Posted by Andrew
Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:33:00 GMT
Sorry about the delay on this story. When I went to write it over the weekend, my webhost had to undergo emergency power maintenance, which took the site down for a good while. Of course, you’re not here for excuses. You want results, don’t you?
I was lucky enough to snag myself a photo pass to Damien Rice’s show last Thursday, and it would have to rate as the biggest gig I’ve shot. Wow. Great fun, enormous pressure, despite the fact that no one was going to take my photos (the contract I signed said I could only use the for editorial purposes, and could not sell prints), I really badly wanted to get some good shots, and I think I did.
Damien was killer that night. I love both his studio albums - O and 9, but to take his sound out of the studio and have it in your face, clawing at your very soul, that was something else. I highly recommend seeing him if you do get the chance. The man is a genius, and quite witty, but as he proved in quite an amusing way, he can quite easily get lost in his stories.
At once point during the show (after my three songs), Damien seemed to get frustrated by all the kids at the front, holding their cameras up to get photos, and more than likely record video of the show. Damien dedicated a song to “All those living their lives through a camera lens” and played the entire song with his back to the crowd. I felt so vindicated, really. What he said ties really well into my Happy Snapping Manifesto I posted about last year.
“Hypocrisy!” you cry, “You of all people live your life through a camera lens!” No, no my child, I don’t go around attempting to capture memories with my cameras. I capture moments, I capture art. My quality control on my pictures is stupidly rigourous compared to those Point-and-Shoot toting teenagers who Damien was chiding, I shoot for enjoyment, and for the merit of the results, not always the memory captured within.
Lisa Hannigan who has featured on both of Damien Rice’s albums was there, and she really added something fantastic to the whole show. The beautiful vocal styles of both artists truly complement each other. Really, grab those two albums. Do it now. Now. Go do it.
There’s a smallish gallery of my shots for you to check out at kerplode.com
Tags concert photography, Damien Rice, gig photography, music, photography, photos | no comments
Posted by Andrew
Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:56:00 GMT
I had the pleasure last night of going to Carla Werner’s gig at the Vanguard (which is a top notch venue, by the way) and of course, I took a few shots as well. I’m still using the kit lens on my 20D, which is always a pain, and I’m actually deferring the purchase of my 50mm f/1.4 in order to buy an Olympus OM-2n with 50mm f/1.8 and 100mm f/2.8 lenses. Some would call this a regression to film, but I really liked how the Festival of the Sun shots which I took on film turned out, and really, the prices around for good condition OM mount lenses are pretty reasonable, and so I’m inclined to go with that for now.
Anyhow, onto photos of the gig.
Carla was a joy to watch, her voice is absolutely amazing. Many have likened her to Jeff Buckley and I can see why. I think some might criticise her for being so similar to his style, but I think that Jeff Buckley introduced a style which he didn’t get to explore fully, due to his untimely death (don’t drink and swim, kids) and I think she pulls it off incredibly well.
Her vocal power is matched with some powerful melodies, which, combined with some solid guitar work, make her show really great to watch. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any gigs until The Great Escape, which is in April, but if she has a gig within reach of you, I’d highly recommend that you go and check her out. It’s well worth it.
It’s funny, I was doing a little bit of research into Carla, and having a look at what I would be expecting in terms of shooting the gig, and I turned up this post on Dan Boud’s blog, Boudist. I thought, “Lucky bastard, he got to meet Carla Werner and Damien Rice!” well, I got half that pleasure last night, when I ran into Carla backstage at the gig. The first time I ran into her, she was waiting before going back on her encore (I really should learn to be more patient, I was heading back to my friend who was stuck in GA, not thinking that there might be an encore) it was kind of a funny moment, I’ve always wondered what artists do between going off the stage and their encore. We exchanged pleasantries and she said something like “I’ll be back in a bit” and dashed back on stage.
I ran into her again on the way up the stairs to go back to my friend again. It was nice to talk to her about my photos (I shot her at Festival of the Sun) and to actually meet the person behind that amazing music. She was a joy to meet. Who knows, I might meet Damien Rice when he plays the Enmore in February (at the very least I have tickets :D).
There was one thing that irked me last night. That had nothing to do with Carla or the music. That was one bloody photographer who thought it was a great idea to snap off a couple of shots with his on-camera flash at full power from the back of the venue. I was about to pull out my hardened plastic camera case and beat some sense into him, but then I realised that I wasn’t a psychopathic maniac, just some punk teenager with a camera and some ethics. If you ever shoot a gig, I beg you not to use your flash, and if you really really really need to, like honestly-I-will-die-if-I-don’t need to, then use it a low power and try to move a little forward, so you don’t bounce off all the walls and blind the other patrons.
Of course, there was the typical LD, who while seemingly being a very nice guy thought that spinning moving lights while changing gobos was a nice effect. I’m actually pretty much against gobos as a rule. They tend to be distracting and tacky, though there are a few select gobos which I can stand. In moderation, spinning the gobo on your moving lights can make a nice effect, especially when you’re using haze, but in this case, it looked horrid. Most of you either don’t care, or don’t know what I’m talking about, but hey, I know I’m a perfectionist with these kinds of things, and I’m just ranting, but whose blog is this? Yeah, that’s right.
The rest of the shots can be found here: http://www.kerplode.com/v/gigs/carlawerner_2007-01-11/
I’m hoping to catch another gig on Monday, Emma Davis at the Sandringham Hotel, and maybe catch Laura Veirs and Jen Cloher at the Basement on Thursday. Give me a buzz if you’re interested in joining me.
Tags Carla Werner, concert photography, gig photography, music, photography, photos | no comments
Posted by Andrew
Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:34:00 GMT
I’m finally starting to get on with the whole business of processing all my Festival of the Sun shots. I was up until 4am on Monday night getting the headliners done for any media releases that the promoter needed to get out on Tuesday, and that was interesting enough. To be honest, I am moderately disappointed with the results I came up with, especially for Augie March. A lot of detail was washed out and all the reds seemed to leave the shots looking worse for wear. I suppose I can put this one down to learning.
The whole experience was pretty intense. Having not done much gig shooting for a while, and having never had the opportunity to shoot from in front of the crowd barrier before, it was definitely something different. There were things to be learned about not worrying if you’ve got 5 of the same shot, because chances are, you’ve botched at least 3 of them.
The lighting for the headliners made things difficult, and the rain made it even moreso. I don’t know if lighting designers don’t realise it or what, but red light horrifically oversaturates in photos. Now, I spent quite a bit of time in Lightroom trying to fix this, but there wasn’t really much I could do. I have a little forumla which I use: pull back the saturation on the reds, move the hue of the reds to be a little more orange, then decrease the luminosity, but that will only get you so far, and if the detail has been lost, then you’re screwed anyway.
Apart from lighting, there was the issue of the rain. While water on the lens can make a cool effect on a couple of shots, it over-softens your images and loses you precious detail. During the Friday night, it ended up pissing down, and I ended up ditching the digital for the mostpart, for fear of damaging it, but on the Saturday, it wasn’t hard enough to do damage (and I’d popped up to the supermarket and bought some freezer bags to pop over the camera body to further reduce the risk, but the toll it seems to have taken on the images is visible.
Of course, among the disappointment, there are some pretty good shots, and I’m relatively happy with my efforts. I have to admit, I’ve struggled to watch the Flickr Concert Photography photo pool, as people post their best shots of the year, and I realise how far I still have to come, but then I also remember, I only started doing this 3 months ago. It’s a long road, and the only way I’m going to get better is by shooting more and more, and that’s what I plan to do.
I don’t have any gigs lined up ahead of me yet, but I haven’t really been looking. Hopefully something will crop up between Christmas (oh good Lord, I haven’t done any Christmas Shopping) and New Years, and then plenty from there.
So there we are. The Festival of the Sun gallery on kerplode.com has all the shots I’ve processed so far. More should pop up tomorrow, when I get my films back from the lab. Hopefully there will be some good surprises in there. If you’re a fan of The Dawn Collective, Dirty Lucy, The Gin Club, or any of the other bands which played at the festival and their photos aren’t up yet, be patient, I’ll get on that soon enough. Friday, probably.
Tags augie march, Blue King Brown, faker, festival of the sun, fotsun, gig photography, Kid Confucius, photography, photos | no comments
Posted by Andrew
Sun, 17 Dec 2006 07:08:00 GMT
Got back from the big old Festival of the Sun yesterday. It was a great time, and this post is really just a place holder for now. I told a lot of people that I’d have photos up tonight, and I do hope to. For now, you’ll have to be happy with this little post saying that they’re coming. All the digital shots are either on my laptop or on the iMac and I hope to get down to some processing tonight.
Thinking about it some more, some time tomorrow is a lot more likely when the digital shots will be up, as I’ve got an 18th to attend, which I won’t leave until at least 10:30, so that will limit things quite a bit. Of course the film shots all have to be processed, and I put them in today, I’ll get them back on Friday morning.
I have about 1000 shots to sift through from the two days, so it’s going to take me a while. Anyone who is looking for shots of particular bands, drop me a line at andrew@mootpointer.com and I’ll put those on priority for processing and uploading. I’ve never done work of this scale before, so I’m setting myself for some long sessions sitting in front of a screen trying to deal with over-saturated reds and little hiccups from me.
I do, however, think that among the mistakes there were some really good shots. I’m reticent to say that, because I may end up proving myself wrong, but we’ll see.
Tags fotsun, gig photography, music, photography | 1 comment
Posted by Andrew
Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:43:00 GMT
With all my mental preparations for Festival of the Sun, I started thinking about ear protection. I’ve never worn ear plugs at a gig before, but many times I’ve ended up wishing I had. I’m now looking at what will work best for ear protection. I went out to the chemist today and bought some different ear plugs with a mind to choosing which would be best, but seem to have failed on that count, because I’m not really sure which is going to work best. So here I am, turning to my readers, all 15 of you, for help.
Here are the three types I have, and my perceived pros and cons regarding them.
Foam Plugs
Rating: 28.7dB
Pros: Best dampening out of all three, I’ve used them before on stage with a particularly loud drummer. I’ve got a pack of three which will easily last me the weekend, even if I misplace a pair or two.
Cons: They are quite intrusive in terms of the ear canal. I’ve been sitting here with them in, and while they’re very effective at dampening the sound, they’re not really very comfortable. There is also the vanity issue, with them being bright yellow and all. I know I could go out and buy some night skin coloured ones, but this is what I’ve got. Additionally, they do soil, after a couple of uses, they lose their elasticity and generally get icky.
Plastic Flanged Plugs
Rating: 25dB
Pros: Moderate dampening. They come between the foam and the silicone. They’re also easy to use, there’s no rolling or balling or moulding, you just shove them in and you’re away. Also, they have a cord connecting them so they can hang around my neck while not in use, if I so choose. They are slightly more comfortable than the foam plugs, despite their intrusion into the ear canal. They of course, being plastic, are cleanable and completely reusable.
Cons: I only have one set – if I lose them, there are no replacements, I have to fall back to the foam or silicone. So far as vanity goes, they fail. They’re bleeding obvious yellow things sticking out of my ears with a blue cord between them. Aside from that, they still don’t feel natural in the ear, and have a reduced dampening effect.
Silicone Plugs
Rating: 21dB
Pros: Far and away the most comfortable of the three options. They look pretty natural and feel natural. Because they don’t actually intrude on the canal and just seal the external ear. Again, I have three pairs, so losing one isn’t a problem, and they can be boiled to clean and be re-used.
Cons: Lowest dampening rating out of the three, mostly due to the trade-off from not having them actually in the ear canal. I can also see possible problems with sweat causing them to lose stick, or being harder to apply.
So if you have any thoughts or experience, go on, help me out. I want to keep my ears in the best condition possible, but without looking like more of a tool than I need to, or experiencing too much discomfort. I’ll be giving a print of one of my shots from the festival to the contributor I find most helpful.
Fun note for anyone who is interested: this is internally recognised as content 1337 (up until recently, comments were also content.)
Tags gig photography, music, photography | no comments
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