Dark Daze photography blog

Now Adam, the non-stop, constant working, but bad-music-playing Studio Manager of Garage Studios sent me an email late last night. The same last night that should have seen me at a gig watching Fucked Up slay the crowd……..when instead I ended up teaching… Anyways my point was an email arrived in all its silent but nerve shredding, hope dashin glory- a harbringer of torment set to wreck my world and wrack my brain. Subject title “Light Works”, opened it up and just one small innocent looking link sat in the text. I figured i knew where this was going, someone had blogged the LightWorks post and shoot thats in the previous blog- The Neon Hot Stepper flicks…. But even Jesus Christ if he had ever walked the earth would have been surprised by this one- the link took me to a mind blowing editorial that not only took the Neon Hot Stepper as its starting point but then ripped the lid of the sucker… and the absolute kick in the nuts about it is that according to the shoot date it was done last year!!! So not only did the punks steal the idea and title but they “Deloreaned it” back to last year and posted it in the past people…..the past!!!!

Pffff thats enough of the hand wringing, I knew the idea wasnt exactly ground breaking and we have used some similar techniques in the past , and hey I get that photography is all about light trails and all that but just follow this link and see how damn good they did this shoot. Its just crazy good- I cant even feel slightly annoyed cos its so great an editorial- apart from the male model- who aint really doing it…. but the colours, the gelled lights, the oh-so-fuckin-perfect trails, I’d puke if i wasnt so excited by it.
incredible light works shoot not by us…

if you missed the link (just above) check this picture, its amazing, and whats even more amazing is that I didnt take it….

Now obviously none of us here at the Garage had seen this, I have spent enough time with the Spraycan Arters to realise that a straight up bite aint the steez to flex- this shocked me to see it- but in a good way. Well done kids that worked on this- and we are just gonna go off and sit back at the drawing board with a big bottle of Absinthe and see if we can conjure up some more voodoo for a fresh new idea- that hasnt already been done. Damn this thinking game is hard….

Thats all- oh and my man Jiroe is having a party tonight- should be live-o just the thing to drag me out the funk.

Final final thing i joined Twitter- DD Twitteurghhh cos i got forced into it by Adam. Go follow me and be amused by the lack of anything happening and the occasional objectionable comment.

DD.

now i am not normally one to send you to an institution like The Sun, theres enough right wing racism in this country without me adding to it- but you gotta go see this Solveig I had the pleasure of shooting solveig for Graphotism way back- its gotta be maybe 2 years now- and she was very cool to work with. Whilst a lot of young people that age move onto other things Solveig had kept up with the painting and gone from strength to strength. Theres even a video of her in action. Go see the new school…….

i forgot to add this link more pics

so you may be thinking its been all quiet on the DD front at the minute- but thats about as far from the truth as could be possible- but for reasons of a top secret fashion nature i really cant show you what we have all been doing.

We shot the new collection for Ophelia Fancy- the lovely ladies have gone all out on the new work and its looking fresh. The shoot involved some a very elegant lady and a very small dog- its as dope as the OF shoots always have been- well since I took over shooting them anyway….. but I cant show you the images until July’ish when the collection is released. I have a killer black and white polaroid- but they wont even let me show that- as they are always getting their designs ripped so you’ll just have to lean back and imagine it…..

Also very excited about this one but we shot the whole new campaign for Trainer Spotter. Once again its all under wraps right now, and will stay this way until July but its hella good- a bit of a new direction for all concerned- and involved a 14 person crew heading off to a very secret location early one morning this weekend. And check this- its all shot on film, not a megapixel in sight- now thats what i like to see a client that has complete faith in what you are doing and lets you run with what you can do best. So LouO may be turning the world on its head with his embracing of digital and we are heading back to the good ol days of portra NC- its just astounding what that film does with skin tones and a good make-up artist.

Then the next day i had to do a one-day portrait lighting session for a Digital Photography magazine- the kinda ish where they send a reader down and we spend a few hours trying to get some studio knowledge across. The guy they sent me had never shot any studio before, in fact hadnt really ever used flash, except for the in built camera flash, however he was a real talented landscape photographer and had great understanding of light- which he managed to apply perfectly in the studio. He got some really great shots- and seemed to enjoy it, even though I tried to cram a 2 day course into 4 hours.

and last night we shot a new Source Cover……and i am working on my new exhibition. So thats why i dont get much time to type, but hopefully smash a few images up here soon.

dd.

I am running a Creative Photography/Visual Theory course at Garage Studios from next Thursday, 5th Feb it costs £240 for 8 weeks. The course will run thurs nights 7.30-9.30pm in our central Brighton Studio. I have some spaces left and if you want to reserve one please email

Mail Me about this course! info@garage-studios.co.uk

The course is aimed at those who have an interest, but not a good base knowledge of their camera, but also those who know their stuff, but have run out of inspiration……

The course will look at Camera Use, from basic to advanced.
Areas will include,
Composition and Subject.
Aperture control.
Shutter Speed.
Depth of Field.
Picking the right lens.
Types of Camera to use. (the benefits and drawbacks of different formats).
Metering.
Film and Digital iso.
Colour Theory.
Artificial Light vs Daylight.
Individual Projects.
Archiving.
Retouching.
Printing. And more….

At the same time we will focus on some great Photographers, split into easy to to understand sections, such as
Richard Avedon, Gavin Watson, Stephen Shore, Sally Mann, Richard Kern, Diane Arbus, Gary Winogrand, David Bailey, Dorothy Lange, William Egglestone, David LaChappelle, Robert Frank.

This is not an exhaustive list , and is fairly heavily planted in American photography, with a brief look at film, but as I am a photographer not a lecturer I find it easier to talk via work I am interested in or has been a big influence. This course will be also led by feedback from students- if you have an area of interest we will try to cover it.

We will also be looking at the above and how it can help you understand your own photography, its only an 8 week course, but should leave you knowledgeable about your camera but also full of projects and ideas for shoots, from Street to Studio. So if you are interested please just drop us a mail at

Mail Me about this course!

Thanks DD.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkdaze/

so someone complained to flickr about my latest upload, the picture of emma in red shoes and pasties on a green background. Apparently its not safe for work, so some conscientious person at flickr branded my whole acccount ‘moderate’ which means that you cant find me on searches, or unless you have safesearch switched off. This is a real shame, and messes up my website a fair bit, (as it runs directly from flickr api) as now i have to set it that all images even Private on Moderate ones appear on the site. So now my website may not be ’safe for work’ as I have no way of seperating the work. So if before you wanted to see a nude, (i only have about 4 on the whole flickr photostream), you would have to go to the flickr page, not the website to view this. This is tricky, a lot of students of all ages view my site, I know this by the fact that a fair chunk of them contact me with questions, or tell me that they are writing essays on some of my images etc. Now though these more risque images will be on this site, and therefore on your screen at work, college, uni or school, and there aint nothing I can do about this right now. Flickr wont reply to my mails yet- and they gave me no warning at all that they were considering changing my account- just an email this morning saying it was changed to moderate, and then a curtly added final line that they will delete my account if anyone else complains.

Now please bear in mind this was one of the images that they comlained about

I have marked images as moderate in the past, as I didnt want to offend, but more importantly wanted to keep my website worksafe and now they do this, which is a real shame. I love flickr, its ace, but they can be damn heavy handed in trying to appease the masses, when a huge chunk of the site is now being used for real hardcore porn. Its a shame that its a community that cant police itself, but I guess now its just a bit too big…. Hopefully we can resolve this soon, and they will deem my work safe again and the account will revert. In the meantime the website here may look a bit shaky. Easy now, DD.

Those good people at 50 rooms have pimped some of my work on their great site devoted to Polaroids. Now be sure before you go there to realise that this isnt a safe for work site and dont blame me if you get busted by the boss, your mum, teacher, girlfriend, boyfriend or even a disapproving look from the cat. But go check them out anyway Hi I am a link to some hot shots- that I will view at my own personal discretion..

I have some more Polaroid work planned soon- hopefully it will land on their good blog again in the future.

Oh polaroid why did you have to die so young……

Sam is a photographer who makes me jealous of some of the stuff he shoots, he is dead good, has a killer eye for style, shoots ace ’straight-ups’ for his fashion/street blog, and is an all round nice guy, his only flaw is that he’s too cool to hang out with me and the Garage Studios crew, we just dont dress right or summit….

anyways he needs your votes in a competition- now I aint forcing you but read the text, follow the link and if you like the work please vote for him…. (I dont get anything apart from the warm, smug glow of self satisfaction….) This is swiped from his email,

I have been shortlisted into the final of a street style competition and i need to get as many votes as possible,
there are three ways of voting and it would be magical if you could do each one as all the votes will be added together…

the picture is of the hot gothic/punk girl sat down on a step outside a carpet shop so make sure you vote for the right picture!

the first way is to click on this link – ASOS and click ‘vote for this one’ just underneath the picture

the second way is to type ‘winner’ under the picture as a comment on facebook which you can find here Faceache

you will have to become a member of the asos group first but it only takes a few clicks and none of the voting malarky requires you to sign up for anything so you wont recieve any spam. just clicks and you will be doing me a massive favour!

Thanks to everyone that got back to me when I asked for advice on the book front… I have decided that I need to present some things in more of a chronological order- so will eventually produce a sort of “best of…so far” kinda book, but by the time i get the edit down it will have a snazzy title that will make you snap your fingers with glee and start up the ol ragtime jazz in the brain….

But right now I am going out of my mind having not shot anything really since way back in dec of last year- its driving me crazy, my spine is itching and my fingers are twitching… I kinda thought I was gonna shoot tonight but the lady had to bounce elsewhere, so god knows when it will be. Anyways I am finally wrapping up the Polaroid shoots, (unless a miracle happens) so if you want to be one of the last DarkDaze Polaroid girls ever, then get in touch immediately. We can shoot, I can be happy and you can be in the very very limited set of prints that comes out when its all done and over, and polaroid is no more (apart for the ebay pirates…) Deal…. I hope so…..

a load of stuff happened to me this year, some good, some even better…..

main props to my homies at www.garage-studios.co.uk come book us, do a course with us, hire our studio etc

theres loads to review which i will do soon, when i have time, but thanks to everyone that stopped by this year, over 1 million flickr hits, thats fresh….

plus big up to some continuously inspirational or just plain up good people, the ophelia fancy girls, Gary, Alex young, Lou O, and of course my girl sally. (there are more but time will show…)

also my girl has started a tumblr, some of it is funny, some of it is about girl stuff like knitting and shoes and some of it is behind the scenes of our shoots, plus words about what its like to be a DarkDaze model and live with an anit-social obsessive man…. go peep it, even for a short while,

Sally tumblr

have a good last night of 2008, back soon, DD.

I am bumping this little video today, for laughs, you know its like the last week of school feeling at the studio, when you used to bring in games and eat too much sugar…. (’cept I got loads work still to do and need to get them bills paid)…. anyways this video was from Walls and Dolls event in LA, which I had a huge amount of fun at…. You can check the write up and my flicks from it in this Blog and it really is worth a read and a look. Back when I had time to spend on my posts and was shooting for the sheer hell of it, you know before I fell off and got all hooked on the idea of shooting studio stuff…. god damn i wish i could do a trip like that again….

Then come back and watch the video, it gets hella funny around the 2.50 min mark……