After all, synths do rule…
Not long after shooting some portraits with Dreadnaught at Yarr-Fest!, I headed into the Gaelic to soak up the mini-festival for myself. Perth-based band Voyager treated the fairly sizable crowd to some rather awesome sound, combining metal, melodies, fantasy and a little bit of good humour. I really enjoyed it, and I managed to get some shots in too. The lighting was hit and miss, but here are some pics.
Lightning sometimes strikes twice…
Metallica returned to Sydney last week and I was lucky enough to shoot their show again! Armed with a little knowledge of how things ran, I chilled out for the first song (all lasers) and got plenty of shots in the next two. Compared to last time, the atmosphere was electric. My shots were better too I think 
Going Lo-Fi
With all the heavy metal I shoot, it’s easy to forget how much I love punchy, solid post-blues rock. I fell in love with Nat Col and the Kings at a small festival the other month, so I was more than happy to be at the Gaelic last week to cover the band’s joint headline with Indigo Rising, who, incidentally, I found lurking in the back of a club in Kings Cross in July. But I digress! Nat Col and the Kings may be a new band, but it won’t stay that way for long: Nathan Cavaleri (having toured with BB King) and Col Hatchman (of the Screaming Jets) have created something special I reckon, and I eagerly await their first full length album.
Stopping Down…
Buried In Verona were on before Soilwork at the Manning Bar the other week. I really dug their energy, which hopefully shows in these photos.
Lighting was average (if a little better) for this kind of set, so I decided to conduct an experiment: I traded ~2/3 stop of ISO for one stop of aperture. That is, instead of shooting at ISO 1250 and f/2.8, I was going for ISO 2500 and f/4. Essentially I wanted to find out whether the added sharpness afforded by f/4 was worth the extra noise introduced at ISO 2500. It wasn’t, not for my 50D anyway. While the images were slightly sharper (especially at the edges of the frame), the noise in the 50D became much worse. And if a photo needed even a 1/3 stop exposure boost during processing, the shadows showed some nasty artefacts. I’ll be sticking to f/2.8 for ‘dimmer’ shows from now on!
“This one goes out to Jamie, for all his patience today…”
What began as a quick email from Dreadnaught about my shots of their Exodus support, resulted in some quick-n-dirty-back-alley portrait shots and a personal song dedication on the Sydney leg of their current Oblivion tour. Now how metal is that?
“Well well well Sydney, what do we have here?!”
Soilwork, like many of the touring metal acts I’ve been shooting recently, have been around for a little while. Since 1995 in fact, and it showed in the crowd they drew to the Manning on Friday. Lighting was pretty dim for the most part, although every minute or so a couple of moving lights swung a beam of burning white light across each side of the stage – see if you can spot which photos were taken on one of these occasions (here’s a clue: most of them).
Merrily blinding the opening act with Speedlites
Anno Domini, aptly displaying all the hairwhipping you’d expect from a band of their genre, were first on stage to support Mayhem the other week at the Factory Theatre. The lighting that night was dire, but I happily went ahead and shot most of Anno Domini with flash, given that no one had told me not to. I’ve come to realise that as a rock photog you’ve got to just go ahead and do what you need to do until you’re told that you can’t do it. It wasn’t long before security put me right, but here are some of the better shots (most of them with flash, funnily enough). If only bands knew how far flash goes in making them look good in poor lighting conditions, maybe they’d allow it more often. Probably not though.
“And this here is our message to the pope!”
Mayhem probably don’t believe in God, but they do believe in on-stage props. Do a YouTube search and you’ll find videos of frontman Attila Csihar wielding a pig’s head on the end of a pole, for example. Admittedly this Norwegian black metal band weren’t on my music radar, but had I done some research beforehand – in fact, had I simply known that the bassist’s name was Necrobutcher – then I wouldn’t have been so surprised at Attila’s outfit: a blood-soaked monk’s cassock and a latex mask dripping in, well, more blood. There was a noose too, and an inverted crucifix.
Red lights and a really pushy moshpit (no barrier) made this shoot pretty difficult, but life isn’t all stadiums and followspots now is it?
More reasons than you might think!
Ask someone why you should consider buying a battery grip for your DSLR and they’re likely to come up with one or more of the following three reasons: i) a more natural grip for vertical shooting, ii) increased battery life, and iii) the fact that, when viewed from a distance by a partially-sighted individual, you might be construed as owning a big boys’ camera such as the Canon 1D or Nikon D3. But having purchased my first battery grip recently – a Canon BG-E2N for my 50D, and about time too – I have discovered that there is at least one other important reason. So here is my complete list of benefits, with a brief explanation of each…
Thrashing at the Manning
Since forming in 1980, Exodus have worked there way through nearly as many band members as albums. Still, there was no denying a strong fan base earlier this month when I popped along to the Manning to take some photos. This band actually shares a link with my last post, given that one of the founding members of Exodus was Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett. Well waddyaknow, you learn something new every day!
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