A short edit of The Crookes Winter Tour in mainland Europe.

Recently I have re-acquired a digital camera. After leaving my full time job (as a news photographer) in summer 2009 I sold off most of my cameras to fund an entirely different lifestyle when I decided to play in a band full-time. Since then, after years of struggling, the band is beginning to pay a small income and I had the funds to buy a small 4/3rds camera.

Since then I have spend much of my spare time whilst on tour ‘photographing what I know’ as the old school mantra goes. I consider myself lucky that I not only have a subject matter that is completely comfortable with my presence but extensive time to work with the subject. What a lot of people don’t realise is that aside from some of the obvious benefits of playing in a touring band, many of the days of touring are repetitive. Driving, Unloading, Gig, Driving. Roads, cities, hotels, venues all bleed into one. Thus capturing interesting images in such repetitive situations provides the biggest challenge.

These photographs were taken on a 3 day trip to Japan.

I am typing this on a month long tour of Europe where I hope to add further to this body of work.