The Outsider

Leeds Festival, and indeed festival season in general is done. So here's my last act of this year's campaign, Marina & The Diamonds. Worth waiting 2 hours for after the previous act I was shooting!

Brand New Eyes

Another weekend, another field. This time in Leeds. Here's Paramore from last night.

Shoot The Runner

So, I didn't shoot either of the headliners yesterday following an incident in which I fell over and hurt my knee, so made a break for it after Florence - agency guys weren't allowed to shoot Kings Of Leon anyway.

In lieu of that, here's a quick shot of Saturday's headliner, Kasabian.



No rest for the wicked, shooting Jason Derulo tonight...

Weak

So, I'm writing this in a field. I'm at V Festival for day 2. Here's my personal highlight of Day 1, Skunk Anansie.

Tender

Had a look through my shots from last weekend and came upon this of Frankie & The Heartstrings which I'm quite fond of.

Time for one of the big fish tomorrow - off to shoot V Festival for the first time. I consider it one of the UK's "Big 3" really (the others being Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds) so I'm a bit daunted. Weather looks a bit shaky too...

Once

Back in the saddle this weekend. Shot Summer Sundae weekender down in Leicester for Friday and Saturday then headed back up north for Sunday to shoot the Rock FM Live show in Blackpool.

Customer Service Is Dead

Given that I'm not shooting shows for a few days, let's have a quick moan.

Firstly. Debenhams.
Ordered item on Monday, delivery to store within 4 days. No word, called them. Turns out that's "from despatch" which could be from now to kingdom come. Email them, and get told it's shipped. Went to store - store has item - but not the one that was sent for me - so I can't have it.

Where's the joined-up thinking there? Replace the one from stock with the one that's in transit to you. Don't make your customer make two trips. Insane. It shouldn't matter to the end user that you're "not the same company". Because you're replacing object a with object b and the two are identical.

Oh, and the item advertises a £40 rebate on the page I ordered from. Lovely. Except it expired months ago and they couldn't be bothered to update their site.

Secondly, Digitalrev.
Took a risk in ordering a camera from HK. Paid my money. "Ships within 24 hours" it says. Order arriving 12th August the order says. Their online support say "It'll be with you by the end of next week if you order now." Shooting a festival Friday, so that's perfect.

Hasn't shipped. Can't tell me when it'll ship. In the interim I've been approved for V next weekend, and will be furious if it's not here by then.

I don't understand why either of these transactions is difficult, given that they involve having an item and putting in in a box and shipping it. Or if you can't, communicating with the customer.

So what should have been two fairly nice 'luxury' purchases are tarnished by the sheer ball-ache of trying to get a company to fulfil it's part of the bargain.

Tell you what, though. They were both very efficient at one thing - taking the payment.