As you can imagine, after spending a month in Tasmania over the Christmas holidays there are lots and lots of photos to sort through ( over 4000 ), so stay tuned for some more details/photos. There is a Selection of photos I’ve already uploaded here, but bear in mind these were uploaded whilst on holiday so they are pretty much out of the camera with no post processing
March in Adelaide is a Crazy time for events and one of these is a must attend for any serious Music fan. It’s a chance to experience a whole range of diverse Music and Cultures from Various parts of the World. The Lineup for this years festival has been out for a month or so now and is pretty impressive
Of course the highlight for some people including me is the return of Afro Celt Sound System who last played at Womad in 2001 ( Yep thats 10 years ago ). They were mind blowing back then and I’m sure they will be just as great in 2011.
Check out the full lineup at the Official Womadelaide Website
Earlybird pricing for 3 and 4 day tickets closes soon ( 1st Dec ) so hurry up if you want to save some Cash
The Provisional play times for Artists has just been added in the unlikely event that you cant attend all 4 days but hoping to catch a particular artist
Falls Festival – Lorne and Marion Bay
Posted: November 26, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: camping, Falls Festival, live music, pop, rock
I’ve been to plenty of Festivals in my time with the main Multiday festival that I attend annually being Womadelaide. I’ve always wished that Womadelaide could be an event that you could camp at as lugging low back chairs/eskys/ Sun shelters/rugs etc back and forth each day from wherever you managed to get a park can be VERY tiring.
Once I realised that the Falls Festival in Tassie coincided with me being present in Tasmania It didn’t take much to decide attend my first camping music festival. I’m sure its going to be an awesome experience and I’m looking forward to bringing you some quality photos from the event.
There is a solid line up of performers at this years event with Interpol, The National and Joan Jett and the blackhearts as some of the headliners plus lots of other great local and international bands. I’m not going to list them all as you can easily check them all out at the Falls Festival Website .
I’m currently looking at the Bios of a handfull of performers and artists that I wasnt that knowledgable on to acquaint myself with some of their work and finding some Gems.
Tickets are still available for the Marion Bay show so what are you waiting for ?
EDIT: Provisional Program is now up on the Falls Festival main page
Lorne – Provisional Play times
I’m still catching up from 3 concerts in 3 days last weekend.
When a work colleague told me that The Charlatans were touring I had dug up an older CD I had of theirs ( Some Friendly – which was their Debut album ) and gave it a fresh listen. Damn these guys were good so I put my name down with a request to photograph them for Faster Louder. They were touring on the back of a New album as most bands do. I really only had a chance to listen to a small amount of their new material prior to seeing them, but it sounded quite good and true to their original unique “Manchester sound”.
The lead Singer, Tim Burgess is almost the same age as myself but his locks of hair totally eclipses what I have left.
Charlatans, Adelaide Nov 2010
Overall it was a damn good concert with so many ex pat UK punters there that I spoke to as well as Australians that had followed them for 20 years but had never got around to ever seeing them live.
The following Night I was back in the same venue this time to Photograph “The New Pornographers” an Indie Pop band from Canada ( Note: I don’t like labelling bands ). I’ve been a fan of theirs for only a few years after one of my friends got me hooked on their catchy Riffs and Melodies. The size of the Crowd was disappointingly small, but then it was a Sunday night and for some reason most people I know have never heard of them.
Well it’s time to educate the masses – These guys Rock and put on a great live show. They toured a few years back but without one of the female vocalists ( Neko Case ). This time they were back with the full lineup.
The New Pornographers, Adelaide Nov 2010
Some video snippets of the gig can be found here
For the 3rd year in a row I have headed down to the city to capture some images from the Annual Adelaide Zombie Walk. The 2008 Walk was a fairly small affair with a few hundred Zombies scaring unsuspecting Diners in Rundle St as they headed down on the way to Hindley St and Light Square.
Well fast forward to 2010 with an Active Facebook page and the numbers have swelled significantly and the Police have to get involved to close off whole city intersections whilst the Zombie meander from one side of the city to the other. This years walk travelled down Grenfell St rather than the mall, but there were still quite a few unsuspecting citizens out on a Saturday night wondering what was going on.
Of course none of this is possible without the organisers in pulling everything together and of course the public, some of who go to extremes to have the best make up/ costumes they can and to whom the photos would just end up looking like tomato sauce splotched faces.
One of the forums I frequent OCAU ( http://www.overclockers.com.au ) has a very active photography forum and some of the members who post in that forum are proffessional Photographers and very talented. One of those is Hien from Lumens Photography who earlier in the year indicated he would be running a Wedding Photography workshop in the middle of the year.
I signed up as one of the few interstate members and attended the workshop on the weekend just gone. It was a full day of hands on Photography of a Mock couple complete with Wedding Dress/ Suit etc.
Sarah and Aaron are getting married early next year. The Full set of Photographs from the workshop can be found here
The Clipsal 500 is a motor race that is part of the V8 Supercars series in Adelaide that runs on a Street circuit with only a small section of the track dedicated to the event itself. I was fortunate enough this year to go on two days – Friday and Sunday thanks to a generous invitation from a few of the companies I work with.
One of the major highlights of the weekend was getting Pit access into the Vodafone pit to see the mechanics doing preperation on the cars. It’s quite a busy area with crew looking at various performance stats and MOTEC data, other cars lap times as well as some not so obvious screens shoing BOM Radar maps for potential rainfall. Then of course the Pit crew themselves carrying out work, repairs and modifications on the cars. Unfortunately for Lowndes and Whincup Team Vodafone didnt finish where they wanted but thats another story !
You can see all the photos from the Clipsal that I took on Friday and Sunday HERE
Of course one of the other highlights of any Clipsal event is the After Race concerts. Friday was an All Aussie affair of primarily Hip Hop with performances by Lowrider, The Funkoars, Midnight Juggernaughts and Adelaides own Hilltop Hoods. All bands put in Solid performances although some of the crowd were fairly hostile towards Midnight Juggernaughts so maybe the organisers should have stayed all HipHop ?
You can see other photos from the Hilltop Hoods performance HERE
Sundays after race finale featured soem more mature bands – Mental as Anything, Ian Moss, Noiseworks and finally Status Quo. It wasn’t till halfway through Status Quos set that I started recognising their “hits” which they just pumped out one after another
You can see all the Status Quo photos HERE
Until the 5th April if you are in Adelaide you REALLY REALLY should check out the Northern Lights
In 2010, Northern Lights will stretch westward along the stunning North Terrace boulevard, illuminating our historical buildings including the State Library, SA Museum, Art Gallery of SA, Elder Hall, Mitchell Building and Bonython Hall and will extend around into King William Street to light up the rear wall of Parliament House, which faces the iconic Adelaide Festival Centre.
It is an amazing feat to use Giant Projectors to completely change the look of some of Adelaides buildings on North Terrace. The Image changes every few minutes so it worth hanging around at each Landmark building to see the cycle ( some cycles seemed to be only 4 whilst others were more )
The Adelaide Fringe has Just Finished up also after nearly a Month of performances and exhibitions. Being away Overseas meant I missed the opening parade and the performances that were in the first few weeks. I did manage to catch a few shows near the tail end of the fringe though. Photography access to performances didnt get very far with either negative or no responses being received.
Some of the Roaming performers were excellent though and whilst waiting in the line for Amoroco tickets we were entertained by the Giant Scotman and his “dog” – who pissed water on a few kids. The reaction of one girl was hilarious and she was quite indignant at what the dog had done.
and Of course Amoroco itself which was quite an experience. To get the tickets and line up was a 2hr+ wait which was very frustrating but the giant illuminarium was prety amazing
Womadelaide 2010 Sounds of the Planet Wrap up
Posted: March 9, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: 2010, adelaide, photos, womadelaide, world music
Despite the best intentions of updating this Blog every day of Womad it didn’t happen as there just arent enough hours in the day. Working a day Job during the week to pay for my Photographic indulgences, meant leaving a bit early on Friday Afternoon to get home to grab the Camera bag ( pre packed the night before ) and the family and head down on Friday night to get a park and then scramble there for the opening at 6pm. BIG thanks to my friend Michelle who works close by and offered her work Car park over the weekend which was within walking distance.
As a Photographer you get the first 10 minutes to shoot the band from the front of stage so you need to have a schedule or you’ll miss the start of a band and opportunities. I did my best over the weekend to catch as many bands as I could and was there from the start of each day to the last act on the main stage each day. Its damn tiring work lugging around a backpack full of camera bodies, lenses, Memory cards, batteries etc. When you get home in the evening you then have to START the process of dumping the photos off your memory cards and recharging batteries ready for the next day.
Of course its not quite that simple because as well as just dumping the images off your camera you also want to see what you’ve managed to capture during the day/evening, so as the images are being imported off your memory card into your software package ( Adobe Lightroom for me ) you are looking through them and doing some rough sorts/rating. I only shoot RAW images these days so with each image taking up 25-30 Meg of card space there is a lot of importing that occurs. Even with the tools available and lots of experience post processing images I was up until 2am every evening going through photos and preparing for the next day. After selecting a batch of images for uploading I kicked off the upload to my webhost in the early hours of the evening and then went to bed leving the camera batteries charging.
Got to sleep in until 9:30 am most days – except Sunday when it was the only opportunity over the weekend to pick up some furniture they were giving away.
For those who are stat crazy
1869 Photos taken in total ( Friday night – Monday Night )
43.2 Gb of images
12.1 Gb of Video Footage ( Camera takes HD Video also – Dont even think about asking when you will see this !! )
I had spare Batteries for both the 50D and 5D Mk2 but suprisingly didnt need to use them. The 5DMk2 battery was amazing and still had over half charge left at the end of each days shooting and that included some video footage also
You can now see why the Blog wasn’t updated every day during Womad as every waking minute was spent at Womad or preparing photos for you guys to look at. It’s a thankless excercise for the most part as most people just look at them and dont comment, but if you like the photos please leave comment as it means a lot to me.
All said and done I wouldnt do anything different. I love my Music and particularly the diverse range of music I get to experience at Womadelaide and I love Photography. To be able to combine the two passions is for me Bliss.
What next Mondays Photos are going up as I write this and there are some RIPPERS. I will be going back over the Photos from Friday and Saturday especially and casting a more critical eye over them. Expect a few more to appear and some to get moved to the CROWD gallery ( this will be in Chronological Order ).
EDIT: The Highlights Best of Gallery is now ready to go ( There might be some minor changes additions/subtractions but essentially it is a collection of my favourite photos /memories from the weekend. Some are technically great photos,others I think capture the spirit of Womad.
Highlights Gallery .. some teasers from the 80 photos it contains below ( make sure you check it out )
Full Gallery of photos from the weekend can be found here LINK
I’ve had a few people ask about my favourite acts during the weekend. Well there were No duds but special mention goes to
- Babylon Circus – The sheer energy of this group was amazing and had the crowd absolutely pumping and great photo opportunities
- Yamato Drummers – The have played here before but their energy and enthusiasm is very catchy
- The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra – Will have to check these guys out again given they are from AUS.. Huge stage presence and great fun to watch
- Hypnotic Brass ensemble – Saw these guys twice.. Full Brass sound as you’d expect and a lot of crowd interaction
- Ravi and Anoushka Shankar – Whilst I’m not a huge fan of lengthy Indian Sitar music, I can appreciate the strong connection he has to Indian Music and having his daughter play with him on stage was quite moving. Its amazing that he is 90 years old and still performing.
- La Compagnie Transe Express – I thought overall this perfomance was a bit lengthy but it was pretty awesome and I dont think anyone in the crowd really knew what to expect. They were like the pied piper mving through the crowd in no particular order with people following them until they went aerial. Given the Rain and gusty winds on Monday it was a BIG effort for them
- Kathakali Dance Ensemble – Doing three hours of intense make up prior to the show is a feat on its own. The costumes and makeup were mindblowingly amazing. The performances themselves I think would really require the audience not to be distracted by getting to their next show. The presenter said that sometimes that perfomance can go ALL night… wow
There were Solid performances by other artists such as Calexico, Fyah walk, Ethiopiques, Mariem Hassan and many others too numerous to mention.
Some performances I completely missed due to clashes or didnt even know about. I caught the end of Grilla Step ( Krump group ) and the Crowd energy was amazing. Frank Yama I didnt catch until the All star Gala on Monday but I wished I’d caught him earlier. Likewise I didnt see the perfomances by Noriko Tadano and wished I had.
Hope you enjoy looking at the photos as much as I did taking them
Bring on Womad 2011 – Cant wait to see who the line up has
Interesting day weather wise on Saturday with a hot start to the day leading to some heavy but thankfully brief rain period in the Afternoon and then cooler in the evening ( especially with wet clothes.
Caught performances from
Besh O droM, YAMATO, Calexico, Kamel el Harachi, The Public opinion Afro Orchestra, Xavier Rudd and Izintaba, Hypnotic Brass ensemble, Babylon Circus, Dub Collosus, Eliades Ochoa
A Selection of photos are up now – check some of them out here
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