Peter B does London

I don't want to brag -but i'm gonna. I have some of the most extraordinary friends: philosophers, gardeners, world champions, DJ's, builders, bee keepers and rock stars. One such rock star, Swedish tallest a cappella singer Peter B, came to visit, and we had the kind of debauched week you'd expect from such a tour, which was entirely Freudian



He was here to enjoy the season, but screw springtime



Rock stars like him like getting high



and doing lines





lots of lines, to the point of exhaustion

and some problems unmentionable, resulting in a quick dash to the clinic

so we ended the trip resting in the country with some groupies



and soaking in some culture from lesser rock gods



Next time i'm going on tour with him i'm packing an underwear-proof umbrella.

back in 60 seconds version 2

Here's a different edit of a video i posted earlier . This was my initial edit, and i quite liked it, but we were never sure about which music should go with the video. Then William thought of 'Flight of the Bumblebee' and that was so refreshing and non-traditional, that we went with that song. But last week i was going over some old stuff and came across this version, and figured it was fun enough to publish.

standing in mid air

It's a bit of a theme this week how some work seems to wait for context before it can be published. In this case, i have a collection of portraits of women underwater, and because i love the contrast of normal clothes out of the ordinary environment, i always like to photograph people with their regular clothes on, instead of wetsuits. Wetsuits do look good underwater, but they also make everyone look the same. Plus it is a challenge for me as an underwater photographer to get the skin tone right; when you get it right, nothing looks better than that refracted light on skin. So now i'm building up this collection but other than the theme of women in regular clothing underwater, i haven't got the final element yet.

That is, until i hear the song 'Mid air' by Paul Buchanan. He used to be the lead singer of a band called the Blue Nile and they had a song 'Let's go out tonight' which was remixed by Craig Armstrong and then used in the series 'Six feet under' etc etc, in any case, when a new album by him is coming i check it out immediately -he's got a great voice. And this song instantly invites me to see women, underwater.

I love editing to music, it gives such rich context and almost obvious structure, and i get slightly obsessive with songs anyway, so i listen to them incessantly, which is what you need to do when editing. The song fit the images, or the other way around, in any case, after a lot of clicking it clicked. Hope you enjoy as much as i did the process of making it with all these fantastic women. For best effect, please watch in HD.

two videos from the Great Northern

Last month i was at the Great Northern comp in Liverpool, as the UW photographer. I also shot two videos there, of my friends Eric van Riet Paap (Mr Van) and Mateusz Malina (Mr Mat Malina Mr Mad Mat Malina). Both videos ended up being edited by someone else, in Mr Van's case by Mr Van, and in Mat's case by the organizer of the event, and i like both videos a lot. What i like most about these collaborations is that they end up in a completely different way than what i would have done, and i like this difference.

Here is Mr Van's dynamic -i was very happy to see him turn at 150 and keep going:



And here's Mat's effort -he has the record for longest dive recorded, i think it was a 4:45 to 100 something in Free Immersion, so i knew he was going to take his time, and lord in speedo's did he ever:



And here are my photo's: