Time for something a little more light-hearted:
7 horrible ways the universe can destroy us without warning - on Cracked.com
Well, thank you, cracked.com. I have been noticing a serious lack in Lovecraftian horror in my life, and I sleep to much anyway.
4/13/2011
10 beginner's rules for photographing a live band
Last weekend I was asked to take photographs of a small band festival in a tiny club. It was a strange thing, 15 bands with a 15 minutes set each. As a part of the audience I would have found it exhausting, but it was a good opportunity to shoot a lot of bands on stage in only a short time (insert random Dimebag Darrell joke here) and add a few lessons to my limited experience. I’m only a self taught photographer, and not a very good one, but my own ignorance has never kept me from talking, so here are my 10 beginner's rules for photographing live bands:
1. Use the appropiate tools
Digital single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras of the smaller, simpler kind have become quite affordable. The Nikon D40, for example, is a decent, light-weight SLR camera you can get for the price of 4 - 6 weekends of not getting horribly wasted. And no, your cell phone camera is not sufficient, smartass.
2. Talk to the band before the show
Inform them that you’re going to photograph, especially if they don’t know you yet. Give them the opportunity to be prepared. Chances are they will pose a bit more than usual, although they won’t admit it. They will be less irritated if you try to get close when they already know what you’re up to. And don’t act like a pro if you don’t have that much experience, that’s just fucking embarrassing for everyone.
3. Avoid flash light
Like an iPhone, a small club gig is not the right place for flash. Flash photography is reserved for U2 concerts and press conferences. In a small club, you’ll be very close to the stage, so the flash will kill the colored light show on your photos, making everyone look like a deer caught in the headlights. Instead of using flash, increase the ISO level. Don't mind a little grain on an otherwise great shot.
4. No auto-focus
It will mostly focus on the wrong spots, anyway. If the musicians move abruptly, the auto-focus won’t be able to keep track. Nothing is more frustrating than missing a good picture because the camera won’t trigger. Which leads us to...
5. Don’t spend ages adjusting your camera settings
Seriously, you’ll miss the show. Better a flawed shot at the right moment than a perfectly composed, technically brilliant masterwork that shows absolutely nothing exciting. If you have the time, work out your settings before the show, when the lights are on, and learn how to adapt quickly.
6. Try to capture the experience
The only way to do this is capturing the band in visible motion. Play with the exposure time on your camera. Work out the shutter speed you need to get reasonably sharp pictures of inanimate objects like amps, mic stands etc. while jumping or dancing band members will have a nice, soft motion blur. For the fuck of it, shoot a couple of pictures with long exposure, especially if the light show is good. You never know what might come out of it. Of course this works best if the band is actually moving. That’s why I like shooting punk and hardcore bands - there’s always some fat idiot jumping, beating up the audience or ramming his head into a speaker.
7. Be artistic
The band probably has a shitload of boring pics of them playing together on stage. Why repeat what their moms, girlfriends and parole officers have done hundreds of times before? Do something different. Take them one after another, wait for a wicked pose or a cool light effect which makes them look like the goddamn Green Goblin. Experiment with the depth of field, shoot them slumped over their bass guitar behind an out-of-focus mic stand, or focus on the stand and use the guy behind as a blurry texture. Because that’s the kind of photo that will appear on their Myspace page.
 |
| Avoid this situation at all cost. |
Don’t prance around in front of the stage with your camera from beginning to end. The people came to see the band, not your ugly old mug. Limit yourself to 10 or 15 minutes, either at the start or the end of the set. This rule does not apply if the crowd completely consists of obnoxious assholes, and if you are bigger and stronger than all of them. In that case, annoy the hell out of them fuckers.
9. Send the photos to the band where they belong
This should be a no-brainer, but still - write down their e-mail address and send them the pictures. Even if you just did the job for practice. Even if you think the pictures are not that good, you can still weed out the worst of them beforehand. Young amateur bands carve attention. Most of them interact with only a very small scene, so they’re happy about every new face that appears at their shows. They will be grateful for your work, even it might not be perfect. They will keep you in good memory as that weird guy who showed up, listened to their music and gave them cool photos in return.
10. Do not take money from a band unless you’re actually good
I can't stress this enough, people. Professionals are expensive because they spent years learning how to do their job. Every local music scene knows people who act like they’re crack recording engineers, graphic designers, or photographers, when in reality they have no fucking clue how to do it right. I once made the mistake of recording a band for money because I thought I knew how it was done in theory. Although I didn’t charge much then, I still cringe when I think of the result. Since then I learned a lot about recording, but I still wouldn’t take more from a band than what I need for my own expenses. At least with photography you don't waste the bands time, but if you have to practice with a real band to get better (and you will) then please have the common courtesy to do it for free.
Update: Not that I thought I'd be the first one to address this topic, but there are loads of sites about band photography that go into a little more detail. Check them out if you're interested.
4/08/2011
Overrated
Finding the Beatles “overrated” seems to be some kind of important cultural trend right now. Like angsty vampire movies, brain-melting reality TV shows and Auto-Tune. I’ve read a fierce debate on some website, fueled by teenage hipsters who confused their shitty taste in music with being “controversial”. Because, this one time, on their way to band camp, they had to listen through almost three complete Beatles songs in Daddy’s van before they could ram their fucking Linkin Park CD into the stereo. And they really sucked ass.
By the way, calling Linkin Park “rock music”, now that’s overrating done with style.
By the way, calling Linkin Park “rock music”, now that’s overrating done with style.
4/05/2011
5 things I hate about warm weather
Now that I’m halfway over Emma, time for some good old manly complaining. As I mentioned, springtime is here, weather is getting warmer and I sooner or later I will have to deal with one or more of the following inconveniences.
1. House music blasting out of cars
Occasionally you can also see this in winter - windows open, heating system cranked up to the max, speakers blaring. As soon as it gets warm, this becomes a real pest. Younger folks prefer house music (why, people? It’s 2011), but there will always be the odd 55-year old in a convertible, struck by impotence and midlife crisis, with music that can’t be cool in anyone’s book. Look, nobody is going to envy you for your expensive stereo as long as your car is a rusty pile of scrap metal. And your music sucks hard. See that girl, there? She didn’t smile. She laughed. At you.
2. Lack of pockets
I’ll soon have to start leaving the house without a jacket in the morning. This wouldn’t be half bad if I knew where to put all my stuff. Cell phone, keys, smokes, my collection of useless business cards, intergalactic translator, hunting knife... honestly, if I get attacked by a mutant alligator between April and August, I’m pretty much fucked.
3. Noisy kids
They have to walk everywhere, they never shut the fuck up and they think the world is revolving around them. They don’t work or help their poor mothers in the house, so they have all the time in the world to piss you off. So, if there is some kind of open-air party or festival, they will go there before you can, annoy you at the festival by getting wasted and being unable to hold their liquor, and they will not go home before you’re already in bed. As sure as a bear craps in the woods, they will pass your house on the way home and scream about how fucking magnificient they are. Standing on the balcony all night with a replica gun in your hands doesn’t help, unless you look like Charlton Heston. I tried it.
4. Scantily clad, well built men on the streets
As a modern, cosmopolitan man (yeah right) I am not uncomfortable with male bodies. But they make me look worse in comparison, and that has to fucking stop.
5. Scantily clad, well built girls on the streets
Wait. I actually don’t have a problem with that.
1. House music blasting out of cars
Occasionally you can also see this in winter - windows open, heating system cranked up to the max, speakers blaring. As soon as it gets warm, this becomes a real pest. Younger folks prefer house music (why, people? It’s 2011), but there will always be the odd 55-year old in a convertible, struck by impotence and midlife crisis, with music that can’t be cool in anyone’s book. Look, nobody is going to envy you for your expensive stereo as long as your car is a rusty pile of scrap metal. And your music sucks hard. See that girl, there? She didn’t smile. She laughed. At you.
2. Lack of pockets
I’ll soon have to start leaving the house without a jacket in the morning. This wouldn’t be half bad if I knew where to put all my stuff. Cell phone, keys, smokes, my collection of useless business cards, intergalactic translator, hunting knife... honestly, if I get attacked by a mutant alligator between April and August, I’m pretty much fucked.
 |
| Summertime, bitches. |
They have to walk everywhere, they never shut the fuck up and they think the world is revolving around them. They don’t work or help their poor mothers in the house, so they have all the time in the world to piss you off. So, if there is some kind of open-air party or festival, they will go there before you can, annoy you at the festival by getting wasted and being unable to hold their liquor, and they will not go home before you’re already in bed. As sure as a bear craps in the woods, they will pass your house on the way home and scream about how fucking magnificient they are. Standing on the balcony all night with a replica gun in your hands doesn’t help, unless you look like Charlton Heston. I tried it.
4. Scantily clad, well built men on the streets
As a modern, cosmopolitan man (yeah right) I am not uncomfortable with male bodies. But they make me look worse in comparison, and that has to fucking stop.
5. Scantily clad, well built girls on the streets
Wait. I actually don’t have a problem with that.
4/04/2011
Jules Winfield obviously never had a hamster
More than two weeks have passed without anything worth to make fun of, but the last weekend had initially some potential. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, and we managed to spend most of our time outside. I had a couple of hilarious conversations, saw a band I utterly hated (which I sometimes find more entertaining than a good band, because any reason to complain about music is a welcome opportunity) and on sunday me and my girlfriend participated in a pathetic attempt to play soccer as preparation to an upcoming amateur tournament in which we’re probably gonna get raped beyond recognition.
But there’s no such thing as a perfect weekend. This particular weekend, you see, our pet hamster Emma died. My girlfriend is devastated, and I’m not in a particularly cheerful mood either.
To be honest, we had already spent a couple of days in fearful anticipation because Emma was more than two and a half years old - that’s an estimated age of around 112 in human years as far as I understand - and had visibly become weak and lethargic. So when we came home and my girlfriend disappeared into the bathroom, I used the opportunity to quickly check Emma’s cage to prepare for the worst case. As I was standing there, looking down on a motionless ball of fur curled up in a state of never ending sleep, I learned several painful lessons about myself in an instant.
Emma was always my girlfriend’s pet - she insisted on getting a pet, she bought the cage, paid the food and cleaned everything up. It was none of my business. My role included no more than sometimes feeding her, playing with her or laughing at her stupidity. I would admit that I liked her, even ironically call her a “family member”, but never ever “cute”, because there are words in every language on earth which a man just shouldn’t use. Of course I knew that some day in a not so distant future she would eventually die, and we would be a little sad for an hour or two, and you know, fuck it, let’s buy a new one the next day. When I was a kid, it worked. You learned a valuable lesson about life and death and how anything you loved could just be replaced if you just cried loud and long enough.
We’re grown up now, right? We’ve learned much more about death since then. We go to funerals for friends and relatives, and each time we get a little tougher. We can imagine mourning a dog, maybe. Dogs would give their life to you, they will be with you for many years. Dogs have personality, as Jules Winfield said, pigs don’t. I wonder what he would have thought about hamsters. I didn’t expect to develop a lump in my throat over a rodent that was so stupid that it thought of my face and hands as three distinct entities. But the moment I found Emma dead, I knew that Jules Winfield was not the gun-wielding, enlightened philosopher he pretended to be, but a pathetic wannabe gangster talking out of his ass about things he had not the intellectual means to understand. Jules Winfield obviously never had a hamster.
The book we bought said that hamsters need a lot of space to run around. It advised us to built a cardboard enclosure with some hiding places for Emma to explore. She quickly got bored there and preferred her cage. She only used her running wheel when she was alone. Sometimes we would come home late at night and as soon as we stepped into the living room, Emma would suddenly stop running and look at us like she wanted to say “What the fuck are you doing here? Night time is for hamsters.” The book also told us that hamsters don’t like to climb. We spend hours watching her pulling off her stunt, climbing across the roof of her cage, grappling from metal bar to metal bar like a fucking ninja. Humans dream of being actors or rock stars, Emma dreamed of being a monkey. We got it on video, in case you don’t believe me. You can’t just walk into a pet shop and replace something like that, except when you’re a kid.
That night, when we walked out to the backyard and buried Emma in a silent, mundane ceremony, I felt guilty because my girlfriend was so open about showing her grief to me, something I was not capable of. But now, as I’m writing this, Emma already stands proudly among the small group of companions, human or animal, for which I have shed tears.
Congratulations Emma, you made me cry, and it feels good. We miss you.
But there’s no such thing as a perfect weekend. This particular weekend, you see, our pet hamster Emma died. My girlfriend is devastated, and I’m not in a particularly cheerful mood either.
To be honest, we had already spent a couple of days in fearful anticipation because Emma was more than two and a half years old - that’s an estimated age of around 112 in human years as far as I understand - and had visibly become weak and lethargic. So when we came home and my girlfriend disappeared into the bathroom, I used the opportunity to quickly check Emma’s cage to prepare for the worst case. As I was standing there, looking down on a motionless ball of fur curled up in a state of never ending sleep, I learned several painful lessons about myself in an instant.
Emma was always my girlfriend’s pet - she insisted on getting a pet, she bought the cage, paid the food and cleaned everything up. It was none of my business. My role included no more than sometimes feeding her, playing with her or laughing at her stupidity. I would admit that I liked her, even ironically call her a “family member”, but never ever “cute”, because there are words in every language on earth which a man just shouldn’t use. Of course I knew that some day in a not so distant future she would eventually die, and we would be a little sad for an hour or two, and you know, fuck it, let’s buy a new one the next day. When I was a kid, it worked. You learned a valuable lesson about life and death and how anything you loved could just be replaced if you just cried loud and long enough.
We’re grown up now, right? We’ve learned much more about death since then. We go to funerals for friends and relatives, and each time we get a little tougher. We can imagine mourning a dog, maybe. Dogs would give their life to you, they will be with you for many years. Dogs have personality, as Jules Winfield said, pigs don’t. I wonder what he would have thought about hamsters. I didn’t expect to develop a lump in my throat over a rodent that was so stupid that it thought of my face and hands as three distinct entities. But the moment I found Emma dead, I knew that Jules Winfield was not the gun-wielding, enlightened philosopher he pretended to be, but a pathetic wannabe gangster talking out of his ass about things he had not the intellectual means to understand. Jules Winfield obviously never had a hamster.
The book we bought said that hamsters need a lot of space to run around. It advised us to built a cardboard enclosure with some hiding places for Emma to explore. She quickly got bored there and preferred her cage. She only used her running wheel when she was alone. Sometimes we would come home late at night and as soon as we stepped into the living room, Emma would suddenly stop running and look at us like she wanted to say “What the fuck are you doing here? Night time is for hamsters.” The book also told us that hamsters don’t like to climb. We spend hours watching her pulling off her stunt, climbing across the roof of her cage, grappling from metal bar to metal bar like a fucking ninja. Humans dream of being actors or rock stars, Emma dreamed of being a monkey. We got it on video, in case you don’t believe me. You can’t just walk into a pet shop and replace something like that, except when you’re a kid.
That night, when we walked out to the backyard and buried Emma in a silent, mundane ceremony, I felt guilty because my girlfriend was so open about showing her grief to me, something I was not capable of. But now, as I’m writing this, Emma already stands proudly among the small group of companions, human or animal, for which I have shed tears.
Congratulations Emma, you made me cry, and it feels good. We miss you.
Abonnieren
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