From this dramatic start, assisting in the fashion genre, Andy moved into portraiture - photographing London artists. This progressed into music, going to gigs and getting work photographing young bands. From then on his clients - the editors, art directors and the bands themselves - grew with him through the industry, until today his ‘book’ contains images of many top names in the music word: Morrisey, Jarvis Cocker, My Chemical Romance and The Killers.

Equipment has always been important to Andy, in a way, determining the relationship with his subject. He enjoys the medium format experience - the control it gives him over the image, and feels that 35mm can be more of a barrier between him and his subject. When the time came to ‘go digital’ it was only after much research that he settled on the CFV. "I had used a 35mm DSLR at the Glastonbury festival (a huge annual outdoor modern music festival in the UK) because that is what was given, but I didn’t enjoy the experience.
I have had a Hasselblad 503CW for a few years. I love it, I’m really in control with it and feel it’s solid, durable. When I got the 503 I had in my mind that one day I could put a digital back on it. The CFV, though, made a digital back for it desirable."

"The move to digital was helped by Hasselblad, kind of holding my hand, coaxing and saying that I could still use my old lenses, still work in the same way - and do. I said to a friend recently that there should be a beep after each 12 shots, because I forget I'm not shooting film. I had not quite expected it, but once I had the CFV I became 100% digital overnight - I shot my first job just 2 days after getting it! I feel really fortunate; the transition has been really easy for me."

There have been changes though. Andy’s assistant no longer loads his film backs, but instead is downloading images from CF cards and processing them during the shoot. "I post a gallery of images on the web for my clients to choose from, then go back to the raw files and produce the final image. I find Flexcolor dead easy to use - and I’m rubbish with computers! I still have the mindset of ‘negs’, and with Flexcolor can make a new ‘print’ whenever I like and the quality is even better than I used to get on film. The only thing do miss is the relationship used to have with my printer. However, the new results can’t easily be spotted among my previous work, except that digital has allowed me to be a little more experimental!"

Website: www.andyfallon.co.uk

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