Films
Photography
Music

Luca Piercey

Films
Photography
Music

Photography

Notting Hill Carnival kicked off after two years of pandemic.

'We've been trying to get band photos for 7 years!' Adam, band manager / rhythm guitarist of The Scorpios, lamented. Herding cats is to put it lightly. We got some great shots in the end.

This one was actually taken by Triana Gracia who was helping me on a shoot with The Scorpios. This is the enigmatic Sudanese guitarist Yasir.

Working with the brilliant Ren Bianchi on her short film Adeus. This ended being the poster:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/?msgControlName=reply_to_sender&msgConversationId=2-YTYwZmY3NmEtOTRiNy00MzRkLTk4NzctMjI4ODU5MDY4MTE0XzAxMg%3D%3D&msgOverlay=true&trk=false

I had the pleasure of working with Arsenii Morin on a friend's short film. The short film was about a drag queen's decision to go to space or not. Even Arsenii's sock was on board.

Shooting an advert at the Television Centre in White City, I was more interested in the classic lighting rig they have there.

Sergio Ostroverhy is a Ukrainian painter that has been working on a 10ft tall hyper-real painting of Hillary Clinton. We helped Ben from Dirty Films with a teaser to apply for documentary funding.

Crossing the road back to San Cristóbal.

My landlady had an altar in SanCristóbal, Mexico.

My friends from Iztapalapa, Mexico City, took me for a walk up the 'Hill of the Star'. To get there we took the cable car, which flew over dozens of houses that had decorated their roof terraces with giant paintings of flowers, bugs and popular heroes.

The tide only briefly makes it this far up Biljana's riverbed, so she spends about 4 hours a day a metre higher than usual.

Biljana's boat, which she has videos of sailing across the Channel, looks like something out of a Roald Dahl book. We met at a New Writer's Network in Cornwall. She teaches tango and is writing a script about her journey from Yugoslavia to Cornwall.

I passed this weird microcosm while cycling to Gweek, Cornwall, where a friend lives on a houseboat. The boat is more house than boat and can barely float, and there was only one penguin left on this mini-Ukraine. As the locals would say: it's all Gweek to me.

Amita is balancing a 'pash-pash' ball on top of 'maize ball-game' ball. Both are made from corn leaves. The 'pash-pash' ball has a tail and flies much like a shuttlecock. The tail mimics the growth of the plant, and is played in the autumn during the typical harvest of corn.

I joined Juan and his sports club in San Cristóbal. They play 3 different traditional sports, including pelota purépecha, which comes from another state but has become popular across México.

Cacho was my guide and 'pelota purépecha' teacher in Iztapalapa, México City. He is also a geography and theatre teacher. The sticks are all hand-made, and most teams proudly play on the street which where it was originally supposed to be. On special occasions, they'll play at night and set the ball on fire; but since I came during the day, they set it alight anyway!

'Pelota purépecha' is originally from the 'purépecha' region of Michoacán. It allegedly dates back more than 3000 years, pre-dating hocking. Here in Iztapalapa, one of the most notorious districts in México City (and the country), it has also become a safe space for those trying to avoid gang-life.

This is Mo, he's from Sudan and currently sells bread at a market stall on Maltby Street near London Bridge. We're working with Mo to make a short doc about how the bread he sells compares to the bread he knows in Sudan, while learning a little about his own experiences coming to the UK.

Mo sells bread with the charity 'Breadwinners', we made them a short promo for their Big Give Campaign: https://donate.thebiggive.org.uk/campaign/a056900001wWz2uAAC

Alisa was the star of a short promotional doc we made for the Food for the Planet campaign which aired at COP26, influencing policy makers to do more about food and emissions. https://www.foodfortheplanet.org.uk/

We included the Drax Power Station in our 'Food for the Planet' doc as a symbol of how times are changing but we still have a long way to go. It no longer provides the UK with energy through the burning of coal, which is an improvement... but, controversially, it is fed with thousands of acres of woodland shipped from the States.

Shooting a music video with the amazing Triana Gracia, we met David from Pamplona along the way.

'Sunday' by Giant Ferrara - music video coming soon.
As well as 35mm snaps, we shot on a 16mm bolex, my Super8 Chinon, digital A7S, and a GoPro.

Had the pleasure of working with Donna Preston on a comedy sketch for Channel 4's 'The B@it'

'Claire' the dead pet clairvoyant and her husband...

Cheggs has been helping me with a passion project starring my very own Mum... here he is in the greenhouse.

Jo Piercey is an osteopath of 30 years, and a 'doula' for 10. A birth doula is an expert on babies and birth-giving, their main role being to empower women to have the birth they want to have.

Only about 5% of babies are born on the their due date... Doula's main motivation is to combat the fear and disinformation that surrounds birth.

The interviews were a family occasion, here's my brother holding a reflector.

Rosie Lowe was awesome to work with; and one of the only music video shoots I've ever worked on where I walked away from set still wanting to hear the song...

Paris Texas: https://youtu.be/ZJSnyA1k7Os

The village I grew up in has become infamous in recent years for their annual soap box race... the Cookham Dean Gravity Grand Prix

Noaz Deshe is an awesome film-maker. His feature White Shadow won Venice Film Festival a few years back. I crossed paths with him both at San Francisco Film Festival and then coincidentally in a refugee camp in Greece, and we stayed in touch. Here he is shooting his latest feature about that camp.

We shot on a site north of Berlin, where they happen to store the very same containers that they ship to different refugee camps. It was eerie being there, it was very similar to the real thing.

Ibrahim had a scene in which his legs are dangling through the roof of a container. Although the story is one of fiction, and includes dreams and fantasy, it's all taken from real experiences...

As well as teaching me obscene slang and posing for pictures, Jalal and Hazem (on the bike) were quick to point out that Noaz was able to get such incredible talent on the film as a lot of the first wave to flee Syria were artists and creatives... 'Abu Ashraf' on the left is actually a fairly well known TV actor in Syria and the middle-east.

Theresa May's local area has some fantastic wheat fields for new band pics...

A friend was recently curious as to how we recorded our music. Well, a few airbeds and a village hall. (Our percussionist Cheggs took this one).

We love an excuse to get out of London. Our guitarist Squibs happens to live near Hastings, so we occasionally find a weekend to go practice down there.

The English Channel, feat. Craig.

While I was filming in Berlin in June, I managed to sneak out to Hasenheide park on the first weekend of real Sun. It was packed. This guy's shorts say it all really.

One of my favourite spots in London is a little latin market tucked away behind a pub in New Cross. I go there to practice my Spanish, eat an encebollado, and occasionally join in the karaoke... Here's one of the rock-stars who's often there.

'Sick' by Maeve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPzsqoDVaWc&ab_channel=Maeve

One of our first music videos shot on 16mm.

Taken on my little Olympus that takes half-frame pictures (so you can get 72 pictures out of a 36 picture roll). This is my housemate Sasha, an awesome photographer and videographer. https://www.sashafreemind.com/

On May 16th, 2021, a few hundred thousand people marched through the streets of London to protest the singular narrative that has taken hold of the globe. The BBC reported that a 'few hundred' had gathered. This was taken outside their headquarters.

The Hare Krishna were present at the May 16th Anti-Lockdown march.

Jenna is 'That Nurse That Asks Questions' and has pledged to walk the streets of every major city and town in the UK to raise awareness about prejudice in the workplace over the Covid vaccine. Many medical professionals are worried about losing their jobs over having a different opinion.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/ThatNurseWhoAsksQuestionsFB/

Nurses and medical professionals came from all over the UK to support Jenna (Lockdown Alternative/That Nurse Who Asks Questions) as she delivered a letter to Nursing and Midwifery Council asking for stronger action against prejudice in the workplace.

Aurora with her daughter Amelia. Aurora put me up for 7 months in Oaxaca, México. She was a tireless 89 year old matriarch when I lived with her. I think the only time she was caught sitting was when she was eating, or between 8 and 9pm when her favourite tele-novelas were on...

The pandemic had its ups and downs for my friends in México. Mario closed up his restaurant for the duration and got himself a 'moto-taxi' which was a good earner. Eduardo in the back there is a good friend, always calling me his cousin (since, you know, he had light hair like me, we were practically brothers...) I know him better as 'Tanguyú', a nickname given him in a game they play in Oaxaca called La Pelota Mixteca. The nicknames are often quite rude, he came off lightly: Tanguyú is the name of the prehispanic goddess of dawn. She's very small, just like him.

El Biche holds his five kilo glove up for me. Every Sunday, several mini-tournaments of 'La Pelota Mixteca' get played around the southern state of Oaxaca. It's a five-a-side game played on a pitch that's roughly 11 metres wide by 100 metres long, with the same point system as tennis.

You can see a trailer for the documentary 'Los Jugadores' (The Players) I made last year below. It was recently accepted into the Ethnografilm Festival in Paris, which will screen next April.

https://vimeo.com/496491623
http://www.ethnografilm.com/

The ball of La Pelota Mixteca (the Mixtec ballgame) is made of pure rubber and weighs almost a kilo. The best players can sometimes hit it almost the length of the pitch (80 to 100 metres).

I spent almost 6 months of Sundays with the pelota players, which took me all over Oaxaca. It's a tough game played for several hours in the hottest part of the day, so you'll never find a game being played without a few beers close to hand or the local liquor 'mezcal'. Some players would argue that the mezcal is almost as important as the ball...

Camila (left) put me up in her family home in México City when I first arrived. It was through her generosity that I found work and a new life in México. When I last visited México, I found her taking pictures for a hotel at the beach. A world traveller and first-class photographer, you can find her pictures at https://www.camilajurado.mx/ or https://www.instagram.com/cam.jurado/

I took a few snaps while Camila and Yuna were doing their shoot. This one ended up on an Instax-Fuji advert in México.

Yuna happens to be a comedian as well as a model. Having lived in Barcelona, Santiago (Chilé), and now México City for the last 4 years, her Spanish is good enough that she often sees how many of her audience she can convince she's from México...
You can find her stand-up and more at https://www.instagram.com/yunaoluna/

Camila and Yuna stayed long enough at the coast for me to bring them to a pelota mixteca game happening nearby. Yuna and 'El Gallo' made an unlikely comedy duo.

This is César, managing artist at the Espacio Zapata in Oaxaca. He also runs art workshops for inmates at several prisons around the state. He asked me if I wanted to screen our documentary in Miahuatlán as a part of his workshop, which was an offer I couldn't turn down. 'Don't wear beige' he told me.

After getting some road-side tacos with the prison driver who took us there (I'm yet to take him up on his offer to visit his village turkey cooking festival, apparently he's the best...), I found myself among a large cohort of mismatched beige uniforms. César got us to stick paper to the walls, gave us all sticks of graphite, and we practiced drawing with both hands. I found some time to take a couple of snaps too.

https://espacio-zapata.negocio.site/

The prison was small in comparison to others around the state, with just two large dormitories. I was taken aback by the relaxed atmosphere and the amount of activity. There was a guy stringing hammocks, a host of practicing chefs, stool-makers, a choir... I'm sure I was only seeing a sliver of the picture, but this was not the picture of Méxican prison I was expecting. 'This isn't Federal prison where the hardened criminals go,' César explained 'actually, for a lot of these guys who come from small villages in poverty, this can be an opportunity to get a hand up. They can learn new skills, make contacts, and come out in a better position than they went in...'

I didn't manage to get any pictures of the screening itself, although César got a few grainy ones on his phone. The sound was bad, and their projector dim, but the screening was a success and I still get goosebumps thinking about it. It kicked off a passionate discussion on what it meant to be Oaxaqueño, what we all take for granted, and what it taught me about my own background and culture in the UK. We exchanged strong handshakes and they shared with me some of their own creative endeavors over some delicious prison-cooked fish soup.

'Hey man, I heard there was a gringo here, so I came to say hi'. Pedro moved to the States when he was 12 years old, and had lived there for more than 20 years. He'd been in prison for 5 years now, and hadn't spoken English for that whole time, although he had been brushing up on his mother tongue 'Zapotec'. 'Great to meet you man, come visit again some time' he said in a thick american accent. I told him, given the chance, I would.

Between Tehuantepec and Juchitán, my bus had to stop and off-load. 'Bloqueos', or roadblocks, are common in Oaxaca. They're the easiest quickest way of drawing attention to injustice and provoking action from their municipality. Unusually, as I stood gauging the situation, a clean-cut hombre in shades and sports-wear sidled up to me and whispered to me that I should take a picture of the 'leader' (the imposing man in black on the right). Not sure who he thought I was, but I did as instructed...

A camera gets mixed reactions in these situations, especially from an obvious stranger. Travelling often feels as if you are slipping between pre-existing worlds. Your day plans are based on whim and Google, not on the actions you must take to stop your land being taken away from your community by outside investors. So when a bus disgorges a camera in the hands of a hairy foreigner, it is as if I have teleported into their world. I felt neither welcome or un-welcome, simply strange.

The other side of Tlacolula, just as the new highway starts, we stopped on the side of the road and made our way through the dry scrub into the valley. Past a hut, and up a dirt track, a fairly new structure had been built to shade the likes of us. Our guide appeared leading out the last guests and invited us to tour the prehistoric caves of Mitla with him. This hand is from the 'Bilie Naa' (Caves of Hands) and is thousands of years old.

Besides the incredible ancient cave paintings, I was impressed that the signs were first labelled in Zapotec, then with the Spanish translation. Pepe's first language is Zapotec, and as well as translating the cave names, was full of local plant knowledge which had been passed down to him.

I've met a lot of great people and seen some amazing places through Franky, who was responsible for taking us to the hidden caves. A high school English teacher in Tlacolula, he brought me along once to assist his class. I'm not sure I was much help, but there's always a guaranteed adventure when you go anywhere with Franky.

Julio used to be Franky's student back in the day, now he's a voice actor for radio and television, and sound professional. He can do an extraordinary range of voices, and I'm often asking myself when I hear the local radio whether it's him... He often operates through FB https://www.facebook.com/JulSpotOficial/

Chiapas is both very mountainous and rich in forests. It's the region of the radical Zapatistas and home to some 56 linguistic groups.

This is René. We met him on a minibus into town. He took us to a bar, showed us his portfolio of buildings he'd worked on or was working on, then took us up to the Arcotete cave. It was a magical day. He hails from Palenque, where some of the most magnificent Mayan ruins are, and spoke fluent Spanish, Tzotzil and Tseltal, the two most prevalent indigenous languages in the area.

San Cristobal de las Casas in Southern México was a 'green' light state when I passed through, which meant it had very relaxed pandemic rules. Needless to say, I made the most of the live music every night. San Cristobal isn't a huge place, so I often came across the same musicians in a different outfit depending on the genre they were playing. Here is Balkan Do It: https://www.facebook.com/Balkan-Do-It-103531695078881

San Juan Chamula is a small town near San Cristobal which is famous for it's church. Mila and I spent a couple of hours there sitting and chatting quietly one Sunday. The floor is covered with pine needles, and thousands of candles decorate the periphery where strange looking saints look down at you. According to our Googling, each one also represents older Mayan deities. Families clear spaces where they stick more candles in lines, and wait for a shaman to come do a ceremony. This could include sacrificing a chicken (breaking its neck, no blood) if their problem is particularly dire. This happened at least twice while we were there. Pox (pronounced Posh) is a local liquor made from corn and cane sugar, and shared after each ceremony. Pictures are strictly prohibited, and Tzotzil (the local native language) is still spoken by 99.5% of the town. I was enamoured with the atmosphere there. Its probably my favourite church, ever.

My housemate Mila joined me for a while. She was a hit with the guys in México... You can check out her illustrations here: https://www.instagram.com/milu.so.art/

Rosa, on the right, used to help my landlady Aurora around the house. I visited her and her sisters in their village San Miguel Panixtlahuaca. They speak Chatino there, which is a beautiful but incredibly tonal language... A slight change in sound and you'll be saying a completely different word. Rosa and her sisters have a wicked sense of humour, so although my language skills failed me this time, we had a good laugh.

'Chente' can be quite protective of Rosa, but immediately recognised me and rolled over on his belly. She never used a lead with him as he would stop at each road before each crossing, and stay at her heel when they went to the market. He's put a little weight on, but he's still the same ol' Chente.

'La Flaka y La Gorda' (the skinny and the fatty) joked Gardenia when I took a picture of her and her friend Estrella. They are both 'Muxes' from the Istmeño region. Muxes are an example of indigenous cultures celebrating gender fluidity and homosexuality, and have risen in popularity in Western culture as they capture the zeitgeist.

'My name is Leona, like a lion, rawr!' Standing 4 foot something high, Leona is full of laughter and energy.
'Dixza Rugs' always have a host of travellers staying at their AirBnB in Teotitlán. The family speak dixzaa (more commonly known as zapotec), and host a wide range of workshops from organic wool dying and weaving to making tamales (a local food). https://dixza.com/

A lot of their natural dyes are more vibrant and long-lasting than synthetic ones. The pink in the middle is made with diluted 'cochinilla' plant, and is a widely used dye in the area which can produce a striking red.

Jo and Milan are some of my best friends in Oaxaca. They moved there together after they tired of living the Portland dream. Jo and I did left handed drawings of each other one day in her studio (hers was a little better than mine...) An incredible artist, you can check out her work here: https://www.instagram.com/johanna.palmieri/

Oaxaca is famous for its 'grabado' workshops (printmaking). I have many favourites, but one of them has got to be Ivan Bautista and his girlfriend Edith Chavez.
http://www.ivanbautista.mx/ http://burropress.com/

Print-making exploded in Oaxaca during the tragic 2006 protests. It was the best way to cheaply and discreetly distribute pro-union information and anti-government sentiments, and they covered every inch of wall space. One anecdote goes that the police attempted to literally paint the town red and cover up anything political. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough red paint... and Oaxacans were left with all the nonsensical half-slogans the police couldn't quite erase. Here, an artist takes a darkly comedic angle on the 'general direction' that México's tourism is going during the pandemic...

Ana regularly 'zoom' assists a teacher of ayurvedic practices. I listened into one of his lectures on a quiet Sunday morning. He finished by telling us that although we should take note of everything he has taught us, we should also be mindful to never be too attached to anything, even our own beliefs. A useful lesson in a divided world.

México and India have more in common then spicy food and bustling cities. Travellers often draw strong comparisons between these two thriving colourful cultures.

Here's my business partner Cheggs on a shoot in Cornwall (otherwise known as Kernow). His name 'Chegwyn' means 'White House' in Cornish, and he can date his family back some 500 years. We're working on a documentary about the Cornish language (Kernewek). https://www.jameschegwyn.com/

Adrian needed some shots for his modelling career. This is a discreetly very exciting wall near our home which I think says it all.

I'm also a professional gaffer with a mismatch set of film-lights. This was taken in our home studio.

Elpida is a fantastic Greek actress working on a shoot down in Cornwall with us.

Mosi and I shared the long van drive down to Cornwall. He has some fantastic stories about growing up in Manchester in the 90s. It wasn't easy, let's put it that way.

This is my favourite picture of Ros. She's a quietly central figure to the Breaking Convention, one of the largest conventions on psychedelic research, that happens every two years at Greenwich University. She spends most of her days working for a think-tank that lobbies MPs on changing laws against arbitrarily illegal drugs. https://www.breakingconvention.co.uk/

A sunset in Cornwall

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