Posts Tagged ‘adelaide’

15 years of capturing the magic of Womadelaide.

Posted: February 13, 2024 in Uncategorized
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Since 2008 I have been fortunate enough to have been able to photograph at Womadelaide in Botanic park so Im sharing with you all 15 years worth of images compressed into around 10 minutes.

To say this was easy is an understatment as I generally shoot over 1000 images per full day and maybe 700 on the friday night. Hopefully I got the mix right. I had previously released a 10 year compilation video so I kept the number of images down for the first 10 years 2008-2018 and concentrated on more from the last 5 years.

Enjoy the show and dont forget Womadelaide 2024 is less than a month away

Midnight Oil Live in HD

Posted: November 21, 2017 in Adelaide Events
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One of the first concerts I ever went to was Midnight oil, playing at Memorial Drive in Adelaide back in 1984. I was a massive fan of the early stuff but their albums fell out of favour in my mind after they release Red Sails in the Sunset. When I heard they were reforming for the World Circle Tour I was excited followed by Disappointment that they were playing at “Adelaide Oval”. The Oval itself is very bad acoustically due to the large sound reflective Grandstands so I hesitated when tickets went on sale. It wasn’t till a little later I found they weren’t actually playing inside the oval but Adjacent to it ( Right next to Memorial Drive where I had seen them 30+ years prior ). By then it was too late and the show was sold out.

With a few days to go I put out feelers to see if anyone had purchased a ticket was now unable to go and thankfully I found someone local and bought their ticket. So glad I went as was an amazing show. There were only a couple of songs they played that I wasn’t overly familiar with being from Newer albums but plenty of older stuff that I knew every word to. Great night and I captured some short snippets of Video from some of the songs played

 

Here it is – Enjoy

 

Adelaide Fringe just around the Corner

Posted: January 25, 2013 in Uncategorized
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A good way to start the Frineg off is opening night Street Parade. Mark 15th February in the calendar. Last years was pretty awesome and packed crowds made for some great Photos.

Check out the photos from last year 2012 to see what the Street party is all about and plan to get their early to secure a good view

The Crowd in 2012

Once the Street party is over browse the program and get out there and get entertained. A Full searchable program is available from the Fringe website

Adelaide Zombie walk 2012

Posted: October 27, 2012 in Adelaide Events, Uncategorized
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Well the Adelaide Zombie walk has been and gone. Its one event Ive been Photographing since 2008 so it’s my 5th outing but this time I took a fair bit of video with my DSLR as well as still photography. I was also fortunate enough to be invited to the “Official” Photographers group.

You would be surprised  how much preperation goes into photographing the event and even more suprised by the amount of time spent after the walk has finished. For those that aren’t real Zombies you just remove your Zombie outfits, wipe off the makeup and you move on. For people taking photos and even more so for those taking videos, there are many days, weeks ahead going through footage and video and getting it all together.

So first up are the Photos which I managed to get online within about 24 hrs of the walk > Link HERE for the full gallery

Dont forget that unwatermarked digital  images facebook size or suitable for small 4×6 prints are available for the low price of $12 with 20% proceeds going to Foodbank. Larger sized prints are available at varying prices

Amanda Palmer ( Dresden Dolls ) in Adelaide

Posted: January 14, 2012 in Adelaide Events
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Amanda Palmer is an interesting person. Most of the Public either seem to  1) Love her work  or 2) Never heard of  her.

The Tickets to the Dresden Dolls surged as the show approached so I was too late to catch the main show, but Amanda Palmer seems to make quite a habit in Adelaide of Playing Free Ninja Shows. So I checked her website on the day prior to her Adelaide show and sure enough there was a Ninja show in the Early Afternoon at the New Tuxedo Cats.

The show was scheduled for 3pm so I got down there about 2:30pm and there was already a line out to Gawler Place. The Doors opened just before 3 and people shuffled in. The venue is still very much a work in progress with construction going on all around. The stage for the show was apparently just assembled a few days earlier. The lighting was sparse amd the backdrop a Reddish curtain.

Amandas show are hard to explain so probably the Video and some photos might make it clearer

Warning : Some language and Adult themes in her Music

Some Photos from the event can be found HERE

Something for Nothing ?

Posted: October 10, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I must say that there is a disturbing trend of people thinking they have the right to have photos completely free of charge. Like any event held in a public place, people can take photos.

There is this notion that if a Photographer requests some form of payment for taking a photo that they are ripping off the public. Where did this concept come from ?

I have been photographing the Adelaide Zombie walk for 4 years now and have put my photos in a public gallery every year for people to view. The photos have a small transparent watermark in the bottom corner and I’m more than happy for people to have a copy of the smaller resolution images with the watermark intact to use on their facebook page or to email it to friends. It’s good advertising that hopefully will get more people to see my images and consider me for their photography needs down the track that might actually be paid work

For people to get upset that I’ll charge them a very minimal fee for a High res unwatermarked image is quite absurd.

Lets take a step back and look at some of the facts.

  • The Equipment taken by a Semi proffessional or proffesional photographer would in most instances be in the order of anywhere from $3000 – $10,000 at such an event.
  • The photographer needs to insure the equipment which is another $500 per year.
  • Public liability insurance in case someone injures themselves walking into your camera gear – another $500 per year
  • There is website hosting and Domain name hosting fees ( $300+ per year ).
  • There are software costs which are very substantial if you have taken a legal approach to software and this software needs to be upgraded regularly. My Current collection of Licensed software is in the order of $3500
  • Then of course there is the time spent – This figure is HUGE in hours. What value do you put on your time ?
  • Travel and Parking costs
  • ISP costs
  • Hard disk storage ( redundancy )

Time is the biggest factor that people dont think about when they question a charge for a service. To get decent photographs the photographer needs to have lots of experience/practice. The time taken to go through photos from an event, sort and post process ( make them look decent ) is substantial.

No one is forcing anyone to buy an image. You can view the images as much as you want online and the cost to you is NOTHING.  There are plenty of other photos on the Internet that people took which you can download for Free. If there is one of mine that you like and you want it to be High Res, high quality and unwatermarked then for a little more than the cost of a few beers you can have the image for your personal use.

For the record – in the past 4 years my sales of photos from the Zombie walks isnt even enough to buy a bottle of water….. That’s Sales NOT even Profit. I attend the Zombie walk as it’s a great event with lots of Photo opportunities. I spend a considerable amount of my time processing the images and sharing the photos. I don’t go there with any intention nor expectation of any sort of photo sale.

Taking photos at events like the AZW is a major loss making exercise for those taking photos – so STOP complaining.

Parklife 2011 – Adelaide

Posted: October 4, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I’m back from my first “Parklife” experience. Let me say first up that the parklife festival is one that would normally pass me by as I’m not into “Doof Doof ” music and a fair bit of parklife is just that, but when asked by Faster Louder if I wanted to shoot parklife I jumped at the opportunity as I do love experiencing new music even though it might never grace my CD collection.

I got down there reasonably early soon after the start at 12 noon, whilst the crowds were small and made my way down to the Sahara Stage to catch some of Messrs – plenty of energy from them and some great tunes ( Keep an eye on this band ).  I wanted to familiarise myself with the layout of the stages/ access etc so started a walk around and ended up at the Cave stage to catch a bit of the Killgirls ( yet another suprise packet ).

It was soon time to hit the Atoll stage for the first band I was planning on catching – Kimbra.entering with the stage with a warming smile and a colourfull dress, Kimbra warmed up the crowd with her catchy tunes. Great expressions to photograph also. A bit more of a walk around to catch some of DJ Bliss and some other acts. There was ALWAYS lots of things happening on many stages. Sometimes too many though with sound washing over the next stage. Found my way back to the Atoll stage for Little dragon, who also played some catchy songs with Yukimi donning feathers in her headgear and singing and playing some weird percussion pads. A bit of a break then before Death from Above ( DFA ) 1979 hit the stage. I had read a bit about this band and they sounded interesting. The crowd that was here to watch them was pretty hyped and when they came on the Drumming and guitar feedback had the crowd pumped. Some good photo ops although the drummer had the microphone hardware smack bang in the way of any photos from the pit. Next stop was the Sahara stage for The Naked and Famous. I’ve heard some of their stuff on JJJ so had some familiarity.

Santigold – Appearing on stage with 2 backup dancers who feather Santigold entrance on stage with flowers ( roses ) – certainly one of the highlights of the festival in terms of the whole theatrical experience. The performance had an “Egyptian” theme.

Gossip – Can she sing – You betcha. With one hell of a powerful voice Gossip pumped out some very catchy tunes with such gusto. Probably the Vocal highlight for me of Parklife

Sebastien Tellier – To be honest I’d read other reviews that indicated this was a must see, and was surprised when there was almost no crowd in front of the stage. Musically I found the first few songs rather bland although there was some awesome sunlight blasting in through the side where the keyboard player was and combined with the smoke machines made for some contrasty images.

The Streets – Lots of crowd banter from Mike including a request for a hotdog from the crowd which turned up about 5 mins later. I cant imagine anythign worse than a Festival hotdog but Mike had a bite then asked for it to be kept until later. Solid musically although from a potography viewpoitn having him stand for the most art of the first 3 songs on a speaker stack outside of the lighting area meant not a lot of lit shots and lots of sillhouettes.

Lykke Li – Didn’t know much about her, but a bit of internet research and watching some youtube clips meant she was on my agenda to photograph at the 8:45 timeslot when there was so much in the way of clashes ( 4 out of 5 stages clashing ). A Very Moody black and white smoke filled set from Lykke Li. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance and this is one act I might look at purchasing a CD of.

Simian Mobile disco – Ive heard a lot about these guys so I did a detour prior to heading home for a sleep to catch them on the Cave stage. interesting setup with a bank of rack mounted Synth/Effects that the two performers twirl/plug/slide knobs and dials to get the sounds. The crowd seemed to just be taking the sounds in, rather than energetically dancing around as they were earlier when Nero was playing

All the photos can be found HERE

WOMADelaide 2011 Saturday

Posted: March 15, 2011 in Adelaide Events
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The first full day at Womad so a lot more packing in the morning including chairs and food. We arrived fairly early and caught the end of the Creole Choir of Cuba who were really good. I would have liked to have seen more of their performance. I then headed to see the Whitireia performing arts group and despite them only in part costume due to some delays in getting their gear to Adelaide they put on a great performance – marked these guys down to see again in a few days time. Company Ekart were still around with the Giant Chicken o I followed them around for a bit including a visit to the Police Caravan.

Onwards to stage One for Asa who put on a solid performance at the time of the day it was starting to get quite warm. I left before the end to catch the end of the Shaolin Afronauts who despite the name are a local Adelaide band I’ve heard of but never seen. They look like a band worth catching again in the future. 3pm saw the return to stage 2 for ScrapArt Music which is predominantly percussion made from Scrap steel. Great spirited performance and the instruments looked really good and quite unique.

17 Hippies were next on stage 1 and whilst there werent 17 of them it was an interesting mix of tunes.  Yasar Alpence HARAM’DE was next up who were musically very good, but not that great to photograph. Martha Wainwright was next and being a seated show meant that for the most part the photographers stayed pretty low also. With Martha wearing a shortish skirt she made a comment that the photographers were shooting up her dress. With the stage so high there is not a lot of options.

Headed down to stage 3 for Irish Singer Imelda May. She was great and one of my new found artists that I previously knew nothing about. Onto stage 1 next to see Fefe – WOW what energy they had. A definite highlight of the day with the lead singer going into the crowd during one the songs. This band had the crowd absolutely pumping. At 9pm I wound down seeing Leigh Warren and Dancers . It was a seated show but we were allowed to shoot from the front of stage which was the perfect height to rest the camera on the stage. Lighting started off fairly low and was difficult to shoot but got some great shots never the less. I caught the end of  Tanya Tagaq who had an unusual style of throat singing. I’m not sure I’d be rushing out and buying a recording but it was very different.

Final performance of the night was Amadou and Mariam. I had seen these two briefly during the media Launch but now they were on stage with the full band and dressed to impress and impress they did. Some great Rythmns were pumped out and a great way to end the first full day

LINK TO FULL GALLERY FOR SATURDAY ( Click here )

Womadelaide 2010 Sounds of the Planet Wrap up

Posted: March 9, 2010 in Uncategorized
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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

    Madness in Town

    Posted: April 3, 2009 in Uncategorized
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    The English Ska Group that was at its peak in the early 1980s finally made it to Adelaide and played a Gig at the Thebarton Theatre on April  1st 2009.

    What a great show. The “Nutty Lads” may have got a bit older and a bit greyer but they still have the energy and punch to put on a memorable show. The Highlights for me were the older songs that I grew up with in my youth on the Radio and on Cassete.

    • House of fun
    • One Step Beyond
    • Baggy Trousers
    • Our house
    • Madness
    • Night boat to Cairo

    to name a few. Great show lads and the crowd really appreciated the detour to play Adelaide