lonesome tiger photography: Lonesome Tiger Turns 1!

Happy anniversary to me! A year ago, I started my webpage. Just one year | One year already! A lot of things happened, many happy memories, a lot of good shows since then! Time to look back...

Back when I decided to do this, I had one goal: I wanted to shoot shows more or less regularly and learn and improve and have fun. The fun was guaranteed, and I think looking back, I can also tick the other two off: Considering I have a regular job and no affiliation with any media (hence I also only get paid in the pixels that come out of my cameras), I get to shoot shows a lot.

As a little anniversary present for you (and me), I've collected a couple of pictures I like - not necessarily the best shots (those are on rotation on the main page anyway), but pictures that I found funny, interesting, or that mean something to me.

Rickard Fortus of Guns N' Roses performs a solo live in Brisbane, Australia

This first image is one of the last concert shots I took with a compact cam (Canon Ixus 900ti), taken at Guns N' Roses' show in Brisbane, Australia, some time in June 2007 from somewhere in general admission. It was pictures like this one that seemed to pop out of nowhere into my camera, and that really made me want to do this for real, with a real camera and a real photo pass.

I still go to shows to listen - but over the last year, I've started to watch them almost more than I listen... but I always shoot bands that I like listening to. And that, mostly, makes them guitar-heavy rockpunkindiemetal. I don't even know how many pictures I have of long-haired guys with a guitar - when I edit pictures, and sometimes when I shoot a whole show, there's quite a bunch to edit, at some point I only see guitars, guitars, guitars, guitars, hair, and guitars. Kinda like Al Bundy with shoes, but in a good way ;-)

The above picture is Idiom, opening for From Autumn To Ashes at Abart, February 2008 - I still remember how pitch-effing-dark it was during that show! And would those guys stand still for a pic? Nooooo.....

Roman Eggel of Swiss band The Roadhouse Preachers performs at Rock Highway Band Contest

Roman Eggel of Swiss band The Roadhouse Preachers did stand still for quite a while - as you can see, he was busy playing. A very talented guitarist, I hope to hear(!) and see more from him. And, as you can tell by the length of his shoulder strap, also a guitarist who probably has his roots with a nice old classical guitar :-) The picture was taken at the Rock Highway band contest, some time late in 2007.

That band contest was one of the first times I went out with the DSLR to shoot a rock concert, and wanted to practice more that just during the first three songs. So I contacted a couple of bands I knew, and they let me shoot their shows - the whole show. Lots of practice, lots of things I learned! For example: Fog can be your enemy, or fog can be your friend:

Pure Soundart live show at Dynamo Zurich

This photo is of Pure Soundart, who played RougeRockrz party at Dynamo early 2008. I went to shoot them a couple of weeks later in their hometown of Zug shortly before their UK tour - there I learned that strobes are evil. Nasty. Ugly. And kids who handle light for the first time and like strobes should be shot (survivors should be shot again). Strobes just leave a rectangle of blown-out pixels on your sensor, and not much else (same goes, by the way, to the people who use an effing *flash*...).

That being said, a lot of light certainly also can help with taking pictures. After all, it's "painting with light", and if you got nothing to paint with, well, then you're screwed. The first show where I really was satisfied with my work was when I came home from The Hives' show - I'm the king of the world, too!

Swedish band The Hives playing a live show at X-Tra in Zurich

I remember how we discussed best guesses at f-stop and shutter speed among the photographers in the pit before the show. The Hives came on, and the back of the stage sent a wall of light - about a bajillion lightbulbs around their band logo shining our way and lighting up everyone's behind! First thing you see is all photogs immediately taking down their cameras and frantically turning knobs to adjust to the unexpected light settings :-D .

The Hives also are great at posing, a photographer's dream (except for one of their guitarists who stepped on the guy next to me while hopping into the audience). And sometimes, photographers then get lucky:

Outtake from The Hives' concert at X-Tra Zurich

Even with all this light, I still was unhappy with my Canon 20D: It is a very fine camera if you want to shoot in plain sunlight, but its autofocus is slow. And its continuous shooting mode is s.l.o.w..... ISO at 800 was just barely acceptable, 1600 more a randomly colored pile of pixels than a photo, and you can't really shoot everything at f/2.8, the picture looks about as flat as the Netherlands after a decent ironing. Approximately around the time when I began to be seriously annoyed at the cam, Canon released the 1D mark III. With even more pixels. Hm. If you want to print something to your wall, that's probably fine, but the black background? On the other hand, there's the Nikon D3. I thought there was a typo when I saw at which ISO speeds that thing still feels comfortable, and almost fell out of my socks when I saw test reports. To cut a long story short, I robbed my bank accounts and got myself a D3 with a wonderful 70-200 VR. Ah, the full frame! Ah, the low noise! Ah, the big pixels! Ah, the interface! I'm in love, seriously! Well worth the hassle to change systems. I never looked back.

The Peacocks open the show for Flogging Molly at Volkshaus Zurich

Flogging Molly at Volkshaus in May 2008 were my first show with the new camera (the picture is their first opener The Peacocks). I had a look at the settings and had absolutely no clue what to set the ISO to. The dial just goes up to ridiculous numbers. I decided to set it to 5000 just for the hell of it and see what happens.

Flogging Molly live in concert at Volkshaus Zurich

Like a kid in a candystore, I snapped pictures all night. I'd brought the 20D too that night, so I had a 1:1 comparison. I almost cried. And took sooo many wonderful shots. At a totally insane ISO speed. And with less noise than I ever had with the 20D. Its continous mode just doesn't stop - does that thing double as a videocam? And OK, I might have gone a bit too crazy with the ISO 5000, there is noise. If you suddenly turn from shooting into spotlights like deer in the headlights to shooting the audience (more like a bear in cave during hibernation), you can see it.

The Dropkick Murphys and their front row fans at Volkshaus Zurich

Speaking of fans - they're always worth a look, too! I already commented on this in my post about the mohawk competition between fans and The Unseen, and here's another goodie of two girls at The Hives' show at X-Tra:

Fans at a rock concert dress up

And an old one taken at the Rock Highway band contest (also for noise comparison for the camera geeks among you: ISO a tiny 800, but on the 20D...):

A Rock n' Roll fan at a live concert

I just love that guy's style! Despite the noise, an all-time favorite :-)

Also in this crazy year, I got to shoot my first show abroad: My friend Marty and his band Riot:Noise launched their single at a club in Camden when I was over on The Island to visit a friend... good excuse, eh? On that trip, I learned that singers should be forbidden to wear hats during concerts... or can you make out Marty's eyes?