Went to Womad at Charlton Park on Saturday. Wide range of music and food, with lots of colourful people. I took quite a few photos but I also shot another music video with Samantha Marais, on the steam powered carousel (part of Carter's Steam fair). I will link that as soon as we've edited it (first I have to finish editing last week's video of Memzee and the Sweetners playing live at the Canteen in Stokes Croft, Bristol).

This photo I felt summed up the spirit of Womad - a mix of ages and cultures and lots of colour. The gentlemen in the background are from the United Arab Emirates and played some great music.

Follow up to "Real Life" from which it follows on directly. Sam and I worked out the basic idea of returning to her house and getting ready for bed but to show ideas of "home", which the song is about, I suggested using shadows of childhood, parents, etc. Sam immediately saw what I had in mind and this is the result.

We filmed her coming home, having a bath and going to bed in about 4 hours one night. The shadows were filmed a few days later, in about 1 hour, at Hamilton House (because the top floor is completely empty and has a long blank wall). I edited the main video then went through adding shadows (using After Effects because I needed to mask out the people casting the shadows, and I had to make some shadows into a 3D layer).

Sam's makeup: Bex Baxter.
Shadows: Sam, Henry Dingle and Sarah Long.
Director, camera, lighting, editing and After Effects: Owen Benson (me).

Gear: Canon 5D Mark II, 24mm f/1.4 L, 50mm f/1.4, 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L, Litepanels MicroPro, Steadicam Merlin, Zacuto Z-Finder.

Edited in Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5.

A few weeks ago I was asked to take photos of the puppets which Jane Leakey makes and uses for her company Fat Cat Theatre Company. She has a large garden, it was a sunny day and most of her puppets are animals so we shot them outdoors in their natural environment.

UPDATE: the entire set of 250+ images can now be seen (and printed) at www.photoboxgallery.com/owenbenson The Jane Austen Centre in Bath organised a Regency Ball at the Guildhall, which I was asked to photograph.

UPDATE 2: the video I shot is now online http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NTDs1F53Y

There were over 100 people at the Ball, all in costume, all having a wonderful time, which makes it easy to take good photos :)

I shall be photographing the Jane Austen Festival in Bath this September, on behalf of the Jane Austen Centre.