All this week, a few of my photographs will be on display in the Print Room Café at UCL. Along with photos from Dan Swerdlow, they represent just a fraction of the activity of UCLU’s Arts Societies over the past twelve months.

The exhibition is part of this week’s Arts Festival, showcasing the work of the arts societies at UCLU. My photos cover last June’s Quad Play, and the Modo fashion show and the UCOpera production of Genoveva from this academic year.

Dan’s done a great job mounting the prints – I’ll get a shot up on the blog when we’re done putting them up.

Even though the UCLU Modo fashion society faced quite a few setbacks this year – their traditional venue within UCL was unavailable except at reading week, when no one would be around, and alternative venues were both ridiculously expensive and available for just one night, rather than their usual two, they pulled ‘The Green Fashion Show’ off spectacularly.

The Russell Hotel was a quite brilliant venue, and (from my point of view) the lighting was much better this year. Well, I say much better – I really mean there was some improvement. There was still a massive dark spot halfway down the runway, which happened to coincide with exactly where the models had been instructed to stop and pose… Luckily, the end of the runway was pretty well lit, and my new Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 wasn’t exactly unhelpful.

Unfortunately the for-one-night-only show this year meant I couldn’t cover both backstage and the runway, although I managed a few shots of models dressing and being made-up before the show started. Nor this year – it being a Sunday, when I was editing a whole bunch of shots from Celebrating Streatham – could I get a timelapse done of the set-up: being in an external venue for just one day meant a 6am start for the crew, and probably a similar finish the next morning!

I’ll get a gallery up when I’m not quite so busy – for now, this shot should suffice to illustrate what in the end was the best Modo show I’ve seen over the past four years.

The start of a new university term isn’t all drinking and vomiting, despite what you may read (or remember from your own days avoiding the library).

UCLU this year saw 11,000 students over two days stream through the main UCL buildings in central London to view 150+ student-led clubs and societies, as well as commerical stalls ranging from Apple (whose stall consisted simply of two staff members and a laptop – literally nothing else) to graduate recruiters.

Getting 11,000 people through is no mean feat, and queues into the fayre at one point stretched out through UCL’s main quad and into Gower Street. Even on the quieter second day, it took me 11 minutes to walk as fast as I could around the fayre, filming for an updated freshers video – how long it takes for someone to get through while stopping to sign up and chat to societies, I don’t care to imagine!

The shot above is of Soraia, co-President of UCLU MODO, the fashion society. They are in many ways my favourite society (judging by the amount of material on here coming from their events!), and I may have entered into a foolish wager: if MODO have the highest number of members by February, I’ll be walking down their catwalk in one of Soraia’s dresses…

I’ve not posted anything on here for a while, and for that I apologise – I’ve been ultra busy preparing for my new job, a one-year post as Education Officer at UCL Union. It’s a sabbatical position, meaning I’m technically still a student, but working full time on behalf of my fellow students. This position in particular (there are 5 others) involves mainly representation, making sure the student voice is heard at an institution level – I sit on something like 19 different College committees, in addition to the Union committees I will be sitting on.

That’s by-the-by for here, though, so let’s get back to the photo. It’s of one of my fellow Sabbs, Grace – our Communications and Services Officer for the next 12 months – taken at the annual staff sports day. The outgoing Sabbs were there too (and I’m glad to say we beat them at the tug of war, even despite my absence through injury), but although I took a lot of photos of the sports, this is the one photo from the day that stands out for me. At the risk of incriminating myself, I’d stood over her while she had her eyes closed, and when she opened them she made this face!

Last weekend saw the annual Mandy Walker Games at UCLU, a chance for alumni to come back and challenge current students in a variety of sports across our facilities (our own sports ground at Shenley, Bloomsbury Fitness and a couple of others).

I popped in to the fencing at Bloomsbury Fitness and later the men’s basketball at Somers Town Community Sports Centre – you can see a full range of photos from these events in this gallery. While lighting in the sports hall was pretty atrocious, the good news of the day is that the Union beat the alumni!

Far fewer photos this time – no pressure to capture every single outfit – but some stunning images nonetheless from backstage at Modo‘s Elements fashion show. These were taken on the first night, 27th Feb, when by all accounts the stage lighting was slightly amiss. Luckily words were had and the Saturday night was much better lit for my photos of the catwalk itself.

The image above is of model Grace Barnett being fitted into one of Modo President Katie Jackson’s outfits in the second half of the show and is one of my favourite images from the two days.

Check the gallery below for more fantastic images of the backstage process, from hair and make-up to models coming fresh off the catwalk. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again, when the UCL Fashion Society, or Modo as it’s more commonly known, holds its annual fashion show. They’re they only student fashion society in the country (apart from Central St Martin’s, which has a fashion course – UCL doesn’t!) that holds a show entirely composed of students. All the designers are students. All the models are students. The stage is built and lit by students. It is also, of course, photographed by students. (Albeit one of whom could afford to have two D40s around his neck!)

The theme of this year’s show was ‘Elements’, although some designers took this more seriously than others. One designer even had one of the models sewing his collection together on the first night – but that’s not to say that the whole show didn’t look pretty awesome for a bunch of lazy students being in charge. It was quite telling that the timelapse I shot of the stage being constructed involved a lot of inaction… Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I was at the UCLUCU (that’s University College London Union Christian Union…) Carol Service in St Pancras Church on Euston Road. (Interesting story: on my way there, this happened.) Anyway, it was a lovely little service, though the lighting was a bit difficult. I did, however, manage to get a couple of good shots, so here you are:

Click the picture to follow through to the Fickr set.