In any case it was a wonderful evening once again and I can't wait to see them again next year!
Dog Eat Dog are currently on tour to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their album All Boro Kings and stopped off at ((szene)) - something I could not miss of course! Opening for them were Time for Pride, Cannonball Ride and No Silence For Sale. I met up with the guys from Cannonball Ride to do some promo before the show and I think we got a couple of good shots around the venue - we used the concert hall and a barricade, the local train station exit and the roof / wall of the backstage area: They're a great bunch of guys and I really enjoyed working with them and hanging out. I hope to see more of them soon! They were as great live as they had been on the previous occasions I have seen them. Time for Pride also played a great set as always, looks like they are really getting into their new (heavier) direction. Dog Eat Dog were awesome as always. They played an extra long set and the crowd (quite a lot of people surprisingly for the 1st of May on a beautiful warm evening) just loved it. I had a setlist because there were a couple of songs I was supposed to be ready on stage for specific shots but that all went out the window when John basically let it flow and played things in random order... In any case it was a wonderful evening once again and I can't wait to see them again next year!
0 Comments
atwork (www.atwork.at) is a small IT company that does consultancy and implementation of cloud strategies, web portals, social media campaigns, other web-oriented stuff and also software development and business solution development. They needed pictures of their employees for their website and got into touch with me due to the shoot I had done of Microsoft people a few weeks ago. The shoot took place at their office which is inside a shopping center - we used two sliding doors for some basic portraits and then moved to a walkway above the shopping area as well as a hallway in the back. Before the shoot, Carina (www.feengleich-makeup.com) did some light touch-up work on everyone who was willing - this was the first time I had worked with her and I am really happy it worked out so well. Efficiency is the name of the game and she was quick and thorough which meant we could get on with shooting almost immediately after my setup, which was one light as a hairlight and two as key/fill (f/3.2, 1/125s, 50mm, ISO 200). After the initial portraits, we used the well-lit walkway to do some full body shots - one light set to 1/4 as backlight and one in a softbox at 1/8 as key (f/2.2, 1/200s, 50mm, ISO 100): Then we went into the corridor and used a single light in a reflective umbrella to produce some more portraits in landscape orientation, you can see the setup as well (f/3.5, 1/200s, 100mm, ISO 400):
Biohazard was playing as part of the Rebellion Tour and I sorted out a short promo shoot with them - unfortunately, due to it being the first gig of the tour, everything was a little crazy and so the actual shoot happened literally 2 minutes before they needed to go on stage. I had been waiting for 45 minutes for it to happen but did not have the chance to really shoot any tests, so in the end I just had to hope I got it right... here it is: It was shot at f/5.6, 1/160s, ISO 400, 25mm with a blue gelled Speedlite at 1/2 as backlight and two Speedlites at 1/4 as key and fill - here's a setup shot: And then there was the gig itself of course! Great show as always, absolutely explosive and full of energy! Archetype Apparel (www.dresslikeasir.com) is back with new stuff for summer! And all of it looks pretty damn fine if you ask me. So we set up an outdoor shoot at Arena and advertised for a bunch of models with the plan of having really summery pictures although it is just mid-April. Anyway, as often happens in April, the weather took a turn for the worse and we had to move the shoot – luckily a location was found… unfortunately it was a cellar. With no light. And no space. But hey, this is where the fun happens, right? “Oh, by the way,” my good friends Tom and Dani say, “we still want the summery look, OK?” Sure. Let’s do it. We’ll just ignore the fact that the motion-activated cellar light turns off every 10 minutes (not that it was much of a light anyway, just a single bulb). We’ll also ignore the fact that the actual space to work in is about 67 square centimetres. However, on the bright side (pun intended), there were 4 fixed lights there which we were able to use to at least provide a bit of ambient. Here is the setup taken on the phone as I was trying to work my (limited) magic: So I set up a Speedlite shooting through the umbrella as my main light and then bounced an orange-gelled Speedlite off the ceiling and back wall trying to emulate evening sunlight. Finally I threw in a hairlight at the back, also gelled orange, just to give it a bit more flood. The pics are actually edited minimally in Lightroom and then I threw a very light fog and glamour glow filter over them in Color Efex. I’m quite happy with the look - and more importantly so are Dani and Tom!
I was specifically told that we were going for more fun than the standard fashion pictures. I am also not really one to do fashion photography so that suited me just fine – especially since I got such positive feedback from the last couple of Archetype Apparel shoots. So here are a couple of the friendlier ones: Virginia Ernst is a singer / songwriter (check her out at https://www.facebook.com/OfficialVirginiaErnst) who I met while shooting at the Fitfabrik a few weeks back. We got into talking and she asked me whether I would be available for promoshots... guess what my answer was? So I met up with Virginia to get some shots for her new single "Rockin'" - the song has references to a train and therefore we decided to meet up at a train station to get some shots in on the rails and possibly on the platform. It was a bit overcast so almost ideal for this kind of stuff, and Virginia was happy to walk and jump on the rails - which is what I had initially envisioned as the best place for the CD cover: I used the trusty 70-200 for this shot and edited it a little bit in Color Efex in order to get the faded look. I tried a different look as well below in order to have it a bit more contrasty and cinematic: I thought we had some nice stuff here but we also wanted a couple of shots on the platform so we tried that as well - and it turned out to be perfect! There was absolutely nobody there and we were able to use the whole length of the platform. I changed to the 50mm lens though because I wanted to see if I could get good use out of f/2.0: It was important to get the clock into the shot as there is a reference to 7:30 in the song - the final image had a bit of editing done on the fly by my friend Dani Hofer. I used Color Efex again to get the faded summery look. Anyway the one that made it finally is actually this one which is a little on the soft side but that makes the text stand out perfectly: Let me know what you think. I'm quite happy with the result.
Devastating Enemy decided to call it quits and of course that meant a special farewell show which I did not want to miss! They were opened for by Eyes in the Void, Emily's Bleeding and Sensylis who all put on great sets. The final performance by Devastating Enemy was something else though. Really glad I got to see it! My favourite shot of the night is the first one, showing them lifting off to go back to their home planet... Frostbite Bookings is putting on a free festival in September and urgently needed someone to shoot a promo picture for their poster / flyer. An appeal for help on facebook yielded a quick arrangement to meet on Sunday morning at the Donauinsel - their idea being that we could get a shot done that would have a summer feel to it, even though it was only 10 degrees out.
The sun was producing extreme glare and it was quite hazy so I really had to overpower it severely using flash. Three Speedlites, one of them gelled orange, as well as a gold reflector provided enough counterbalance to the sun. I placed my models facing at an angle to it and shot a bunch of different pics - the below shot being the one they chose and have edited for their simple initial online promo. The All Austrian Metal Night was brought into existence by a few people highly committed to supporting Austrian music - the idea being to offer a platform for Austrian bands to perform in a party atmosphere. This was the 10th time it was being held and they had a special treat in terms of lineup and location in for us: ((szene)) hosted Fly Ash Return, Aeons of Ashes, Prometheus, Eneera and Black Inhale, which drew quite a crowd! I hadn't heard of the first two bands yet but was pleasantly surprised by their quality - both presented quite a good set and brought a bunch of people into the concert hall. Prometheus then blew me away once again - their live performance is perfect in every way and is singularly about the music. Eneera powered their way through their set once again and really gave us an aural beatdown before Black Inhale played a brilliant mix of favourites and new songs which they will be recording soon for a CD release later this year. All in all a great night and I got a couple of keepers... Cannonball Ride cordially requested my presence at their first gig in 2014, where they would be opening for Napalm Death and Hatebreed - I couldn't really say no, now could I? A short trip to Linz ensued where I had arranged to do promo with Napalm Death before the show so my time was certainly well spent! A quick aside regarding ND: I believe the last time I saw them live was in 1992 together with Obituary, performing at the Rockhaus in Vienna. I do remember enjoying it extremely from the front row. I got even closer this time! So. Posthof Linz turns out to be quite a cool venue - probably because it houses all kinds of performances and it therefore has to be kept in good nick for the non-metal performers... anyway, the smaller hall has a gallery running around it and I thought that would lend itself to some shots. Two Speedlites aimed up from the ground level (gallery was at about 5 metres height) and one Speedlite behind the band as hair/rim light. On to the show itself. I am cursing myself at this point for not having looked for and spoken to the lighting technician. There was ZERO frontlighting for Cannonball Ride and Napalm Death. Cannonball Ride was basically smoke and backlighting, Napalm Death skipped the smoke. Hmph. Anyway, in the vein of making something of nothing, I did a lot of processing on the pictures to get to something I could use: During Hatebreed suddenly the lights came on, so I got some more standard stuff during their set:
Christopher Seiler is quickly gaining in popularity in the Austrian comedy scene. He has recently been very present on YouTube with his Horvath character and also has produced a couple of episodes in a series called Schichtwechsel. Shooting stand-up was something new for me, especially since movement is extremely restricted in order to allow the seated audience to enjoy the show. Even the clicking of the camera can be disruptive so I had to make sure I was not shooting the whole time. I ended up using the EOS M from my seat in the front row as well as from either side of the stage and the 5DIII with a 70-200 from the back of the venue and the lighting balcony. The show was brilliant - even more so than I had expected and I found myself having difficulty concentrating on photography at times... some of the pictures had to be thrown out due to motion blur caused by me laughing... |
My Photoblog
Just a place to log my photographic activities and share some thoughts. Archives
November 2015
Categories
All
|