Self Portrait, originally uploaded by fingertrouble.

..but like Anthony Gormley says, I’m available (this is a euphemism for cheap whore when it comes to me, I am the cheapest model I know!)

This is an experiment with some new gear – Cactus Wireless triggers, which I really recommend, 10th of the price of Pocket Wizards which will set you back £400 (!!!) – I’d heard that the old ones (v2) were 7/10 reliable, whereas these v4 ones seem 9 or 10/10 reliable – only started to fail when the flashguns were getting tired, so it was the batteries…other gear is a Sekonic L-308s meter (it’s a little on the frisky side, light wise, but good) and I already had the two Vivitar 283’s from when I bought Fred (my Bronica SQ-Ai medium format camera, you can see it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/fingertrouble/3738490281/).

Another tip is to never throw out polystyrene boards – I was bouncing the light from the flashguns with some boards I found on the street, smart! Just to prove you don’t need a fancy studio to do this…

And this is note that I’ve created a new Flickr account for my ’serious’ photography http://www.flickr.com/photos/fingertrouble/ – this is where my portraits and best work will live – I’ll keep the timbearcub account for personal stuff, Second Life and the like…I like to keep things tidy! Note I’ve updated the best-of too http://www.flickr.com/photos/fingertrouble/sets/72157621471979587/

Back to the music!

Oh did I point out how much I hate my face? Ok. Reasoning is, if I can make myself look beautiful or interesting, I’ve probably got a better chance with everyone else

I tend to keep this blog mostly music based, but for those who may not have guessed I’m a photography nut (my DJ name is Instamatic, go figure) – well more than nut, a nut that wants to make photography it’s lifeblood (treeblood? err enough of metaphors Tim – Metaphorical Ed). I’m doing a Portrait Photography course at Central St. Martins and it’s going well – especially loving the Medium Format Bronica – I want one!

Those that follow my Livejournal and my Twitter/Facebook well know these images – but there are people who just come here, so here’s the Flickr set in handy embeddable form or you could just go to the Portrait Course set, or see my all-time-greatest Portrait set where I put my bestest ones.

Celebrity Murder Party XI went really well – you can see the selected highlights (all 240+ of them – I actually shot 633 pictures!) here.

Best thing about it was that traditionally they meet up in a public place, which causes all kinds of interest and amusement – this time it was Marble Arch, the venue was at Bond Street so cue a march up and down Oxford Street, in costume! That was fun, and the reactions were funny:

Miss Honey Bare aka Kelly provided the sugar highs

Bush No. 10 was one of the DJs, he was in a fighting mood:

Happy punters

Stick em up, Batgirl!

OH NOES! Who let Dobbin out?

Ahh Lt. Thaddeus Harris is here to save the day!

Time please! And stop ordering those Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, we’re fresh out of Qualactic lime.

Great news is that CMP has raised over £11,000 for Camp Cando – glad to be a small part of that…it’s going on a hiatus for the rest of 2009, but back bigger and better I hope in 2010. I had a lot of fun and it was a learning experince for me how to ask strangers if I can take a picture – I’m usually a candid sort of guy – but it worked out well!

I’m starting my portraiture studio course at Central St Martins in a few weeks so more photography to come from me – as the description over at the Flickr set suggests, let’s get this party started right! Let’s get this party started quickly…I want to make this my job. And I will.

A little voice inside my head said: “Don’t look back, you can never look back.”. Well actually it was Don Henley but in the case of The Asylum, home of the legendary Bastard, one the world’s first ever mashup nights (well that was King of the Boots, also run by Cartel Mike and Johnny, and might have been there too) in London back in 2001 or 2002 until 2006, it’s very true.

This was the club that was so underground (it wasn’t properly licensed!), grungey and accidentally hip, that not only did Chris Morris base the pisstake of the club in Nathan Barley on it, the owners went onto run the Macbeth in Hoxton, where one of them or their staff got into that whole Blake/Amy debacle.

It seems that The Asylum has been kidnapped by Laura Ashley, and forced to wear floral wallpaper, union jack underpants and Ye Olde tourist-trap trinkets. So sad.

History – right there. Or was…

(not pictured behind them is the Ye Olde fireplace, the patio chav-style windows at the end, the union jack chairs, the WI tea cups used as ice holders and the tablecloths. I shit you not. Go look at the pictures from upto 3 years ago and compare!)

ARP Odyssey, originally uploaded by pul(sew)idth.

Prog rock? More plush-soft more like…

*the writer of this joke has now been suffocated with a cushion.

Eye(let) fank ewe!