Well this was a very welcome surprise…

I’ve been badgering the Editors’ management for three months now trying to get a photopass confirmed, and it’s finally paid off — I got word at lunchtime that I had a pass waiting for me at the Ironworks for their gig that evening. Rock-climbing can wait…

But all was not plain sailing. I was given the pass to shoot only the main act, and not the support acts. Normally, this isn’t ideal, for various reasons (and it makes for a nice photo-tip for beginners too): The support is an ideal time to get the camera dialled in to the correct settings so there’s less faffing about when it’s important to get the shots right, and it can also lead to getting some good shots of a band on their way to stardom. Where are newspapers and magazines going to get photos of the hottest new bands? From you, that’s who.

Of the two, The Strange Death of Liberal England would be the better of the two bands, but the songs didn’t exactly leave me feeling like I just had to go out and buy their CD. They’re lacking something, and unfortunately I can’t put my finger on what exactly. What they do they do well, but I think they need to start sounding less like other bands and try to develop an identity of their own.

On the other hand, Cold Cave were quite frankly awful. Given the choice of shooting them again, I’d jump at the chance — but I’d be using a Smith and Wesson rather than a Sony A700. In the past, I’d always thought that whenever there were lots of people enjoying something I hated I was the one in the wrong; this time, I know there’s something seriously wrong with the locals…

Anyhow, on to the Editors. They were fantastic, put simply. Although their newer songs are lacking a bit of punch compared to what’s on The Back Room, they went down very well when played live. In addition, the band (and Tom Smith in particular) are very expressive and are a joy to shoot. They’re not usually on the tip of my tongue when listing bands I like, but I’d very much like to see them live again sometime soon.

As usual, more on Flickr!

What a night, and not for the best of reasons. If you don’t like moaning Scotsmen doing what they do best, just look at all the pretty pictures…

Was working yesterday on the normal 9:00am to 5:30pm yesterday, and unfortunately since I can’t drive yet my only means of getting to and from my job is to use buses. Buses which, thanks to Stagecoach being complete and utter morons, seem to come and go at the most inappropriate times. Seriously, who the hell thought it would be a good idea having a bus leave town at twenty-five past five when all the shops close at half past? Why force us to wait another thirty minutes for the next one? And why cut it to one bus an hour after half seven?

Sorry, you’re right, it’s a photoblog, I forgot. The long and short of it is that because of the way the bus times work, there was little point in me heading home; I’d just have to pack up and leave again as soon as I walked in the door to get to the Doll and The Kicks gig at Mad Hatters on time. The alternative is to wait at work (since there were people there to talk to until 8pm), head to the venue when they left, and then hang about in the pub downstairs for an hour or so before the gig, the route I opted to take.

It’s then I find out nothings happening until 9:30 which actually, would have given me enough time to head home for a nice meal and a shower. Hindsight’s a bitch, huh?

10:30 comes along and only now do the support act take to the stage, playing to a near empty room. Apparently, Little Buddha have just about enough pulling power to attract one super fan (to say he was a little bit weird would be in the same league as describing Katie Price is a “little bit annoying”) and a few stragglers from the bar down the stairs.I must admit, if I were to put it kindly I would say I’m not a fan of their music. I’m going to leave it at that.

I was, however, looking forward to DATK. I’d heard some of their tracks on their Myspace page before the gig to get a flavour of what to expect, and it was exactly the kind of music I like — a kind of indie/art-rock/pop hybrid that works very well for the likes of Franz Ferdinand, The Sounds and Deluka, for example. Thanks to all the delays before though, they only took to the stage at 11:15pm — precisely 10mins before the very last bus back home. Roughly, that works out at 2 1/2 songs and an embarrassingly sharpish exit…

Needless to say, I’m going to be investing in some driving lessons and a car very soon, and I’m most definitely going to be looking out for DATK for any other gigs in the area in future, a prospect that doesn’t look very likely due to the abysmal turnout that night. They’re a fantastic band and they deserve a better reception than they got last night.

More on Flickr as usual.

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Unless you’re single, in which case you can not only be jealous of those who have girlfriends and / or boyfriends, but you can read on and be very jealous of me, seeing as I spent my evening in the company of the fantastic Ocean Colour Scene…

Very little else needs said really. The Moons were supporting tonight, and are also worth looking out for if you see them near where you are — a nice mix of ska and britpop got everyone going nicely.

The only downside? Some very odd choices in lighting ruined things a bit for me. Blue with purple doesn’t seem to play well with my camera. I also think I overexposed a few shots, so there’s not as many usable shots as I’d like. C’est la vie.

I did promise it would be a big update. More shots on my Flickr page as normal, Doll and the Kicks next week.

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

Well hello again, long time no see?

I’ve been neglecting my site recently, only visiting to get rid of some of the spam that’s been building up. Between the new job and Modern Warfare 2, I’ve been kept pretty busy. I did manage to sneak in one gig, and one which surprised me. Let me explain.

I’ve photographed The Xylophone Race once before — they were playing at the Ironworks in Inverness sharing the bill with a few other bands — and I couldn’t help but be very impressed. It’s very rare seeing such a young group playing the kind of funk/rock hybrid, and even rarer seeing it played was well as they do. So when they asked if I could shoot a few more shots for them at the Loft in Dingwall, I jumped at the chance.

What I didn’t realize is that Dingwall isn’t really like Inverness when it comes to gigs. Where I expected reasonably sized crowd, with varying lighting and the good ol’ photo pit, I found a room barely bigger than most people’s living rooms filled with beanbags and other soft furnishing in the loft space of a local shop… Oh, and by the way, did I say it was acoustic?

That threw me big-time, and I’m blaming that for the lack of decent shots that night. The lighting was simple to say the least which although made it easy to work with, it didn’t lend itself to good gig photography conditions, and with the small space it was very difficult to move, so I landed up holding my ground nearer the back so I could get access to my gear and not get in everyones way. Unfortunate, because I really enjoyed myself that night — whilst funk rock played acoustic doesn’t sound like a good idea on paper, The Xylophone Race pulled it off, and well.

This was the first ever gig at the Loft (Above the Greenhouse), but it certainly won’t be the last.

I’ve been struck down with one, yet again. I must have been last in line when God was handing out white blood cells to everyone. Every year, I get one at around Standard Grade exam time (although I believe that technically, it’s called Hay Fever, but I’d never joined the dots until recently) and another one as soon as Autumn starts again. I’m absolutely shattered and I have work tomorrow, so I’m going to go to bed after I’ve written this lot out.

Yesterday makes up for the inactivity though. I managed to repair the hard drive that died on me a few weeks ago — the one with all the pictures I’d taken since getting my first digital camera. Thankfully, it was just the caddy that broke, so I removed the drive from the enclosure and swapped it into a new one. All my pictures have now been backed up onto a new 1TB drive, and I’ll probably get another one soon enough to act as the backup’s backup.

I also managed to write a little Bash script to automate putting watermarks on my images. I’ve pretty heavily based it on someone elses script that I cannot find right now, but if anyone wants to try it for themselves, just get in touch. I love Linux and how it makes this kind of thing so easy to do!

Still waiting to hear back from some people about getting pit passes for some gigs coming up; might jar the relevant people again to see if things kick start.

I’ve also re-edited one of my favourite images from the 2008 MTB World Cup. I think it sums up what 4X is all about, and why it’s my absolute favourite discipline to watch. Congrat’s to Steve Peat too, for at long last becoming World Champion — for those not in the know he’s probably the most down-to-earth guys on the circuit, and has been so close to it before he’ll have smelled the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (jersey).

And that’s about it for today. Off to bed now to carry on coughing, trying to breath and generally not get any sleep. The joys…

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…

Again, I was getting some weird looks the other night. This shot was taken in near pitch darkness, with only the streetlamp to the right providing a contsant source of light.

Damn, I’m getting bored with not having any decent gigs just now. Not much going on in my area just now, and I think I’m stuck in a bit of a photographic rut at the moment. I’m thinking it’s time for a new lens…

Well, I was a little bored this evening. Even though I “don’t do landscapes” I decided to go out while the sun was setting and see if I could capture anything interesting. Well, I kinda achieved that one.

I wandered towards the Links and for whatever reason I landed up taking loads of pictures of electricity pylons. For once they actually looked photogenic — normally I go into eco-warrior mode and rant about them ruining Mother Nature’s hard work; same thing happens with wind farms too. I must have looked properly weird to passersby.

Anyway, here’s one of them. There’s a few more shots on my Flickr photostream as well.

Stolen Order Photoshoot in Invergordon

Well, there’s a story to go with this shot, so I’ll tell it. Something else for the blog while I’ve got a bit of a gig drought…

I was asked to do a photoshoot a while ago for Stolen Order, a mate’s band, but it’s only fairly recently we found the time on both sides to do one. I was leaving my previous job, and had two days off before starting my new one (if you think I’m a workaholic, believe me I’m not — I just like money), and they also happened to be meeting to practice that evening. The plan was for everyone to meet for the practice (didn’t happen), then head straight to the guitarist’s house in the town of Milton for a bit of banter, Guitar Hero and boozing.

A little advice. In Milton, camouflage is required for safe passage. You’re best bet is a Kappa tracksuit. Yes, it’s like that.

The sight of my buddies in cowboy boots, bandannas, long (facial) hair and big sunglasses didn’t exactly endear us to the local populace. One of the boys (he’d have been in is mid-teens) offered to fight me there and then (I declined, citing the fact I couldn’t really be bothered) and then followed us right the way back to the house. Thankfully, not much else happened after that, other than us all staying up to 2am getting very drunk and playing Guitar Hero all night.

The next afternoon wasn’t too eventful to start with either. We went to the ferry crossing to Nigg, got a few shots there, none of which were particularly good really. I was getting very bored, very quickly and I was fast running out of ideas for them, which was when the bassist had a ‘good’ idea and asked us to follow him in the car. Now, he was the one that took his time doing everything, and was the reason we were running late, and I believe the reason the practice got cancelled (he didn’t show) so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, and the little tour of Invergordon we were treated to didn’t help my expectations. But when we pulled up to this warehouse… oh yes, all was most certainly forgiven.

It was ideal. The lighting looked really good through all the broken windows, and it fit the band’s mood perfectly. I was much more enthusiastic, and so were the band — this was where the best pics were going to be taken. In fact, I think the one above this was about the best of the lot, and it wasn’t long after that the police showed up.

Shit.

“Just doing a photoshoot for a local band, mate” was the reply to a slightly bemused police constable. He and the WPC with him were called out by a neighbour who’d seen us break in to this warehouse through a gap in the fence, perhaps thinking we were going to be vandalising it more than it already was, or starting a crystal meth production facility, or running some kind of illegal sweat shop making fake Kappa trackies for the locals or something. It’d clearly been abandoned for a long time but I’d no doubt the distillery still owned the buildings. When we were asked if we had permission I was sure we were going to be ejected immediately.

But, we weren’t. The male officer just told us to keep the noise down, leaving us with the words “I wasn’t expecting this when I got the call out”. After all the stuff in the press with photographer’s getting stopped by police for simply taking photographs in public, which by-the-way is a perfectly legal activity, I was sure we’d have been charged with trespass or something — all this time I was thinking about the new job I was starting just the next day, and how I would have so totally screwed it all up if I’d been arrested.

I didn’t get their names. I wish I did now, because they were the best officers I’ve ever met.