like you did.

If you’ve a commission for 3B Media, or would like a music vid/documentary, don’t be shy – drop us a line here or on info@3Bmedia.co.uk

Hope and Social – James video

Phil — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:52:41 +0000

As part of 3B Media we have tried to immerse ourselves into the world of music videos. This is an area that all three of us are very interested in and with the advent of the DSLR capable of shooting HD video this has made it more of a reality. So when our friends Hope and Social were making a video for one of their tracks off their new album ‘April’ we asked if we could observe the process from beginning to end. Well the end end has arrived with the launch of the ‘James’ video. Shot and made by the amazing Ross McWhannell, who has worked with us on such fantastic videos as 1000 Bulbs and The First Word is the Hardest, this was created using one 5Dmkii and a budget that was about the same size as the loose change you have in your pocket.

What amazed me was how low tech it seemed on the day -’ Are you really only lighting it with 2 B&Q halogen lights? ‘ – ‘ Just you and the camera then? ‘ But what Ross had was an idea and vision on how he wanted it to look. As with photography I am learning that it’s not all about the equipment but the ability to see and visualise images and planning this all in pre-production. So after filming Ross goes back to New Zealand where he is based and a month later we watched emails go back and forth between the band and Ross discussing first / second edits and how the look and feel of the video evolved to it’s final finished video it is today.

The other big factor in producing video’s whether it is a short movie / documentary or music video is the way it is edited. The Edit can make or break a video. What I know of editing, with the little I have done myself, is the way Ross has pulled James together is amazing. To go from seeing how it was filmed to what you see now is unbelievable. The editor is worth his or her’s weight in gold.

If you go to Ross’s blog there is a very big post about how the video was created and is well worth the read if you are interested in this sort of thing.

To see the video click here —> Hope and Social ‘James’ Video

With all this in mind we have been working on first music video with a band called Cities Between Us. We filmed this back in August and the final edit is almost complete so watch this space.

Finally I was in London last week and on the way back to the train dropped into the Luminaire where the band were sound checking for a gig that night. Here are few grab shots

One-Day Wedding Workshop // A Great Success!

Phil — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:25:27 +0000

Last Tuesday we ran our first One-Day Wedding workshop at Woodlands Hotel in Leeds

It was an ace day, filling 8 eager minds with details on how we 3B approach wedding photography

Mr Barber kicked the day off with a classroom session on the importance of the pre-wedding shoot

Then Phil & I split delegates into two groups to show delegates how we shoot 2 pre-wed couples, before letting them take turns shooting.

We wanted to use real couples, rather than models, to show the love and also to show how we make real people feel comfortable in front of our cameras.

This couple Jo & Phil are friends of Clare’s who’d recently married and so jumped at the chance to dress up again & party with us.

Laura & Jamie were a former couple of Phil’s & were well up for playing dress up again.

We showed our delegates the kind of details we look for.

It was drizzling when we started, so showed them how to handle England’s ever changeable weather

A few compositional ideas

And how to communicate with a couple to get them relaxed

A bit of back light flare technique

We’d been supplied a beautiful bouquet, buttonhole & table flowers by our favourite florist in the business, Fiona of Firenza Floral Design

Here’s our 2nd time delegate Natasha photographing our mock wedding breakfast table setup

After lunch the girls donned their frocks & although we like to shoot naturally and unstaged, our makeup artist did a few staged makeup shots.

Laura, looking beautiful.

It’s little wonder why the girls wanted to dress up again when they had stunning dresses like these!

A detail of Phil’s button hole

I like this moment of Jo on the steps.

A kooky compositional bridal detail from Phil.

We really couldn’t complain about the sunlight…

…or the model behaviour we got out of our couples

Jamie even pimped his outfit a with fun footwear

We really hoped we did Jo & Phil proud with a new set of wedding images

They put in so much to help us get what we needed & were very natural in front of the lenses; despite the fact that there were 5 photographers at a time coming at them!

We showed delegates how we like to shoot solo portraits…

…and a bit about depth of field

Personally I like this one of them looking at another delegate

Another moment

And possibly, in my opinion, the most weddingy snap of the day, on the Woodlands steps.

After reading the 3B Feedback Questionnaire it appeared that all our delegates were super pleased with the day and content. We feel we struck the perfect balance to introduce the class to how we approach wedding photography, and how we get the most out of photographing real, non-model couples. We’re excited to do another workshop early in 2011. In the meantime we’re preparing for our Exposing Flash Workshop on November 9th this year! If you’re interested, download the brochure by clicking here.

So thank you again to our couples, Jo & Phil and Laura & Jamie, Fiona from Firenza for the flowers, our makeup artist Lauren & to all our delegates for making the 3B One-Day Wedding Workshop such a great success!

Hope and Social: Recording Session

Phil — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:21:42 +0000

This afternoon I headed on down to The Crypt where our good friends Hope and Social are in the middle of recording their second album. I had my 3B Media chums Rob & Barnaby along as we were there to chat and discuss some future projects they had in mind. These are exciting times for these guys and it is great to be involved with them . They have such a great philosophy in their approach. For them it is about getting the fans involved as much as possible. Currently they are asking fans to twitter them names of towns which they are then going to work into the lyrics of one of their new songs “Marching on through” Check their twitter if you want in – #hopeandsocial #crowdsourcing

Anyhow with the band and Ben Denison @bendenison working on an idea to invite bands to the Crypt to record & film covers! All in one day. Not sure the logistics of it. But will be a great day and everybody can get involved using twitter and facebook and the blogs. More to follow on this and other ideas we chatted about over several cups of coffee.

It is a privilege to be allowed to document a band in the middle of their creative process. What we heard sounded cool and can’t wait to hear more of the tracks that will end up on the album. Spent most of the afternoon chatting but the band did spend some time laying down some tracks – so took a few shots of the guys in action. Check Rob’s blog for more images from our visit.

An Evening with Martin Parr

Phil — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:27:44 +0000

Thursday night I went to see ‘An Evening with Martin Parr’ – Martin Parr is probably one of the most influential living British Photographers still working today. With over fifty books and countless exhibitions, Parr is known for his lurid and sometimes shocking use of colour in photography and his satirical witty approach to documentary photography leaves the viewer not sure whether to laugh or cry.

The audience was invited to vote on which one of 3 presentations he had put together and they would most like to hear; ‘Parrworld’, ‘Martin Parr – the story so far’ or Martin Parr my collection of Photo books. After a number of chances to vote the audience selected ‘Parrworld’. This was exhibition that was held at the Baltic in Gateshead. It was an a exhibition with a difference, less an exhibition in the standard sense – although it’s the largest ever to be dedicated to his work – and more an old-fashioned cabinet of curiosities.

Parr has Saddam Hussein watches, a wall of commemorative plates from the miners’ strike, an Afghan kilim depicting a plane flying into the Twin Towers, a Falklands conflict tea towel, a Stalin alarm clock and a roll of Osama bin Laden lavatory paper.

Also there was a collection of his Postcards showing hotel lounges and Butlins indoor swimming poll from the 60′s.

Joining me on the night was my 3B Media chums Mr Aldrick & Mr Booker. But when we arrived it turned out to be a mini Randall Network get together with The Lawsons, Rebecca Honeywell, Oliva Brabbs, Susie Lawrence all being there as well.

The evening was held by Creative Networks at Leeds College of Art and they hold such events every month.

Urban Portraits // 3B Media • Inspiring Photography Workshop – a great success!

Phil — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:33:16 +0000

This week Rob Booker, Barnaby Aldrick & myself ran our first 3B Media ‘Inspiring Photography’ workshop, called ‘Urban Portraits’. We’ve been planning it for quite some time now and it turned out to be such a fantastic day!

At the Round Foundry Media Centre near Leeds’ Granary Wharf we brought together 2 models, a make-up artist & 4 delegates and spent the day teaching them how we shoot portraits in the urban environment.

The delegates had fun shooting our pro-models, and it was so rewarding seeing them grow in confidence through the day.

In fact, some of the images they were getting were starting to make me feel we’d taught them too well!

Here’s one of our shots of Stef, who’s always such a joy to work with.

To start with I did a classroom session running through exposure and how to shoot manually, Rob ran the mornings ‘finding backgrounds’ and ‘Communication & Etiquette’ practical shoot classes.

We taught delegates how to quickly find & use clean backgrounds, such as this one of Alex.

Here I am teaching the Natasha’s (there were two!) This was up a fire escape over looking the Saw Mill. This place was amazing for loads of different backgrounds and textures. I’m sporting my lovely little Shootsac.

Our long time 3B Media make-up artist also models, so after she’d made Alex & Stef up, she got involved herself!

What amazing brown eyes!

In the afternoon we walked over to new revitalised Granary Wharf to try out some new backgrounds and I went through composition and finding light with the delegates.

Another shot of Alex trying to demonstrate you don’t have to shoot head on but consider different angles.

Barnaby did a lot of filming the day – a little video will follow soon. But also he spent a lot of the time during the practical classes on hand to help delegates once they got shooting.

This is one my favourite shots that Barnaby took and the one below is my favourite one that Rob took.

These next few shots I took of Alex under the arches behind Granary Wharf. I love these as a group of six. Here we were showing the benefit of using reflective light and using the lines of the lights to add a dimension to the shot

Here is Natasha working with Alex. It was great that by the nend of the afternoon session – the delegates had the confidence to take the models off on their on and start shooting in their own style.

Then back to the Round Foundry forBarnaby’s classroom module on how we bring images to life in post production & Adobe Lightroom.

Check out Barns looking all teachery!

It was such a awesome day, with everyone getting a set of stunning photos and leaving inspired and in control of their DSLRs!

It was equally inspiring to us as 3B Media, and we’re going to run the same course again in May and start planning further workshops on (amongst other things) flash, wedding photography & post production!

After a quick group shot, we popped to the pub (3B goody bags in hand!) for a cheeky beverage or two…

I’ll be posting more on the workshop soon, once we’ve edited some video and rounded up some images shot by delegates! But keep your eyes on www.3bmedia.co.uk or on our facebook page below to become a fan / get news on upcoming workshops!

3B Media on Facebook

Gangsters & Molls: Barns 30th!

Phil — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:59:04 +0000

My good friend Mr Barnaby Aldrick had a significant birthday the other day when he left his twenties and started his journey into his thirties. Seems such a long time ago for me now! Anyway to celebrate the passing of such a milestone he held a Gangsters & Molls fancy dress party at the Adelphi in Leeds. It was a joint affair with the amazing Jennie Chapman celebrating her 25th birthday. I had a wedding that day so didn’t join in the celebrations until quite late by which time things were in full swing. They had a great local band called Rebel Yell and if you get a the opportunity you should check them out. Probably one of the fun parts of the night was that Barns set up a photo booth for everyone to capture alot of the fun and frolicks of the evening. Needless to say I got involved as the image above shows. I would like to say for the record ‘ I have no idea where the hat or the cigar came from!’ Checkout some more images from the evening below. For a full review of what went on get yourselves over to Barnaby’s Blog by clicking HERE!!!

The 3B Media boys looking a little surprised to be on the other side of the camera.

ROB BOOKER - PHIL BARBER – BARNABY ALDRICK

A Week In The Life Of!

Phil — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:35:28 +0000

The last 7 -10 days have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to blog about everything. So today I’m going for possibly my longest post ever covering all that has gone on in the slightly mad world of Phil Barber. So let’s take a journey back in time a la Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure ( Showing my age now!)

THURSDAY 24th – FRIDAY 25th: WEDDINGS

On Thursday I was out and about with my old mate Mr Aldrick to help him cover one of his weddings at Hazlewood Castle – The weather was fab and it was great being a second shooter and allowed me a bit of creative freedom. This was swiftly followed the next day with one of my own weddings at Allerton Castle. I was back with Lou for this and what a day it was for Rachel & Ian. These guys are now on honeymoon and have allowed us to post a couple of teaser shots from the day. I’ll post up more pictures and a full report when they get back from honeymoon.

SATURDAY26th SUNDAY27th: WEEKEND OFF!

After doing 12 weddings over the last 6 weeks, we had our first weekend off in ages and some well earned R&R. My sister came up from London and we spent a great couple of days with the kids and going out and enjoying the last bits of late summer sunshine. My particular favourite moment was having tea & cake at Bettys in Harrogate. If you are ever in the area then this is a must. I bumped into one of our old clients from last year – Laura who was having a girls day out and preparing for on evening on the town.

Sunday evening was spent down at the Verve Bar in Leeds for another excellent evening of music. I have always gone down to the Sunday Service with a camera to record the event but I had made a conscious decision to just go and enjoy the music and spent some time in the company of good friends.

MONDAY 28th: EDITING & MORE EDITING!

As you can imagine after doing so many wedding s in such a short space of time there are a few images to edit.

So Monday was spent finishing off editing 2 weddings and getting the images ready to show clients. The evening was spent with another couple of our fantastic clients having a planning meeting discussing their upcoming wedding.

TUESDAY 29th:EVEN MORE EDITING!

A la Bridget Jones.

Edited 1 Wedding – 2 Enquiries – 2 Albums received from Queensberry & 1 Booking for next year

Also spent the evening with Steph & Darren doing their viewing to select images for their album.

WEDNESDAY 30th: 3B MEDIA – TEMPLE WORKS & THEN TRIP TO BLACKPOOL!

Early Wednesday morning I met up with Barns & Rob at Temple Works to discuss with Susan the art installations that she would like us to do. This was slightly unusual as I had never considered myself as an artist. But with the guys we set about over the next hour discussing how we would display our work that we had produced in documenting The Temple Works. The work will be available to visit as part of ‘The Final Days’ – Light & Sound Show torchlit tours from Friday 9th through to 16th October. If you are interested BOOK HERE!

After that the 3 of us head off towards Blackpool to spent some time together as 3B Media but also meet up with some other excellent photographers from the [b]school and the Randall Network. This was a great opportunity to sit down and chew the fat so to speak with some like minded photographers. So a shout out goes to Stewart Randall, Peter & Laura Lawson, Olivia Brabbs, Susie Lawrence, Chris Mackenzie, James Pearson, Rebecca Honeywell, Hayley Ruth, Mark Lenik, Neil Matthews & Mark Byrne. I think that was everyone. I had a weird experience with a Blackpool landlady who showed me to my room that had a double & a single but was asked very nicely if I would sleep in the single so she didn’t have to make up the double in the morning!

The day was spent having Fish & Chips and drinking glasses of the finest ale that Blackpool had on offer. As the light rapidly vanished there was a flurry of activity as we decided to take some images on the beach. As 3B we tried to create some promo images of ourselves in near darkness but using a bit of 1.2 action. Below are a few more images from our time on the beach.

After this it was off to have a chinese and more chat. It has to said at this point I was feeling crap / cold /swine flu not sure what – so I left the guys to head onto a bar which would appear to have been an experience for all of them. Check Barns blog out for further scary details.

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THURSDAY 1st OCTOBER – JOHANNES VAN KAN

The next day I left my fellow 3B Media chums and the rest of the photographers to have a day of discussing albums / marketing and alike while I headed up the coast to Staveley and Annabel Williams studio. It was here I had the chance to spend the day in the company of an amazing photographer from New Zealand – Johannes Van Kan. He had been invited over here to speak on behalf of Queensberry who are our album suppliers (and also the best manufacturers of albums in the world – fact!). It is hard to describe what I experienced during the day. Johannes has a passion & vision for photography that I have rarely come across. Normally when you come to see a photographer he or she will show a small slideshow of their work and then talk for a couple of hours. But from the very first minute you could tell Johannes’ approach was completely different. This was not about “look at me I’m a fab photographer”. This was story of his life and the journey he had taken. For him it was telling the story via his images. Also in this fast moving digital age where it’s so easy to get caught up in the transient nature of digital photography, he talked really eloquently about he how wanted to produce albums for people that they will be cherishing in years to come. This is why we use Queensberry – they’re so much more than photo albums. They really are heirlooms (gets off poncey soapbox…!)

FRIDAY 2nd OCTOBER – MORE EDITING & The Lurgie!

Spent the day editing a couple more weddings and had another booking for next year

But the whole family by this time were really suffering from some horrible cold thing – Lou spent most of the day wrapped up in bed and I’ve been pretty laid up most of the weekend. I even had to renege on a gig on Saturday that I’d been dead excited about for ages. I was gutted. Anyway……

Hopefully by Monday we will all be fighting fit and ready for another excellent week.

Off now to dose up on Lemsip and clear away the mountain of tissues. Eeeww…

Temple Works – The Final Days: Stills

Phil — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:00:06 +0000

Back at the end of August we got involved with Temple Works when they put out a call for local artists and creatives to come and record the building before it started its transition into a centre for the arts in 2010/2011. So Rob, Barns and myself as 3B Media spent the day capturing the detail and feel of the place using stills and video. Barns spent most of the day capturing video on his Canon 5D mkII. This is a remarkable camera that allows capture in High Def. Rob & I went looking for the little details that people might miss while walking around the site. From this we have put together a video which you can see below which we think has captured the mood of Temple Works just before it makes its transition into a new life.

The video and a body of images take from this day and the model shoot we did the following have been submitted for consideration for an exhibition that will take place at Temple Works from the 9th to 16th October as part of Light Night in Leeds. I will keep you up to date if we have been successful.

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Flash Day: The Complete Lowdown

Phil — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:08:24 +0000

OK so here’s a bit more in the way of details, info and extra stuff about our recent flash day. It appears we’re now called 3B Media – that’s B for Barber, Booker and Barnaby as Mr. A was as awkward as usual with his stoopid A surname. Luckily he has a backup B first name so we let him off. Good job too, otherwise we could have been BAB. Not good.

Anyhoo, first up is a promo vid put together by Rob. The footage, as mentioned before, was all shot by Cris, who has put together his own little edit of the day’s goings-on. It is more docu style and you can watch it at the end of this post.

I love what Rob’s done in his edit. I follow a few ace photographers in the States like David Jay – Becker – Gene Higa , and love the promo vids people like Chase Jarvis produce. He’s one of the guys over there whose work I love and who I aspire to be a bit more like in my outlook to photography and business (and life I s’pose). Anyway, I think what Rob’s come up with stands up pretty well next to those guys. I love the fast edit and the great angles Cris has managed to get (and I look fairly cool too which is a first). In any case it’s a tad more professional then my first video blog which I posted a few weeks ago and which I hope not too many of you have seen (please don’t scroll down to check it out! )

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Here are a few more images from the shoot. I’m not going to go into massive details about the setups for each shot, but if you’re into apertures and shutter speeds and want to know the nitty gritty, drop us a line and I’m happy to talk technical (just don’t want to come across as a boring old fart on here) Suffice to say my lovely big studio lights were dusted off and had their first outing for ages. Along with some off camera flash a bunch of pocket wizards and a ring flash we had a pretty good selection of lights and were able to get some really creative set ups going on.

So first set of images are of Vivienne. At the start of the day we asked what each of the models would like from the day and Viv came back and said ‘More bright and Vibrant image.’ Well we managed that if you take a look below

My first shots of the day were of Stef. We headed down the garage where the mechanics were still working. Although I think they got a little discracted when Stef walked in. Suddenly instead of just one mechanic there seemed to be 4 or 5 and all on a tea break!!. Any way inside this garage was this ace old mini with no wheels or doors which was begging to be used. Stef the trooper jumped straight in a we ended up with some fab shots which are below.

Then it was outside in the rain for this sequence of shots

My final part of the day was spent with Clare working back inside the main mill part. She wore these fab red glasses which she said made her feel like Superwoman and felt like she was acting like a different character.

Finally I had just a short time with Matt and my fave picture of him was when I got him to start shouting at the camera. Check it out below. To see a full range of images from the day then click on the SLIDESHOW LINK

Cris’s docu video is next with a bit of interview action going on – a different feel to Robs video but we’re really chuffed with it, so thanks Cris for your ace input on the day.

We are planning to do several more of these shoots over the next few months using different locations for varying styles and looks, and of course I’ll be posting the results here. 3B Media (heeyy…!!) are working on putting some training workshops together for Jan ’10 so keep an eye out for those – if you are interested in coming on a workshop and learning some great techniques, picking our brains and getting some great shots for your portfolio, then drop me an email or leave a comment on here.