This past weekend I headed over to a local community centre to shoot some alternative and metal bands from Ottawa, Kingston and Belleville areas.
Like almost any shoot I’ve done, I learned a valuable lesson (i.e. made a horrible mistake). This time it was that I shouldn’t be a wimp and leave my flash in the car to save some weight in my bag. When the first band, Below Your Feet, started to play the lights went down and I was left with a couple of small red floodlights lighting the band…. uh-oh. So I maxed out my settings and tried to see what I could do. It turns out that wasn’t much. I ended up with a bunch of silhouettes, shadows and some blurry pictures of the singer. Sorry guys, next time I’ll know better.
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| One Acre War |
Once I realized there was no hope of getting a shot in these conditions I ran to get my flash for the next band, One Acre War.
I watched these guys setup and saw the guitar player lower his mic stand to about 3 feet off the ground. So I think to myself “guess he’s not singing”… WRONG! In actual fact he needed the mic that low so that he could pull off this kick ass rock stance. Awesome.
Next up was The Lost City from Kingston, followed by Skies Beneath from Ottawa. It was awesome to have these guys travel to Belleville to play. And play they did!
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| The Lost City |
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| Skies Beneath |
These next guys, Rise Of The Brave, I’d heard about and had been meaning to get out to see for a while. For one reason or another I missed their shows, so I’m glad I got finally got to see them play.
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| Rise Of The Brave |
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| Rise Of The Brave |
The final band of the night, Equalizer, also from Ottawa closed out the show with quite a set. Nobody could ever blame any of these bands, especially Equalizer of having no energy on stage!
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| Equalizer |
All in all it was an awesome night. The only downside for me was that I didn’t take enough time to just enjoy the show. Another lesson for me to learn I guess. I just have so much fun capturing the bands that before I know it they’re done playing!
Anyway, do yourself a favour and go check out these bands whenever you can. Get out and support local music, Like their Facebook pages, buy their CDs, check out their Reverbnation pages… just support local music!
These are some of my favourite shots from the night, but there are lots more from this show are available
on my website.
Also, here are the Facebook pages for these bands. Go check them out. Do it. Now!
As you can probably tell, this blog is pretty new. I will be adding to it as much as possible, posting new pictures etc. Let me know what you think! If you’d like me to come shoot your band let me know. Also feel free to leave a comment, send me an email, Facebook message, write me a letter, break out the old telegraph… you get the idea (click the About link above for more contact info).
