Nick Pickles is a photographer who came from humble beginnings working in a photo counter but developed a passion for music photography after meeting someone who attended university. He now travels to major music festivals to photograph bands like Tenacious D, Biffy Clyro, and Foo Fighters. While his primary focus is on music photography, he has also taken photos of politicians like David Cameron. Three portraits taken by Nick Pickles are analyzed in the document: one of a member of The Futureheads that uses blur and colors to draw attention to the subject, one of Tenacious D at a festival that uses smoke and color to create a surreal effect, and a rare black and white photo that uses light and shadows to make the subject
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Biography
Nick Pickles, is a photographer-by-night but a politician-by-day
who came from humble beginnings at a photo-counter in Boots
and then he met a guy who went to a university who fueled his
passion for music photography. With this passion he travels to
the countries best music festivals and has taken pictures of the
likes of Tenacious D, Biffy Clyro, Foo Fighters and many more.
Despite this he also has taken photos of David Cameron and
other cabinet ministers; however his main type of photography
is music photography.
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Nick Pickles Portrait 1
This is a photograph taken by Nick
Pickles. This photo of Barry Hyde was
taken for a band called The
Futureheads, a post-punk band from
Sunderland. This photo has the depth of
field right on Barry because the
background is blurry, this also shows the
fact that when he’s playing nothing else
matters to him. In addition the use of
colours is paramount in this photo, the
clashing colours of the purple and gold
and burgundy which stand out and draws
your gaze towards the subject. However it
is an unremarkable photo but it’s its
unremarkability which makes the photo all
the more special.
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Nick Pickles Portrait 2
This photograph is of Tenacious D
at Leeds Festival 2008 by Nick
Pickles. This photo has very good
forward depth of field and has
very vibrant colours and also has
the predominant colour of blue.
This colour represents the
cool, calmness of this band unlike
the others at the festival. This
photo also catches the light that
shows the smoke used to catch
the blue colour to make it seem
spacey and seems surreal. In
addition the facial expressions on
their faces show that it as taken
on a very fast shutter speed to
catch the moment in its entirety.
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Nick Pickles Portrait 3
This photo by Nick Pickles is a rare one. It’s rare
because he never really has any of his pictures
in black and white but when he does he uses it
very well. In this photo he has a sort of spotlight
on the subject but not bright enough to show all
her features in addition the camera isn’t close
enough and wasn’t zoomed in to show her
feature also the light reflects on her hair and the
top of her coat however you get dark shadows in
the room in general and some of her face and
clothing is in the shadows. This portrays that the
room is trying to take her over but the light that
is trained on her is struggling to keep her above
the rest of the background. In addition the use of
leading lines by the join of the wall to the ceiling.
Moreover in this photo the foreground is
predominantly in the dark so all of your attention
goes to the objects on the walls the row of lights
on the ceiling and the woman in the middle.
