SARAH GINN VS SUB FOCUS - A CIRCULAR LIGHT

In December 2021 I pitched a collaboration project to Sub Focus called ‘A Circular Light’ - This is the start of Visual Concept Music Photography and complete seamless photographic branding of a live act, in this case using a number of photographic techniques to create circles in all photos taken.

A Circular Light was one of the pitches I wrote and approached artists with to launch the concept of VS. VS is explained in the intro in this section of my site and is now called XX. This side of XX is where a live act and a visual team/photographer collaborate on an equal footing to create a one off art house project over 5/6 gigs. This also means the artists mixing up mediums with each other. This pitch included the pre-cursor to The Feedback Loop Theory (available under The Theories tab), and the final aim is to carry out an exhibition or make a tour book which is then backed up by music theory alongside branded photos. This is to produce an inspiring project for the audience that moulds together an artists identity, with intentional and collaborative music theory.

Although this pitch never came to pass in the end, it’s a good example of how XX will work and the genesis of such projects. It also is one of the more detailed pitches showing how shooting a circular rig with circular style photos can visually brand an artist.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE & BREACH

UPDATE: As of 05/05/2025 Worship Artists (www.worshipartists.uk) have declined to engage or publicly apologise to me for legal threats & plagiarism (in my personal opinion) of my intellectual property after I made this public. Over 2 years later, no damages have been paid or compensation arranged. Sam Neill (samneill.photo.com & also represented by Worship & Kode Media - www.kodemedia.com) continues to use my concept for his work with Sub Focus after never using the concept before my pitch arrived. This is despite working with Nick for a number of years.

As of October 2024, Worship Artists & Sam Neill implemented unfounded reports to The Metropolitan Police in an effort to intimidate me not to file a civil IP infringement claim, and to hide this page & my personal experiences (and evidence of the IP Infringement) from public view. I received no charges from their accusations. There is also no civil gagging order or NDA in effect so publication of this information is legally permissible.

Scroll to bottom of page for further images from tour artwork, Sam’s version of my work and a selection of screenshots from other photographers and Sam after I called this out publicly on his Instagram page. Plus threats of legal action from Seb at Worship via email for publicly stating plagiarism online in April 2023.

The screenshot DMs demonstrate an unsolicited message from a photographer I didn’t know, it has been recorded on this page as an example of the bullying, harassment, intimidation via private DMs that has come my way since I made this fully public. Full transcript is available on request (company is northworks.io). Please also see attached Sam’s response via private DM where he gaslights me about plagiarism (in my opinion) of my work. I feel publishing them is the best course of action, to highlight the reaction to protecting my intellectual property on one occasion.

I believe these DM’s are quite aggressive in an attempt to silence me, and to save face. Some contain misogynistic slurs that are sadly extremely common from male photographers (sexist gatekeeping/bullying is standard within electronic music photography, echoing a recent UK government report on misogyny within the music industry). This gatekeeping by male photographer collectives has stopped me working for 6 years in any real capacity. These photographers have also instigated smear campaigns to stop me being booked & blocked my work requests to people who do want to hire me (who assumed I was too busy etc). Adding to this I’m also only hired by women in general at an 80/20 percent split, so due to discrimination I also receive a lot less work by default. Lastly, I’ve been a target of cyberattacks by multiple male photographers and Sam in relation to exposing this particular IP theft & been called amongst other things - ‘crazy’, ‘cu*nt’, ‘prick’, ‘whore’, ‘dick’, ‘bitch’ ‘batshit mental’ etc by these male photographers. As they feel it’s acceptable to talk in this aggressive manner to a female photographer they haven’t met/worked with via unsolicited private DMs/abusive calls in this way. When I started to publish their comments online like I’m doing here, these male photographer associates of Sam tried to convince other men who know me via my social media, to bully me too, assuming they would join in with their discriminatory actions.

This also explains why most media teams and photographers in electronic music are nearly 100% white and male. This realm of photography is incredibly cutthroat for everyone involved, men included (and bullying is very common), but women have worse treatment as they suffer from systematic discrimination from the off. This is very similar to the structural barriers female DJs face, who suffer exactly the same issue. In an effort to overcome this via my own talent, the VS projects were born to provide a productive way out of this situation (because sometimes blockages can really push you creatively, which is ultimately a great thing to use to your advantage). But taking on a female creatives ideas without credit/payment is also considered misogyny, which unfortunately Sam has further implemented here. This is demonstrated in the link below:

https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/police-forces/wiltshire-police/areas/campaigns/campaigns/we-are-listening/definitions-of-frequently-used-words/

Rather than answering my public comments regarding the theft of my work on his Instagram, Sam blocked those so his followers wouldn’t see them. Then he proceeded to message me privately in this way, not believing his comments would ever be shown. He denied copying my work to others who left posts publicly (which is shown by my pitch and his photos) and also denied his managers legal threats against me (which are published below) stating harassment after I left one post which he had already blocked (conversations are displayed on the bottom of this page). He then also blocked those users so their posts are not visible & reported my only communication to him on his page as bullying to instagram (see bottom of the page for the comment removed). Other photographers started to mass report my defence messages which has resulted in multiple automatic instagram warnings. This is classed as mobbing in an effort to shut down my Instagram. Multiple attempts were also made to hack my account. I now don’t use this account to protect myself.

Harassment claims are often used to slander/smear victims or accuse them of crimes for defending themselves from harassment or reacting back to what they are experiencing, or calling out plagiarism/unfair treatment in this case. This is an act called DARVO. Which means deny, attack, reverse victim and offender, often used by perpetrators and psychological abusers as a manipulative tactic to avoid accountability for their actions. As is getting other people to harass the (real) victim by proxy, as Sam did with his photographer colleagues. These people are called ‘flying monkeys’ and are often instructed by people who exhibit Machiavellian behaviour to abuse the whistleblower, sometimes not even realising they are being manipulated themselves to carry out this kind of abuse. So it’s clear DARVO/flying monkeys are being used here by Sam and Sebastian & is their go to accusation and defence, to push back my publishing the truth of what happened to me. This of course is fairly standard behaviour when dealing with these high conflict personality types, so it’s not personal but just how they operate. A definition of flying monkeys & DARVO is available below:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202010/are-you-narcissist-s-flying-monkey/amp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

This situation remains as reported below with no movement either side. I have not been sued so far regarding this matter for defamation and my emails to Worship’s legal council remain unanswered. So effectively what that says is that none of the information on here is false. So I’ve decided to move into a new career at this present time via writing. This overall experience has been incredibly frightening, affecting my mental/physical health long term. I have also been told I’m unlikely to be hired again in music for calling out such a huge management team over two years ago now, due to the power of their agents. As a result I’ve been fully blacklisted in drum and bass and beyond for publishing this information thus far by Worship and Sam. A genre I worked on and off in for 15 years, and covered extensively at fabric in London.

Please also see links to Worship’s actions regarding the transmission of Covid by one of their DJs, so their modus operandi has fallen into prosecution/criminal areas before. Many online articles regarding this have been removed due to litigious threats from Worship. Or they have been known to threaten people via email directly with industry blacklisting as their first line of defence against people speaking out.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/03/british-dj-escapes-prosecution-after-sparking-new-zealands-first-omicron-scare

After Worship missed the deadline I set for a resolution on this IPEC civil case on the 3rd July 2024, and I have not been successful in resolving it so far, this page will remain up permanently and publicly for reference.

IMPORTANT UPDATE MAY 2025

Unfortunately, after my aforementioned pre-court mediation offer/terms expired on the 3rd July 2024, Sebastian Weingartshofer (of Worship) and Sam Neill started to report me to the Metropolitan Police for harassment on the 7th July 2024 (so just before I was about to officially start filing my civil case). I was questioned on 14th October 2024 by the Somerset & Avon Police who the case had been passed to and in the end, wasn’t charged with any crimes. There have been many reports of harassment made to the police that still continue to be carried out to this day, after the matter was investigated fully on the 14th October 2024. Adding to this, virulent smear campaigns stating harassment in the music industry by Sam & Sebastian. This is largely in an effort to detract from the evidence shown on this page which they want to force me to hide from public view (via DARVO tactics). It also points towards what could be viewed as weaponising of police time, to not only hide this evidence but also to halt the civil case, which was obviously delayed due to this incident. It was ascertained by the solicitor on duty during my questioning that as all civil cases are on public record, this was another effort to hide their wrongdoing.

As a result the new mediation/pre-court offer deadline for this case is the 13th August 2025 and will be served to Kode Media (Sam’s agency representative) and the company house addresses of the defendants. After this point official papers will be served to the defendants and when it’s concluded all evidence will be publicly viewable (as previously mentioned). I would have served this to Sound Advice LLP directly as instructed via Sebastian's email below, but they are now denying they represent Worship (email to be uploaded shortly). So it is clear every action is being used to bully me, intimidate me & destroy my credibility/ reputation, in an attempt to stop civil legal proceedings and avoid public accountability.

I am also being accused of harassment for something that is very common in the music industry. Civil cases such as this are well documented and publicised (and the finer details of them) such as the recent Four Tet VS Domino Records civil case, which was widely published within the music press/via social media. Therefore Worship would consider Four Tet’s actions harassment if they are to judge him and myself equally over contractual and IP civil disputes (as we have acted in the same manner). Four Tet has actually been more vocal about it, stating updates on his X account. In his case he was punished by Domino via taking his album streams offline for a time. So civil cases do often have retaliating behaviour arising from them in some form or another.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jun/20/four-tet-settles-royalty-rate-dispute-domino-records-keiran-hebden

These oppression and intimidation tactics in my opinion are a direct reaction of the irrefutable truth of my work being copied, and me showing solid evidence of that (and the evidence of Sam & Sebastian’s legal threats & harassment against me). It also points strongly towards guilt, as innocent people just wouldn’t go to such lengths to hide knowledge of this situation & halt a civil case. Ultimately, this page could not be removed by civil means as it would have had to be an untruth to do that (via defamation or cease and desist). So instead it ended up in the defendants using the police to intimidate me (by proxy) with excessive, false and consistent police reporting for almost a whole year now. An NDA or damages settlement would have been the best course of action for this dispute and that’s a normal occurrence in the music industry. However, the defendants (who could quite clearly afford it) haven’t chosen this resolution. As I’ve not signed an NDA or ever been offered one, I may speak about my experiences freely and publish this information.

Finally, involving the police & stating unfounded accusations has ultimately opened them up to risks of serious criminal charges, such as Perverting the Course of Justice. Under Perverting the Course of Justice this is a category 1 level crime. Which is punishable with 2-7 years in prison due to me being falsely accused/held in custody and the huge damage to my career/reputation. This will be reported to the police at the same time the civil claim is filed (to be investigated by the CPS). Thankfully, the police can see what is occurring here, so I’ve not heard from them since October last year when I was questioned (despite the continued reporting that I’ve heard they are doing from industry sources). So I feel very protected in this instance, and I was treated exceptionally well by The Met & The Somerset and Avon Police who gave me a lot of support after they got involved. Therefore the civil case will continue as planned.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/perverting-the-course-of-justice/

Real time updates will be provided as the case progresses…

THE FUTURE…

The VS projects (now called XX) I have created over the last two years serve as a record of work that is in my mind completed already, as they exist via my pitches, which I am satisfied with despite my opinion of plagiarism in this particular case. This concept is the zenith of my efforts within the medium. The theory side of this concept will be published as the SETS theory on this website in due course. This represents a positive movement forward for my work by switching mediums into writing for the foreseeable future. Rather than see this as experience as a setback I’ll use it to strike new ground. I’m so incredibly proud of this work more than anything.