Karohemd's World

Managed to get onto an uncrowded train to Kings Cross but when I arrived, it was pouring with rain so I thought I'd have a look around the new St. Pancras station. The fantastic vaulted glass roof makes it really bright, even on a dull day like yesterday so I took some photos. Randomly ran into Tai Chi Roger who was on his way to Paris for his work's Xmas do. Some people...


Off to Old Street and it was raining even harder so I hid in Starbucks until it was time to find the venue. Not easy find due to lack of street signs but cunningly but thankfully there was a note for the workshop on one of the doors. Typically, I was the first attendee to arrive so I intruced myself, chatted a bit and had a look around the venue. A lot darker than anticpated (probably not helped but the dull weather) but the setup was nice (a rather large bathroom with lit mirrors on the long side and a claw-footed bath, a bedroom with a large bed and lots of colourful cushions and shiny sheets, french doors onto a small balcony and lots of various bits of nice old furniture along the hallway. More attendees arrived (incl. davefish with his model demondaz and maleghast) and things slowly got started while the three models scottchurch had hired got made up and styled. The main theme of the workshop was to make the most of any given situation without adding anything to it (artificial lighting etc.), handy tips on posing to make a model look her best, a fun very quick glamour shot in public (while it was raining), basic studio lighting techniques and other things.
scottchurch was full of useful, constructive criticism. He would look at a photo and point out mistakes and how to improve them. Among them things I never would have seen.
Looking at the photos I took, I still made mistakes but I now know what I need to look out for, especially that I need to be a little more careful with the preview on my camera and make sure things turn out a touch brighter.
Overall, it was not only a lot of fun but I also got a lot out of it, I just need to concentrate and remember the lessons I learned.
( A few behind the scenes shots )

Afterwards I walked back to the tube station with demondaz, he was on his way home and I was off to the Apollo. Got there about a 6:45 and there was already a sizeable queue. They only opened the doors at 7:15 and I was glad I got inside because it started to rain again. I checked my bag and found a spot at the back of the ground floor in front of the light desk. DJ Scratchy played some tunes and then La Phaze, a very fun French punk band came on, a three-piece (guitar, the singer played either bass or synth, drums) with a backing track. They incorporated a lot of other influences like HipHop, Reggae and D&B which worked really well and they had a very contact with the audience.
After them, DJ Scratchy came on again but that was rather boring. Gogol Bordello finally came on at about 9:15 and the tore the house down from the start. So much energy, so much fun, so many cool characters on stage. I think I've seen very few bands who managed to make all of the ground floor dance, jump and just move to the mad gypsy punk rhythms. A lot of fun indeed.
I chickened out a bit early as I wanted to beat the rush onto the cloakroom and got back to KingsX reasonably fast.