David Emery Online2008 Greek riots
Brilliant photos from The Big Picture, as always. From a photographers point a view it’s interesting to note that some of the best photos in the series are technically quite poor – out of focus or very noisy. It’s always worth a reminder that it’s the moment you’re capturing that’s most important, not how you do it.
Visit ➔How to be a gig photographer pt.2
Time for part 2 of ‘How to be gig photographer’ – part 1 can be found here.
In part 1 I talked about the kit – camera, lenses and flashes – and a little bit about technique, and now I’m going to finish up by talking about post-processing which might be more important then you think; while you can’t process a bad photo into a good one, you can certainly make a good one even better.
But first there’s a little bit of gear to talk about that I left out of the last instalment – memory cards. Like batteries, you can never have too many memory cards – they’re getting cheaper all the time so there’s no excuse not to have plenty. At the moment, 4GB cards are the sweet spot (for compact flash cards, at least); obviously you want the largest size card you can get, so you don’t have to keep changing them, but 8GB cards are still a bit overpriced (no doubt if you’re reading this in 6 months they’ll be the ones to go for). I carry 3 4GB cards around with me when I’m photographing a gig – each card gets me about 400 shots...
Read more ➔How to be a gig photographer
I’ve had a couple of people recently ask me what gear I use for photographing gigs and how I go about it, so I thought that I’d write it all up here in a 2 part mini-series. Now, I’m not going to pretend I really know what I’m doing by any stretch, but hopefully some of this will give you a pointer in the right direction.
In this post I’m going to talk about the important bit – taking the photographs – and hence what I use to do it.
Unsurprisingly enough, I use a Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera, specifically the Canon 4ooD. The reasons for using a DSLR over a normal compact camera are legion, but for gig photography the key reason is the imaging sensor: the sensor (basically the digital equivalent of film – it’s the thing that actually captures the image) in a DSLR is far larger than that in a compact, and having a larger sensor means that you get less noise (or grain) in your photos.
Noise is probably...
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Making Iron Man
Beautiful set of behind the scenes photos from the set of Iron Man, taken by Jeff Bridges (who played the villain in said film).
Visit ➔TVotR
Last Wednesday I tootled down to Shepherds Bush Empire to see the wonderful TV On The Radio, supported by the intriguing The Big Pink.
I’m quite a fan of The Big Pink’s ‘Too Young To Love’ – which can be heard on their MySpace – so it was good to check them out again after seeing them at Concrete and Glass last month. I think I may prefer them slightly on record then live, but that’s not to say they’re not worth a watch – it comes across as a quite post-modern mix of shoegaze and electro, with maybe a hit of new rave for good measure. Showgaze is officially back in now, so they may well go far.
TV On The Radio were – of course – brilliant, although slightly encumbered by the dodgy sound that is ever present at the Empire; stand near the front and you’re fine, but anything past about half-way back and it turns into a muddy mess. Nevertheless TVotR were a tight ball of thunderous energy, playing a varied set that encompassed much of their illustrious back catalogue. Exceptional.
My Game Face
Brilliant photography series of children concentrating whilst playing computer games. Interestingly enough, they’re actually stills from video captured via a RED ONE camera – the line between video and photography is getting ever more blurred…
Visit ➔RED Camera: I'm RED with ENVY
You want to shoot 24mp images at 100 frames per second? OK. And you want the system to be 100% modular so you never have to buy an entirely new “camera” again? Check. And, you probably want to use all your Nikon, or Canon, or PL mount lenses too? No problem.
I really, really want one of these – they’re just stunning. Anyone got a spare $25,000 I could borrow? I’m good for it, I swear…
Visit ➔Weekend
Last night I had the fortune of trekking over to the Forum in Kentish Town to see Vampire Weekend with support from El Guincho and Wild Beasts. Oddly enough I’ve never made it to the Forum before – one of those quirks of fate I guess – but I can’t help but feel that with the Astoria closing soon we’re all going to end up there a bit more.
El Guincho was up first and was very good – lots of fun, Spanish-tinged beats; obviously more suited to a smaller, more intimate venue with a party crowd but still good never the less. Wild Beasts, while I think winning over the crowd a little better, wasn’t as successful. They’re a very ‘marmite’ band – mainly to the slightly inexplicable quantity of mildly painful falsetto employed – and while I can take it in single track doses I think it wanes slightly over the length of a full set.
Vampire Weekend – of course – utterly dominated. I saw them late last year in a tiny venue and the amount they’ve progressed in that time is amazing, and they’re weren’t half band to start off with. Their summer of festival playing has really...
Read more ➔Out East
This is a little bit late – blame the much needed holiday I’ve just taken – but a couple of weeks ago was the inaugural Concrete and Glass festival, which took place in a range of venues across East London.
It was a resounding success – no mean feat for a festival in its first year, it must be said. Unlike most similar events – think SXSW, Great Escape and Camden Crawl – as well as the music component there’s the art side as well, with a whole host of galleries and artist participating. I had a mild sense of trepidation about the art contingent – was it going to be poncy, bad art? – but what I saw was really quite impressive, especially the main ‘Heart of Glass’ show in Shoreditch Town Hall basement which contained a whole variety of delights.
However, that’s not to say that the music side was in anyway inferior – it was definitely the best ‘city’ festival line-up I’ve seen this year, packing an extremely varied collection of musicians. From people you’ve not heard of (but worth hearing) to something utterly odd (but extremely enjoyable) finishing with something you already love it pretty much...
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