Reamonn @ The Rockhal
What a nice way to start the season…….. I photographed Reamonn before at a festival. When I heard they were coming back I knew I wanted to see and photograph their show again. The Irish-German band played for the first time in 1999 and became famous with their hit single: Supergirl.
Photographically it was quite tough for a start. I was only allowed to photograph two songs and the light was varying from very bright to very dark. I used the 28-75 F2.8 only as I felt with only two songs I did not want to wast time switching objectives.
You can see the rest of the pictures below in the flickr gallery or by clicking here.
Pale Obsession band promo shoot.
We had only 3 days to prepare the shoot, the location was only confirmed the afternoon of the shoot, some gear that we needed was still on it’s way from Germany, and this was our first band shoot ……. all these elements and the lack of precious sleep created quite a sense of pressure that day.
But in the end we’ve had a lot of fun, and the result was well worth the effort. The location was the Rockhal Club in Luxembourg/Belval and it’s entry hall which provided us with a total of 4 sets. For these sets we used quite some gear: 2 Canon 5d’s, 24-105F4L, 70-200F2.8L, 17-40F4L, 15mm F2.8 Fisheye, 3 Flashguns Elinchrom D-Lite 4′s and 2 continuous lights, 2 Elinchrom remote triggers, 1 Flash as a back light, reflectors and a fog machine (thanks guys), and some HLS’s ….. thanks Mick and Tania.
It turned out to be a great experience, the guys from Pale Obsession were great and very patient. We’ve had some trouble in finding the right light setup for the fog and I wish we’ve had one or two more flashguns for the more complex shots, but in the end there was nothing we couldn’t handle and by having to deal with the gear at hand made us learn some interesting stuff.
Check out Pale Obsession on iTunes, and keep your eyes open for the release of their new CD.
Make sure you check out the rest of the pictures on the slideshow below or here:
Summer Break
Well we’re here, ….. the summer break. Concert planning is running at it’s slowest pace here in Luxembourg. The last three weeks were mental, non stop concerts, long hours of waiting for the bands to start, photographing the support acts, editing the pictures, facing picture theft and so on. It was a tough time but I enjoyed every single minute of it. It was very rewarding in terms of publications, contacts and public exposure in general.
The video below is Pale Obsession’s CD release trailer, made with various photographs from our photo session (post to follow).
That being said now it’s time to take it easy for a while and spend some quality time with family and friends. Leaving on a trip pretty soon and looking forward to snap some shots of things a bit different than performing artists. Although I am still wondering how to fix a D-Lite4 with it’s Battery Pack in the middle of a “Via Ferrata” without killing myself or anybody else in the process……….. If somebody’s done it before and is reading this, … any piece of advice is welcome
I’ll also spend a tiny amount of time on some other projects with InFocus. We were quite busy getting everything up and running in the new studio. But after the first two or three sessions in there I think I can say that we’re there. Lately requests have been increasing exponentially which is nice but it also takes it’s toll
Something …. different
Well I know this is not usually what I post on here, but I found myself at the FedCon yesterday and I have to admit that I was somewhat ……… surprised. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun. I actually got a shot of Kandyse McClure (that’s Lt Duall or Dee from Battlestar Galactica) and my wife together. (I promised not to post it), she’s a very nice person by the way. Other than that there were a lot of fans, shops and a lot of people from TV shows that we all watch, …..
Photographically it was ok. The challenge here is that it’s a live event spreading over 3 days (I spend an afternoon there). Everything is happening very fast and without pre-warning. Light’s really bad and yellowish. And there’s tons of people. It changes quite a bit from concert photography but hey, …… who doesn’t like change. It was supposed to be a non photographic weekend, but I couldn’t resist.
EWS Band Promo
EWS (Everwaiting Serenade) was the first concert that I’ve shot. When I was done taking my pictures I really had big doubts. I was used shooting in the studio with controlled light and rather static subjects. The result was not as bad as I had feared and the band really enjoyed the shots.
Fastforward to last month, we’re in touch for a Band shoot. They were in dire need of some shots for various supports. It took us a month to find the correct location for the shoot. We decided for 3 locations and several sets at each.
The studio shoot was the first one. The Canon 5D was used along with the 24-105F4L, 70-200F2.8L and 50F1.8 lenses. Elinchrom flashes with a Beauty Dish and small 60×60 Softbox, a Walimex flash for the background or backlight depending on the setup. And finally some reflectors for fill light here and there.
The second location was the restaurant “Opium“, we’ve had an hour for our 3 sets so things went quite fast there. We were done in 35 minutes which allowed us to shoot a 4th set and squeeze some portrait shots in. Here we used a combination of Elinchrom strobes with a softbox and a beauty dish. The people at “Opium” were very nice and had a lot of patience. Shooting there was a blast.
Make sure you check out the rest of the pictures on the slideshow below or here:
Sometimes ……
I often flag pictures when I do my selection so that when I’ve delivered them to the publisher I remember which one might be worth spending some time with in post processing. I was drawn to this picture from the first time I’ve seen it out of the camera. I started to play around with it, converted it to duo-tone and back, black and white until I came up with this high contrast version. This is easily one of my favorite concert shots I’ve taken so far. The concert itself was special to me and I’d like to believe that I had some “help” when I pressed the shutter release on this one.
Merci Maya ….
Check this out…..
I usually don’t do this, but in this case I’ll make an exception. William Fitzsimmons’ CD is really incredible. It’s been a long time since I’ve listened that much to a CD. You can listen to it here.
Motorpsycho @ Atelier
I know I’ve said it before but this one tops everything I’ve photographed until today. Lighting was close to non-existing. And whatever there was, was blue, red or white, or all three together for that matter.
Another one for the last concert.
This is one of my favorite shots of the concert. The rest can be found here.
Julien Doré @ Atelier
Julien Doré @ Atelier. The rest of the pictures can be seen in the gallery here.
Abba – The Show @ Rockhal
Yesterday I went to photograph my first concert. It was ….. a challenge. The lightning conditions changed very quickly and into extremes. But it was a lot of fun. Here’s one of the photographs. You can find the whole gallery here.
Star Wars Exhibition
I went to Brussels last weekend to visit “Star Wars – The Exhibition”. I liked it a lot, it was a bit small tough and I missed some of my favourites there. It was worth the trip anyway. I will post a few pics as they come along.
The conditions were horrible (for photography) so bear with me on the quality of these. They were all shot at around 1/25 (without tripod) at ISO 3200.
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