Artist: Katey Brooks

Location: Eyebox studio in St Werburghs, Bristol

Event: 3 hour photo studio session

Recently I did a fantastic photo session in the studio with the talented Indie Nominee singer and musician - Katey Brooks. Katey, who’s just back from a tour of Australia, has a new album in the making and she wanted some portraits taken for promotion purposes. I’ve only previously taken some live photos of Katey, so I was really excited to be collaborating on a studio venture.

Katey is a big fan of my signature style of photography with its filmic, grainy and traditional black and white qualities. Her brief was to capture that gritty, old-school style in the studio. Katey wanted darkness, ambiguity and a mysterious feel to the images to reflect elements of her character and style of music. The grittiness of the photographs needed to reflect the themes and texture of her art, and the black and white treatments had to strip the image to an emotional core. And she didn't want a guitar in the pictures, definitely no guitars.

Take a listen to some of Katey’s music on Soundcloud here.

Over the preceding weeks before the shoot, Katey and I shared a pinterest album of images that have inspired her. This is a great idea and one that I thoroughly recommend. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the collection included some classic old photos of Brigitte Bardot, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith and Jeff Buckley and some more contemporary images of Kate Moss.

Katey knew exactly the kind of images she wanted to get down and she knew that my camera could help her capture that look.

Katey was a joy to work with and I wish her every success with her new album and future music career. Feedback from her management team has been very positive and her plans for using the images are underway.

Here is a sample of the work from the day.

If you are interested in a studio photo shoot, please contact me with your requirements. Prices start at £250 and for that you get a 3 hour slot with me in a studio and a set block of post-production time. This will get you a minimum of 20 professional photos which I will deliver as hi-resolution Jpeg images. I can adapt the session to your requirements, so please drop me an email: john@johnnycajon.com

Other bands and musicians have used my photographs as album artwork and promotion, including:

The Montgomerys - Album liner artwork
The Rosellys - USA and UK tour posters
Jim Evans - Album liner artwork
Lewis Creven - Album front cover
John Fairhurst Band - Album booklet and artwork
Paul McClure - UK tour poster and album artwork
Jane Allison - Album front cover

This is not to mention the numerous bands that have used my live photography work for promotion purposes on social media sites.