I know it’s not this years photos but a couple of years ago I was lucky enough to photograph the London New Years Eve fireworks from the press area and got these photos – seems like a good time to bring them out again!

BRMB Live 2011, 26th November 2011 at the LG Arena Birmingham – Featuring Pixie Lott, Emeli Sande, Tinchy Stryder, Matt Cardle, Cher Lloyd, James Morrison, The Wanted and JLS

Tinie Tempah performing at the Ultrasound Music Festival 2011, Tamworth, England. Shot for Wenn.

On my last night in Sydney during my holiday to Australia in 2011 I decided to go up the Sydney Tower to see the Sydney skyline at night.

It was a fantastic view – however, after paying to go up the Sydney Tower, the next day a tour-guide told me a handy tip – there’s no point paying to go up the Sydney Tower. Instead, just put on a nice shirt, take a trip up to the revolving restaurant in the Sydney Tower (one floor below the observation platform), and buy one drink – then stay by the window and let the Sydney skyline revolve around you!

However, whichever way you end up doing it, it’s definitely worth a visit.

By the way, for anyone going up at night and planning to take photographs – the observation deck was designed extremely badly for taking photographs at night. The whole deck was surrounded by glass, and bright lights lit up the gift-shop entrance and information signs opposite the glass, meaning lots of reflections! I ended up having to balance my camera on some metal binoculars they had at various points around the platform, push the camera as close to the glass as I could, then get an umbrella and literally surround the camera with it to block out all the light from behind! I got some strange looks, and lots of curious people coming over asking to see the photos! If you’re going up at night to take photographs, it’s worth taking a sweater put over the camera and block out the light from behind.

Rihanna performing on the Virgin Media Main Stage at V Festival 2011, Hylands Park, Chelmsford.

I was in a pit of 52 photographers, and I’ve never seen anything like the chaos that erupted as we were let in the pit and each photographer ran to get their spot, around half of them armed with a step ladder.

Normally gig photographers are a much more relaxed and friendly group of people than some other photography types, but certain people were getting pretty stressed in this case. The fans on the barrier at the front of the crowd were also getting crushed due to people pushing forward in the anticipation, and I started to think that we were all going to get thrown out by security as the crowd got worse and some of the photographers weren’t making things any better.

However, as always with gig photography, everything sorted itself out as soon as the show started. I had a fantastic time and came out with some photos that I hope people like.

I did this photoshoot at a location in Birmingham about 2 months ago – since then I’ve been to Australia and about 5 different music festivals, all of which meant I unfortunately didn’t have time to put these photos up until now!

The model, Olivia, was fantastic. Was also nice to do the shoot as the sun was going down, resulting in some pretty interesting light.

I visited there as part of my trip to Australia in June 2011. I was staying in Perth and had a hire car so drove a few hundred kilometres along the Indian Ocean Drive to visit them.

The Pinnacles are made up of thousands of limestone pillars, and it was a pretty impressive sight. It was hard to capture on camera as despite being in the middle of the Australian winter, it was still the middle of a desert and the sunlight was pretty harsh!

The drive to and from Perth to the Pinnacles along the Indian Ocean Drive was also amazing, and definitely something I’d recommend people do. The road was completely deserted and the scenery was beautiful. I’ve made a separate post about the Indian Ocean Drive here:

Indian Ocean Drive

There’s more information about The Pinnacles here:

http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/component/option,com_hotproperty/task,view/id,61/Itemid,755

The road was only opened in September 2010, and was pretty deserted for most of my drive. Around an hour or so before reaching the Pinnacles, I stopped for a break at Nilgen Lookout Point (the panoramic photo above) which was on the Indian Ocean Drive and gave amazing views over the ocean and back towards land.

If anyone is ever around Perth, I’d definitely recommend making the tip to The Pinnacles, and doing it by hiring a car and driving along the Indian Ocean Drive.

View the other post about The Pinnacles here:

The Pinnacles