LAR shoot 'making of' part 2

Part 2: Post Production.

(Warning: if you're not into photoshop, this will probably be quite boring)

For part 1 of this post, detailing my shoot organisation click here


Editing:

So after finishing the shoot, and the small studio session to add the missing member of the band, I was left with a hard drive of images. Once I'd finished organising them into folders representing each of the different setups I'd done, I had to prepare to send them to the client, for them to decide what they liked.

Something I've learnt in the past, is that no matter how 'photography-savvy' someone is, no matter whether you've explained your methods to them previously, and no matter how much they like your previous work, you should always be careful how you send your work out to them to edit.

The least I'll send out is a set of unretouched images that have been colour corrected to make them look similar to how I envision the final pieces will look. More often than not, I'll do this and also send out an image that has been 60% constructed and retouched, in order that they see what these unretouched images can eventually look like.
 
Its natural for people to see a dull raw jpeg and start to worry, especially when there is a lot riding on the shoot. Even if you are later able to say "hey! don't worry, they won't look like this when I've finished" the damage is already done to an extent. People start to worry, and second guess you.

Even though I took this into account on this shoot, when I sent over a folder of the jpegs of to the clients for editing, along with a folder containing the 60% retouched/colour corrected image, with instructions as to what each folder contained, there was still a smidgen of confusion in an email from one member of the team;

"I was looking at the un touched images thinking... oh dear.;

Then I found the two re touched images, and thought... oh yeah! "

Not at all a big deal, but next time I'd probably send two different yousendit links, one marked as 'retouched example file', another marked as 'unretouched files' rather than marking folders up within one single download. Saves confusion, as its human nature to skip past the email text, folder descriptions etc, in order to get to the images, especially if you're busy.

If you look at a big contact sheet of the whole shoot, with some images of the band together, some images of people stood by themselves etc, then the whole thing looks very disjointed, and ramshackle. If I provide a reasonably finished, retouched, colour balanced image to look at as well, it tends to reassure people that things are going to be ok! Its takes a lot more time to do, and they could decide they want to change everything about the image, meaning you have to start again, but its worth it.

Retouching:

Ok so rather than bang on about exactly how to I use every single tool, adjustment layer, mask and filter, I'll instead just show how I set up my file so that I can have complete control of the whole image. Dealing with a big team of people, each with differing opinions, I knew that there might be several changes to each image, as the post-production process moved along. Being able to make big changes quickly, and efficiently is very important.

So, as mentioned in the previous post, I'd shot each setup with the intention of cutting out each of the band members, so that they each sat separately on top of an empty background 'plate'.

1. Cut-outs -

I begin by processing the images featuring the chosen band member versions as tiffs. I draw a nice accurate path round each one, and save the image.

I could just drag a big rectangular marquee over each member, drag them into the background plate, and then path and cut them out, but I don't like doing this.

The reason I don't like it, is if I were to then move the band member to another area of the image, resize him slightly, save, close and go for lunch, then came back and decided I didnt like what I'd done at all, I would either have to resize (and thus degrade slightly) what I'd done, or drag a fresh version of the band member into the image, and line him up perfectly with the old path, which is just time consuming and pointless.

So once I've pathed up a band member, I then put a large marquee around him, duplicate him to another layer, add a layer mask to him using my path, and then drag him onto the background plate. I save the tiff, with a path to a separate folder.

Bear in mind, while I like to make sure the cut-out is nice and accurate, I dont try to perfectly cut out hair using paths, I just draw slightly within the edge of the hair for now. (See below)

2. Layer Layout -

So the next step is to get my Photoshop file organised. This is important not just so you get a good final result, but also for other reasons. You might come back to the image in a years time, and need to change something, so it saves you sitting there wondering what the hells going on.

The other reason is that its more professional, and just good practice. When I was younger, I sent some examples of my work to a pretty big photographer, hoping to get taken on as a retoucher. He liked the images, and got me to send him the layered psd files to look at (I also remember him asking me if I was good at Photoshop, to which I replied 'I'm brilliant'..... the cockiness of youth; I was actually quite rubbish in hindsight, but he seemed to like my confidence.)

The images I'd sent him were my own photographs, shots of urban scenes where I'd comped in big 2001 style black shiny monoliths bursting out of the concrete. I'd done a lot of work on them, drawing hundreds of small bits of rubble, all on separate layers. I didn't ever hear back from him, and when I look back now, I know it was not just because my retouching skills were a little bit rough, but because the file had hundreds upon hundreds of layers, all disorganised and unmarked. They were basically a mess.

Getting into the habit of having a fairly organised file is thus pretty handy.

So below are some images showing my file layout.

3. Basic Layout

Ok so on the bottom layer (marked 1) is my unretouched background layer. This usually doesnt get touched at all, its there as a kind of back up in case i mess anything up on the backround retouch layer group thats above it (2.) This is where I get rid of any cables and coke cans (yes someone did leave one there) left in the background, and basically tidy things up.

(3) is the layer group that contains all of the cut out band members and (4) is a folder containing all my colour adjustments to give the whole thing a moody, atmospheric look.

(5) is just a monitor adjust layer, used to either brighten the image up if the area im retouching is too dark to see properly, or darken it down the area is too bright.

(6) Is a colour fill layer that marks out a frame around the image, covering over the area im not going to use.

4. Band Member Layout

This is what the Band folder looks like when open, just a folder for each band member (1). Pretty simple stuff, although things are a little bit more complicated inside each of these folders -

(2) - Hair folder. Because I only roughly pathed up each band members hair earlier, I have this folder sitting at the top, it contains a blank layer upon which I draw back this missing hair. I just take colour samples from their 'real' hair, and use my brush to draw in the stray hairs to make them look less 'cut out'.

(3) This is the folder in which the image of the band member sits (6). As you can see, it has a layer mask from the path I made earlier, and contains two extra folders which are -

(4) a folder of adjustment layers I feel the image might need, to brighten him up, or even to just tweak the colour of his skin etc.

(5) is a retouch folder, containing a a duplicate of the original image, and this is where I make any cosmetic changes. If someone decides they dont like that I might have removed some creases in a jacket for instance, then I can quickly bring them back from layer (6).

(7) This is the folder where I create the shadows that the band member is casting, more on which below....

5. Shadows:

In the above image, for the purposes of this tutorial, I've put a white colour fill layer (1)under Lauries group. It allows us to see the shadow I've made for him better. Its designed to look good on the wood floor and carpet of the image, so looks a little sharp on the white, but if I needed to, it wouldnt take a hell of a long time to look right here. I only say this to show how flexible this system can be.

Rather than trying to make a shadow from the pixels of the actual image, I've pathed up the original shadow, and used it as a layer mask on a folder (2) containing some adjustment layer curves. These curves darken any pixels below them, much as a real shadow would, and this allows me to move Laurie around in the image with minimal work needed. I added a layer mask to one of the shadow curves (3) because when I moved Laurie into his final position, his shadow was a little dark in some areas. This layer mask allowed me tone it down in places.

6. Background retouch

Below are some images of the various stages of the background retouching.

First of all, the unretouched version -

Firstly I pathed up the areas where light was coming into the room, made this into a mask and reversed it -

Then I used this to darken down the areas in shade, making a more dramatic look -

Then I added some distressed concrete textures on overlay to the wall panels (which I pathed up) to make the room seem more degraded and interesting -

Finally I added some vignetting, darkened down a few areas and added a warm pool of light in the middle of the back wall to highlight Steve and the band better -

Finally

And thats it..... There were obviously a lot of other aspects to making this set of images, but hopefully these blog posts show the basic framework within which I worked. As expected, several layout changes were made on the images, moving various members around, or changing them for different versions. There was even a need to change the images to portrait versions, which was a lot easier having used this system than it would be with a traditional photograph. I just had to extend the images up a fraction, and then squeeze the band members together a bit.

I don't use this approach for all my shoots, but when theres money on the line, and other people have invested a lot of time in the project, then at least this method means its possible to insure you come away with a nice set of images, that fit the brief.

Drawbacks

As mentioned previously, the drawbacks are that on set it isnt a particularly dynamic experience for the people being shot, and it can often seem odd to others that you arent shooting the entire band together as one.

The chemistry you get when a group of people are stood together is also missing slightly, but what you get in return is an image at the end where everyone looks their best. Its a trade off one way or the other. However, each time I employ these techniques, I learn little tricks to make everything in the final image look more natural and less regimented.

Right, I hope that wasnt too dull and long for you!

For part 1 of this post, detailing my shoot organisation click here

LAR shoot 'making of'. (warning: major geek out blog post)

I recently put the finishing touches on the Love Amongst Ruin shoot, and as it was one of the more complicated (non-personal work) shoots I've done I thought I'd do a post about how I put it together. Whilst I really like reading all the tech stuff that photographers write about exactly which lights they used and which particular photoshop techniques they like the best, I think I'm in a minority, and that kind of stuff is done to death elsewhere.

Instead I thought I'd just write about the way I organise a shoot like this one, and to show the method behind my way of working. I made decisions before the shoot, that whilst not strictly orthodox, or romantic, meant that I avoided major problems later on and hopefully they might be helpful to someone doing a google search for this kind of geeky thing! I'm hoping this post will not be a level 10 geek fest, but more of a helpful Level 4 nerd out.

Part 1: The Shoot

The brief for this shoot was to get three images of the band, for their publicity team to send out to the press. The shoot was to take place at a huge mansion-like building on Portland Place in central London, where the production team Redbanana would be shooting the music video for the bands first single 'So Sad' throughout the whole day. I'd have two or three windows within the music video schedule to shoot the band while they weren't performing.

From the meetings I'd had with the band and their management team, I had a clear idea of the kind of look they wanted for the final shots. They were after a moody, cinematic style, and for the location to look distressed and degraded. They also needed the images to be punchy, and to have enough colour to appeal to the sub editors at the magazines and websites they were sending them to (they don't like black and white images apparently.)

Taking all these factors into account, I knew it wouldn't be feasible to turn up with my lights, and move around the location with the band, experimenting with different setups, or trying to extract something spontaneous and wild. No matter how nice a person is, if they've been working hard, in a high pressure environment, interspersed with periods of standing around waiting, then chances are its going to be difficult to get them to provide you with multiple, super photogenic, off the cuff moments where every member of the band looks their best.

Because of this I made sure to organise time in each of the areas I liked within the location, so I didn't clash with the video shoot. I'd have time to compose a shot in that location, getting my lighting about right, ready for the band to arrive.

I also made the decision that, rather than trying to get the 'perfect shot', I'd actually shoot in a way that I could later piece the image together in post-production, selecting the best version of each element. As I mentioned earlier, this isn't particularly romantic, and I read interviews all the time where photographers claim they shoot 'to get it all 'in-camera''. On a tight time schedule, with five or six people to shoot, and multiple lights, I doubt this is the case, and they most likely reign things in a lot, and spend a lot of money on retouching. An army of assistants might help, but unfortunately I don't have access to this yet.

This wasn't a time to be experimenting, or doing things to boost my inner photographer ego (its big enough already), and the band and their team were spending a lot of money on the location and equipment etc, so I wasn't going to risk messing up.

Due to my background in retouching, I've seen a lot of good photographers spend a lot of money on getting a badly organised shoot corrected and saved. So with the camera locked off, I made sure I had not only a usable shot of the whole band together, but also shots of each of them alone, from the same angle, in similar, and different poses, to give me options later. Sometimes you can be sure someone looks really good in a particular shot, but then they (or someone else in the team) will turn out to hate the way they look. Such is life!

(above) My 'clean' background plate.

I can't say I managed to extract a plethora of different looks (tight time constraints and malfunctioning flash syncs meant I couldn't quite run the gamut of emotions in each of the band) but I think by the end of post production everyone was reasonably happy with the way they looked in the final shots.

The above are two small sections of images I shot to make sure I had some options of different poses for the final image (I actually used these particular ones.) They also show another benefit of shooting in this manner: It was clear that Donneye was getting lost in the shadow of Steve Hove, so rather than wasting time on-set moving the lighting round, I could just ask Steve to move out of the frame for a couple of shots, in order to get a well lit version of Donneye.

My approach turned out to be especially useful when I found out shortly before the shoot that a member of the band wasn't going to be able to make it because his flight was cancelled due to the Icelandic volcano. What could have been a really big spanner in the works turned out to not be much of a big deal.

I just had to make a note of my camera height/angle, leave a little space in the image to fit someone else in later, make notes on the locations and power of my lighting, and take all the correct lens length/aperture/shutter speed info from the cameras raw files after the shoot. A bit geeky and bureaucratic, but necessary.

A few weeks after the shoot had wrapped, the missing band member came to the studio, I shot him on a white background with the right settings etc, all ready to comp him into the other images.

Next up, I'll try to show how I organise and put together my Photoshop files to make my images as flexible as possible, ready for any potential changes the client might make. This is the really sexy, glamorous part..... if you find Layer groups, adjustment layers, and background plates sexy and glamorous.

For part  2 of this blog post click here

Total Guitar Magazine/Sweet Sweet Lies

Just got a nice suprise, Sweet Sweet Lies have been interviewed in Total Guitar Magazine, featuring one of the images I shot of them.

Love Amongst Ruin interview

The first of my Love Amongst Ruin press shots has been released, so I'm able to put it up on my site!

Heres the first place its been used -


http://community.livejournal.com/loveamongstruin/20898.html

Bye, Proxy snippet

A tiny clip from a film I'm making with Mr Simon Ward...




Untitled from James Midwinter on Vimeo.

Love Amongst Ruin behind the scenes pix

Mark Jeremy shot these rather nice behind the scenes images of me shooting the band Love Amongst Ruin.

While my hair does resemble a kind of nightmarish love match between your average Hackney ponce and a Tobacco-chewing, Deliverence Hillbilly, it makes taking photos a lot easier. (Apologies if this blog is swiftly becoming just a series of hair updates)

The Realities of Surfing...

I went surfing for the second time this weekend. I didn't manage to get upright for any considerable length of time, but really enjoyed it.

The only downside (other than the waves hammering my bollocks into what felt like an escalope) was my hair. As this was my first time surfing with long hair, I went in expecting to come out looking like some kind of aquatic version of Nuno Gomes (look him up.)

Instead I came out with what felt like several waxy tendrils sticking to my head, a sort of mass of unmanageable seaweed. As you can see from this picture I was also left pretty red and battered on my front from jumping on the board. Its certainly not as glamorous as the movies.

Location scouting

Finland Day One

I recently got back from Finland, and had an amazing time, so thought I'd try to write a little diary of what I got up to, mainly because I havent done much travelling (if this fits under the category of 'travelling'?) and want to make sure I have as much written down as possible to look back on. Its probably not particularly exciting or interesting to anyone but me. The only possible benefit it would give any reader is that they wont have to actually talk to me about my trip, and hear me drone on about how "amazing the people were" or how "its changed me man, it really has...." like all people who've ever been on a gap year always do over, and over again.

Day One

So this was my first time flying by myself, so it felt a little weird. Nicole suggested I just treat it like a train journey, and she was right, although it was considerably shorter and less irritating than getting the train to Weymouth. Without someone with me to share the excitement of the trip and turn it into a big 'occasion', the whole thing passed along like a journey to the office. Its not like I havent taken many flights in my life, but I've never done enough to get to the stage where I don't feel all Final Destination/Die Hard 2/United 93, and think about what would happen if the plane crashed or exploded, or both. I didnt really get that feeling on this flight so much, and I put this down to being alone, it was only going to me plunging into the Baltic Sea, and not any of my loved ones. What a ruddy selfless, caring guy I am.

I'd been to Helsinki before, so knew what bus I was going to get into the center of the city to meet Osmo, but had totally forgotten any of the Finnish I had previously learned, so had to use English even for the first, tiny, super simple transaction of buying a bus ticket.

Osmo had a DJ gig, so Sebu, one of his friends I'd met before was going to be picking me up from the bus station. Whilst I waited in the freezing cold, already cursing my decision to choose Converse rather than the hiking boots in my bag, I got asked by at least two people in Finnish if I had a lighter or a cigarette. The idiotic part of my brain that feels I'm above the usual wanky english tourists was swelling at even this tiny victory.

Osmo's friend Sebu turned up quickly and took me over to the bar/club Osmo was DJ-ing at. Sebu's a lovely bloke, who speaks perfect english with an American accent, picked up from learning at an International School. The first time I met him a couple of years ago I actually thought he was an American. The bar actually looked more like a restaurant, and like a lot of Helsinki, was very spacious and relaxed in comparison with London.

It was really good seeing Osmo again, I think the shared bond of having worked at the Hellhole (tm) that is a certain well known portrait studio together means that we greet each other like survivors of a dark, terrible, slightly nerdy war.

Osmo was DJing as his ironic alter ego Tony Almond, something he created because he doesnt take Djing too seriously, so I wasnt partucuarly suprised to see he had grown a properly thick moustache. Later it turned out that he had actually grown to like this facial accessory, but luckily it suited him.

DJ Tony Almond on the decks (laptop)

For some reason, a big group game of table tennis was going on just in front of the DJ decks. We all joined in from time to time, the only girl to play actually turned out to be the Finnish Table Tennis champion, I think the bar was probably a good place for her to meet men, since she was centre of attention, and clearly the alpha female of the room. I can officially say I have returned service against the Finnish Table Tennis Champion.

Ping Pong! Thats the Finnish Table Tennis Champion in the middle at the back of the table.

After leaving the bar, I fell over in the snow in front of everyone for the first, but certainly not last time on my trip, before going back home to sleep.

Finland Day Two

On day two Osmo and I were going to drive up to Kuopio on a mini road trip, to take photos, and to eventually stop at his Grans for the evening.

You see a lot of coniferous trees, beautiful wooden buildings and frozen lakes when driving through Finland, but the thing you see the most on your travels is the supermarket/service station ABC. The huge white thumbs up sign seemed to fly by every 5 or 6 minutes, constantly beckoning us to join it, and experience just how perfectly each and every branch seems to look the same. Whilst most arty, guardian reading Brits dont tend to hate tescos, or asda, saving their ire for McDonalds or Starbucks instead, on a previous trip to Finland I had realised Osmo really disliked ABC. At the time I had countered this by returning the ABC signs thumbs up, and so continued this much to the quiet chagrin of my Finnish pilot.

ABC!

Prior to my trip Osmo had told me that his Gran was very nice, but she doesn't trust english people". While this did perturb me slightly, I put this down as being better than if the words 'trust' and 'english' were replaced with 'like' and 'foreign'. I made sure that we stopped off at a florists before we got there, to buy some Tulips. Sebu said this would charm any senior Finn, and assuage her mistrust.

We met Osmos Gran,  Kaija (I couldn't believe this lovely woman could possibly hold a deep dislike for the English) and she made us dinner. She'd bought Kalakukko which is basically a loaf of bread with perch wrapped in bacon baked inside. Whilst it sounds weird, its actually really nice, especially with butter. According to the BBC Kuopio is home to the best Kalakukko bakery. More on this later.

The following day was Minna Canth day, a celebration of the Kuopio born, top womens rights activist and author. The only reason I know this was because Osmo found much hilarity in talking at length with his Gran about Minna Canth, due to the unfortunate pronunciation of said feminists surname (its pronounced in the same way Danny Dyer might pronounce an extremely rude swear word beginning with 'C').

To me, Kuopio was a really nice, medium sized town, covered in snow, with the blocks of flats made more picturesque by the alpine trees growing amongst them. To Osmo, I think Kuopio is probably as boring as Swindon would be to me. Still, we went out in the evening and took some photos, some of which you can see in the series Cold World on my site.

Finland Day Three

Whenever you watch a scene in a film where two people don't speak the same language, things usually start off in a slightly confused manner, but quickly the two protagonists find some way to succinctly communicate, usually involving drawing in the sand with a stick. They soon converse effortlessly and are eventually able to fashion a base camp, and escape the smoke monster (maybe that's just Lost.) The floor of Osmo's Gran's flat wasn't covered in sand, but by Christ we tried our hardest to chat when Osmo wasn't around to translate. Osmo's Gran speaks much better English than I speak Finnish, but not quite enough that our conversations didn't break down into a kind of pointing and Finnish noun learning exercise. At one point, while Osmo went for a bath, our inability to communicate frustrated him into shouting translations through the wall. I have a new found respect for anyone trying to get by in a foreign country without knowing the language.

Osmo's Gran's Living room

 Osmo showing a picture of himself when he was in National Service

On Day Three we went into Kuopio town centre, Osmo was still mentioning going to see Minna Canth's statue to celebrate Minna Canth day, but I think this was really just to get the whole surname pronunciation out of his system.

Osmo and his Gran

We went over to the famous Kalakukko bakery, and I tried to take photos of the women making the Kallakukko's. I didn't realise what a traumatic experience this would be, its not often that you find yourself in a foreign country, in a workplace, trying to take photos of women who don't want to be photographed full stop, let alone when they're working, and who don't speak English, with your friend and his gran watching. The more they ignored me, the more uncomfortable I got, and eventually found myself doing a little toe to toe dance of indecision, whilst nervously whispering my inner monologue out loud. Imagine Rain Man with a camera.

 A nice Bakery lady who really didn't want her picture taken.

I'm not sure if the KKK actually had anything to do with this supermarket. I hope not.

The Kuopio flats where Osmo's gran lived

After lunch (Rye bread Reindeer pizza, genuinely one of the most tasty/least authentic pizzas I've ever eaten, delicious), we waved goodbye to Osmo's Gran, and set off back to
Helsinki.

As we drove away, I told Osmo that I couldn't believe his Gran didnt like English people. It turned out that was a joke that he'd just forgotten he'd made. What a wally.

Osmo has always had a slightly obsessive side to his character when it comes to music he likes, and when we used to work together he would often play a song so many times in a row the office resembled a Guantanamo bay torture cell. On this particular journey, the constant repetition of the Mono song 'Ashes in the Snow' became his personal crusade.

We stopped a couple of times to take photos, but throughout the holiday it was difficult to spend any prolonged time outside because it was too bloody cold. Standing still in the snow, adjusting small dials on you camera isn't something that's easy to keep up for long periods of time.

Some images Osmo shot for a mini project. For once I found out what its like to be the one dressing up weirdly for some photos.

When we got back we joined Miika, Osmo's ex-pro footballer/musician mate for a late night Sauna. Miika is probably the most fervent Liverpool fan on the planet, he watches every single match, including youth and reserve team matches, and is very passionate about the whole thing. Don't mention Lucas Leiva to him.

The sauna is over the road from Osmo's flat, and is apparently one of the best ones in Helsinki. We paid, and bought some beers at reception, and then walked through a set of doors. At this point, walking through into a tiled room, with loads of naked blokes lying around, drinking beer, and playing chess I kind of thought 'wow, this Sauna is big, and not even that hot.... I can't believe they always bang on about how hardcore Finnish saunas are...' It turned out that this was actually the changing room.

We changed into our towels. Whilst Osmo and Miika had medium sized blue ones, I was somehow lumbered with a massive, ankle length pink one. The only way to intensify the Mum-sy vibe I was giving off more would have been to wrap another towel round my hair.

We entered the pre-Sauna showering area, past a table where Men could have a massage (front and back!) from an old lady. After showering we walked through a big door into what I naively assumed would be a corridor with a series of doors leading to our own small 'mates only' Sauna room. Instead, I was faced with a huge dark room, with about 30 big blokes slowly sweating on the benches at the end. It was king of like finding your seat in front of the Holte End at Villa Park, in the dark, under the watchful eyes of a load of burly men. Except everyones naked.

I do like the heat of Saunas, but the best bit was getting to go outside in the snow, in nothing but your big Mum-sy towel to have a beer and a cigarette.

Finland Day Four

In the morning we drove around looking for a place in Helsinki where the council piled up a huge mountain of dirty snow cleared from the streets. We ended up visiting a sports centre where I did some pix of Osmo standing in the middle of an Ice Ball rink. We drove to the harbour, and I nipped out of the car into the freezing air long enough to bash off a couple of photos of the frozen sea.

 A shot Osmo took of me looking really suave and debonair......

Osmo was knackered from the day befores mammoth driving session, and since he had organised a party at his apartment in the evening, he went back for some sleep. I walked into Helsinki city centre by myself with the aim of shooting some images of the youth of the city. It all went quite well, although getting peoples attention was harder than I thought it would be. Trying to avoid being a typical Englishman, by making an effort to use Finnish saying 'anteeksi' (excuse me!) mostly got no response, people were really switched off to it. However, the merest whisper in English would get everyone in the vicinities attention. Finnish people seem to really like talking English, I wish I had tried harder in my french lessons as a child.

Most of the kids I spoke to had the usual, slightly aloof exterior of British kids, but as soon as you spoke to them the facade dropped away, and they were really nice. They could have been mercilessly ripping the piss out of the foppish Englishman and I wouldn't have known, but it didn't seem like it.

Some of the kids who didn't quite get into my final Finnish Youth series.

The houseparty later in the evening was fun, I had a lot of an alcopop called Gin, and a cocktail Osmo made using mint and his beloved Soda Stream. We left at half nine to go to a local club where top Finnish synth pop act Villa Nah were playing (their album is brilliant, and got 9/10 in the latest issue of Vice) and unfortunately there was a Shoreditch length queue of people waiting to get in. As we reached the front, the call of 'only 50 more allowed in' went out from the bouncers, creating a big scrum. Separated in the crush from my group, I'm ashamed to say I tried to push to the front pretending to be a BBC reporter in order to get in. This failed dismally, but my reedy, worried voice did at least cause amusement in the queue.

 Some shots Osmo took at the party. On the right is Sebu.

Finland Final Day

After staying out late the previous night, having a snowball fight on the way home from the club, and eating a gargantuan Finnish 'meat pie' (its actually more like a burger in a bun made of savoury doughnut, and very nice too) we spent most of the last morning hung-over in bed.

Our only appointment was in Osmo's local, to watch Liverpool play United with Miika and some of Osmo's other mates. Herring was on the menu, which was good, but United won, so the mood was slightly down. Yes, that is a Liverpool Car Air Freshner around Osmo's neck in the below image...

And that was it! Obviously I had my usual last-minute-'I've forgotten something'-panic, making Osmo take me back up to the flat to check one last time, but other than that the journey went well. I had an amazing time, and while the images I've included here all look quite cold and dull, the country was a really atmospheric, beautiful place to be, and everyone I met (other than those Baker women!) was really warm and friendly to me. I haven't been travelling much, but I know Finland is one of my favourite countries.

A rather blurry pic taken by Osmo of me at the Airport waiting to leave.