Truest Vibes

@ Ricco London

Date Taken: 30th June 2024

Recipes Used:

There's nothing better than an intimate show.

I haven't been to many shows of this nature but I always relish them. Where a fledgling collective or brand host a night of live music, teeming with talented artists.

I did it in the previous post, also did it a while back @ Selina Camden (Big up Friend of 5E Treasure Bloom) and now I have another one to share!

This is a little similar to the Lonleyworld show @ Selina because this one was me going to see another Friend of 5E in Tayah.

You may remember Tayah who featured in Part One of my 50 Pack, well she has a couple of performances coming and I hit her up, asking if she'd like me there to take pictures. Rest is history.

This is one of two posts that'll feature her heavy so look out for the next one soon, but let's jump into this one shall we?

Self-Portrait (Ricco)

I may have stated this before, but I’m starting to get into the habit of taking self-portraits. There’s another couple coming later in what is one of my favourite set of photos to capture a moment but I really mess with this one. They have mostly been monochrome and I will continue to do them in mono. Why? Because I like myself in mono.

I arrived at the event early for what it was. One of those 7pm-2am tings. I was told by Tayah she’d be performing at around 10:30, leading me to say “Oh yay! a ‘catch the train’ challenge!”.

I was pretty much ready to be there before 8pm – you know I like to capture all the performances if I can help it – but considering the time disparity, I took it easy travelling there. Regardless of my effort to stroll in, I was still early.

After 30 minutes, Tayah clocked me and after a chat, we got to cooking:

If you're ever wondering why I use certain recipes, just know there's not much thought put into it. I chose Eterna for this night simply because I haven't used it in a while. You can be the judge as to whether that was a bad decision or not.

Anyways… We started off at the stairs, utilising the nice red hue and then headed outside.

During this moment, another character in this story came through.

This is Shari.

Shari Coming Through

Shari is a DJ and in the context of this night, was behind the boards for Tayah’s performance but on top of that, the next post featuring these two will be an event organised by Shari! Major achievement.

Of course I had to get some shots of them together as well!

So the vibes were good as we went back in, kicked it for a little bit and waited for the show itself.

We begin with Lauren King.

The location itself – Ricco London – is a solid one. A lot of mirrors and large screens if that’s your bag. The latter changed the brightness at times, highlighted by that one shot above. I thought it added variety.

I also love the lights for the table. I really enjoyed sitting to the side and framing it in the foreground. I wasn’t too much into the one blue light in the centre of the stage, it gave me a bit of beef when I tried to take monochrome shots.

Lauren was brief but nice to listen to. She’s just getting started when it comes to releasing music so here’s hoping that trend continues for her.

Next was Mariah Justice with a beautiful afro I must say.

Another artist that’s just getting started. Her songs all had some backstory and she was more than happy to tee them up with the commentary.

Before we get into the Tayah’s & Shari’s moments, a look at the fire shots I mentioned before:

Like I said to Tayah and a friend recently: Candid over everything. Those in-the-moment shots is where the gold is kept in my eyes.

Let’s now peep Shari in her element before Tayah’s set:

And now for Tayah’s set. There’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing the artists I interview do their thing in a live environment. Like Photography – like all art – regardless if there’s an audience for it or not, you’re practicing your music, you’re practicing you art.

That’s why I have been really happy with my consistent dropping recently. It’s all a practice and every post always gives me something to look at and get better at.

Anyway, art philosophy over, let’s get into Tayah’s performance…

Something Tayah mentioned once she received this set was that she wasn’t even aware of me shooting in some of the spots I picked. So I’m happy there was some surprise on her first look.

Compared to the other two performers, Tayah has a few bodies of work that you can go spin. As you can imagine I enjoy them a lot; I enjoyed her performance and the night overall.

I leave you with some shots of goings on in between the performances…