Pop Cop Photography Competition!

Hey everyone,
I'm back with another one of those short updates before I post any of those exciting photos that I was talking about in my previous entry.
Last year I decided to enter Pop Cop's annual music photography competition, now I'm not really one for putting my photos into competitions and that's mostly because I don't get the time to, however since I had a good spare bit of time at the end of last year I thought it would be fun to enter a couple of my photos. Luckily enough my photograph of Purson managed to get into their honourable mentions section which is pretty awesome considering last year I only took photos of less than a handful of gigs and didn't have many shots to choose from to enter!
Below is what my photo looks like featured on their website, if you want to check out the other lucky entries for the competition, go to Pop Cop's website at www.thepopcop.co.uk

I can't wait to get back into photographing more gigs again but seeing as it's taking some time to settle into my new home, it may take a while but I'll be back soon enough!
Nicola. x

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!
I know it may seem irrelevant to say so as it's already near the end of January but I've just recently got settled into my new place after moving at Christmas, and I must admit that it was pretty stressful at the time but at least I'm finally ready to get started with everything again.
Since I've entered the world of Instagram and have seen what everyone else has been getting upto it's made me very inspired and encouraged to get back into photography, lots of ideas have been floating around my head for a while so it's time to finally put them into action. Not before long I was dusting the cobwebs off my blessed camera and was strolling around my local area for inspiration, and funnily enough I realised I'd never taken photos of this cute little 16th century castle that I happen to bypass most days of the week.

Of course I've still been inspired by mid 90's and early 00's films, one of the latest on my list has been The Little Vampire ever since I watched it for the first time over the holidays, it's such an incredibly adorable film! Anyway, you're probably wondering what the significance is with my photos but the movie was predominately filmed in Scotland and the castle that I photographed reminded me of many scenes in the movie, although I'm sure there are no vampires living in this one!
The photo above was actually a quick snap that I caught when I was about to walk away, I just loved the look of the black iron gates infront of the small wooden door, I don't know what it is but every time I take a photo of gates, they always seem to add a certain creepy value to the building, although it maybe doesn't help that I turned this shot black and white, haha!

Anyway, I'm going to leave it at that for the time being, but I'll let you all know that I recently went on another jaunt and photographed the beautiful Broughty Ferry seaside in the gorgeous low winter sunshine. It was absolutely stunning and peaceful, almost like a holiday away from home! I'll try and get those photos edited as quick as possible, they're a bit different from the usual castles and creepy buildings that I tend to take photographs of, haha, so I'm looking forward to getting them online!
Nicola. x

2013 Music Photography Highlights!

Hey everyone,
Well it's that time again folks, the time of reflection upon 2013. It's been another good year for photographing gigs albeit a slightly smaller amount of work than last year due to having a busy personal life but hopefully that will change in the near future.
Let's start off with the first gig I photographed this year, the almighty Kerrang Tour 2013 at the 02 Academy in Glasgow, quite a big one and I was super happy I managed to get on the bill for this. I had the pleasure of photographing Fearless Vampire Killers once again who are always a great act to work with, aswell as Tonight Alive and Chiodos who I hadn't previously seen but I thoroughly enjoyed photographing both bands and although the lighting was a tad red and dark I still managed to get some great shots, my personal favourite being the one of Chiodos at the start of this post.

The next gig was later in April, I photographed the lovely Purson at King Tuts in Glasgow, they are a relatively new group from London and as I've been told the photos do the speaking for themselves with this one, especially the first one below of Rosie, another personal favourite of mine from the year. The band have so much emotion and passion when they perform and it really shows through when photographing them. The lighting for this gig again was mostly dark and red so it was a minor challenge but I'm still glad of the outcome, and the band liked the photos as they posted them on their social sites and my Flickr page somehow managed to achieve near 500 views on each photo in a day, so I was really happy!

In July, I had the opportunity of photographing Heaven's Basement at Ivory Blacks in Glasgow, and I was super excited for this gig as I'd been wanting to photograph the band since earlier in the year. The show was absolutely amazing, infact one of the best I've been to for a long time. Again, the lighting was fairly dark but nothing you wouldn't expect in a smaller venue, aside from that I was really pleased with the shots I managed to achieve. I'm also more than happy that the band's guitarist used one of the photos for his Facebook page, it's always great to see that the musicians themselves appreciate the photos!
These shots were all taken for Is This Music? Magazine accompanied with reviews of the show that I have written so feel free to check those out if you'd like to read more about the gigs.
To conclude my post, here's to another of year of photography ahead and I wish everyone all the best for 2014.
Nicola. x

Instagram.

Hey everyone,
Just another one of those short and sweet updates before I get into my end of the year summary post! Some of you will probably have already noticed that I've finally joined the iPhone pack...who would have thought it?!
Needless to say I've also jumped on the bandwagon and created an Instagram profile, I never realised how addicting it could be and so far I've posted a photo every day, if you want to check out my page the link is http://www.instagram.com/nicolasharkeyphoto and be sure to follow it for more updates.
Scroll left and right on the image below to see a quick view of my latest photos!



Nicola. x

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!
Would you actually believe my blog has finally managed to reach 100 posts...and what a more perfect way to celebrate than on All Hallows' Eve!
Although I haven't had the time to go to any gigs for the past couple of months due to packing/moving, I've been putting my creative efforts elsewhere until I can get back into gigging again. The street photos below are unfortunately not where I live or going to be in the near future, but I've loved the place ever since I was young and it looked so beautiful in the Autumn sunshine when I last ventured past on my travels.
I also love the little semi-detached houses that for some reason remind me of San Francisco, it just looks and feels very American compared to the rest of the houses in the area, my ideal kind of home! Enough about that though and more about the photo below, we had Shaun over for a week in October and I'd seen photos of these tiny pumpkins with fake vampire teeth on the web so I thought it would be a great idea for a bit of Halloween craft. We made a couple of them and I'm happy with how they turned out, an easier take on the alternative pumpkin carving. Although that being said, I did carve a Harry Potter pumpkin afterwards which also turned out well, especially for a first timer!
Anyway, I hope everyone is all enjoying their Halloween, have a spooky one!


Nicola. x

Witches' Brew.

Hello everyone,
Another short and quick update! Even though I'm going to be moving super soon I've decided to put all of my Halloween decorations up for the past few weeks to get the benefit out of it, I've always been more of a Halloween kind of person rather than Christmas so when I celebrate it's done in full circle, haha. Anyway I thought I'd post my newest decor findings as it isn't that easy to find good decorations these days for Halloween, the little green witch below I bought recently from a gift shop in town along with the lavender in my watering can plant pot. The tiny crystal cauldron above was bought some time ago from a fair at my primary school...needless to say it's a much loved item. My most recent purchases are the china pumpkin tealight holder and the Witches Brew Yankee Candle, I believe mine is the old edition as the cover is from last year but I loved the look of the skull design far too much, and it smells absolutely amazing...a mix of spices and patchouli. I've also bought a few more things from Asda, they always come out with good decorations every year, this time I bought two tiny skeletons bride and groom, skeleton bone salad servers and a couple of skeleton candle holders for the living room. I think it's safe to say I'm totally skint but who can resist buying awesome things at Halloween?! haha.

Anyway I'll hopefully be back soon with another update and more photos but until then, ciao.
Nicola. x

Practical Magic.

Hi everyone,
It's finally Autumn, my favourite time of the year and a purrfect reason to start taking some shots in the beautiful Fall sunshine, see what I did there...yeah it was terrible I know! Anyway, whilst it's nearing Halloween, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to post a few photos of this cute little black cat that I had a very short photoshoot session with the other day, talk about not liking the camera. He isn't my cat but one of my neighbours and I'm not all entirely sure what breed he is but I think it may be along the lines of a persian/siberian mix, if anyone knows write in the comment section! He is adorable anyway and I wish I could steal him, but don't worry I won't!

Since my last post on here I've actually been preparing for moving by throwing out some of my old things and I've actually been getting back into a lot of 90's movies and music that I managed to come across in the depths of my house, of course as the title suggests I've been watching one of my favourite films Practical Magic many times over just in time for October 31st. Is anyone else looking forward to pumpkin spice latte's coming back to Starbucks? I'll be first in the line for sure! Along with making some more pumpkin pie again...I'm beginning to think I should move to America at this rate, California maybe?...
I can't wait to start getting back into more photoshoot type set-ups again (with people might I add) as I've been looking into buying a lighting kit for some time now so I think it's finally time to take the plunge and roll with it. First things first however is moving house, so it may be a while before any promotional photos make their way online, hopefully that will all happen soon enough though!

Nicola. x