Hello kid’s, Happy New Year and all that. Back to the hard life of a gig photographer…

I’d never been in Mad Hatter’s before last night. In fact, I didn’t know where it was, despite me having lived in this area all my life — it’s only very recently I found out it was the second floor of Hootenanny’s in Inverness. The inaugural Rawk Night was held over a year ago at the Ironworks and although it wasn’t my first stab at live music photography, it was the first in a proper, purpose built venue. It was the night the bug was bitten.

Fast forward a little while and we have a change of venue, but the band’s are virtually identical with Stolen Order and Ketimine Deco taking to the rather small stage (The Xylophone Race are absent this time). Mad Hatter’s, as it turns out, isn’t a patch on the Ironworks for lighting and size but it certainly betters it for atmosphere.

Some fairly standard challenges to contend with here — and some weirder ones too. Because the stage was so small, microphone stands and cables were everywhere and it made it incredibly difficult to get good clutter-free shots. Worse were the speaker’s to the side and the lack of illumination on the periphery of the stage — unless someone was in the middle, they were not possible to photograph! Still, I managed with that.

Weirder was crowd members oohing and aahing at the photos as I quickly checked them between songs, or the young couple getting me to model their hat’s as I crouched in front of them. A good response mind you — I’d get pretty pissed off if I had some pillock running about in front of them while I’m trying to enjoy some music…

So, that’s the warm-up done. Keep your eyes peeled in February for the main act, coming soon to a web-browser near you, and while you’re waiting you can see the rest of the shots on Flickr

First thoughts? Well, it’s better built than my Sigma lenses I can tell you that. Feels really nice to use, and although you do need to stop it down a little bit to get the best from it (as with many zooms, to be fair) you can get some very clear and sharp images. I’m now desperately trying to find any excuse to get out and use it…

In the meantime, while I get my act together, why not check out my Flickr photostream, or perhaps follow me on Twitter @thomasbisset