Jake Cunningham's Konstruktor Shots for Tom Williams

After recently announcing the release of a new double album called “New Guitar/New House,” Tom Williams and photographer Jake Cunningham revisit using a Lomography Konstruktor to shoot the vinyl gatefold image for the band’s previous album, “Easy Fantastic.”

Hello Jake, please tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m a photographer and film maker, as well as being a writer and Editor-at-Large for the Hungry Eye Journal. I had always had an interest in photography and completed an A-Level in it, however the lessons had always been focused on Photoshop and it seemed like the dark room had been forgotten about. On the last day of the year the college was throwing away some of it’s old camera equipment that wasn’t being used, this included a battered and bruised Zenit 12XP. I didn’t know how to use it, the light meter, and dials didn’t work but I took it to Glastonbury that year for it’s first outing and I’ve never looked back. I’ve since collected 12 different cameras and have experimented with film in as many ways as I can, and am always looking for new things to try out.

How did the Konstruktor photos end up being used for this album?

Tom: I asked Jake to come and take some group photographs of the band after falling in love with his photographs on his website. The Konstruktor was a camera that he’d got recently and was keen to try out. I remember seeing him put it all together on his kitchen table! We shot very early in the morning down on the beach in Hastings. Despite the intention of catching a beautiful early morning light the reality was far more apocalyptic. A pale dead sun whimpering feebly from behind a thick fug of dense brown cloud!

Jake: My girlfriend had given me the Konstruktor for my birthday and after putting it together I was desperate to test it out. My first roll had this beautiful sun-bleached warm feel to it, with some gorgeous light leaks and this is what we wanted to re-create with the album. Tom’s previous cover art had been black and white or more subdued and we wanted to change that. Annoyingly, on the day we had to shoot it was a typical English summer, and it was the only day that we could get the whole band together. This meant that we kept in the Konstruktor photo taken on the beach, but then color matched it in the edit to the blue of the spectral colours on the album cover.

What is it about film photography that appeals to you?

Jake: When I was doing the write-up about the Petzval 85 Lens I said, and I think Tom will agree with me on this one, that film photography is like vinyl records, it’s something tangible, physical, you have more of a connection to the end product because you controlled more of its journey.

Tom: Yeah, definitely. Jake’s photography seemed to have a magic or atmosphere about them which you don’t often see on stock band promo shots these days. Most of the time you’re shot on high end digital SLRs and we were after something different. Jake shot the entire album sessions as well, photographs that ended up adorning the CD booklet. I think the atmosphere of those shots really capture not only the sense of disorientation of a band from the country trying to record an album in London but also the nervy energy of trying to push a project through with no time or budget to be found.

Any future plans for you and the band?

Jake: Well Tom’s just announced “New House” an album which is going to go be the sister to “New Guitar” which came out earlier this year. Tom launched both albums using PledgeMusic where fans can fund the album early and get exclusive merchandise. One of the favourites was Instax shots from the studio.

Tom: Yeah, ‘Sarah gave me my Instax camera in October that year and when we went into the studio that December we took it with us. There’s something fantastically communal about the click and whir of the camera and the slow reveal as the photo’s printed out. We had such fun with the camera in the studio and so rather than hoarding them, chose to personalise and package them up with the new album when it came out in March. We’re doing the same for the next album, ‘New House’ which is out Friday October 23rd and can be pre-ordered (complete with instax shots from the studio!) here.

Any future collaborations?

The most recent work we’ve done together was the video for the single from the last album She’s Everything, but who knows what possibilities the new record will bring with it. Other than that, I’ve just wrapped up an exhibition in Hastings called ‘Hackney by the Sea’ – some shots can be found in my LomoHome – and I’m always planning the next issue of Hungry Eye; I think Tom’s probably going to have his head in his song book for the next couple of months until the album comes out in October, which I’m very excited for.

Learn more about Tom Williams on the band’s official website.

To see more of Jake Cunningham’s work, visit his website and follow him on Twitter.

written by hannah_brown on 2015-08-21 #people #lifestyle #london #uk #lomoamigo #soholondon #konstruktor #jake-cunningham #tom-williams