This is LogikParty playing in Whelans on August 11th. They were part of a three-band u:mack bill headlined by Liars and also featuring Cap Pas Cap. My photos of Liars and Cap Pas Cap didn’t turn out right at all – they were all way too dark. This was surprising as the exposure times for the Liars shots in particular were actually longer than the LogicParty ones. I have a whole list of bands I have shot where the pictures have just not come out properly, the ones that got away as it were. Off the top of my head these include Dinosaur Jr, Mission of Burma, Devendra Banhart and Wolf Parade. Taking long exposure shots on film in a darkened venue is a pretty hit and miss process and sometimes it just doesn’t work. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged large format photography, stages, whelans, long exposure, LogikParty, Richter Collective, Cap Pas Cap, Liars | 3 Comments »
One of the things that interests me about long-exposure photography is that it facilitates a different way of seeing. It compresses a stretch of time into a single visual and, in doing so, uncovers patterns and movements that we do not normally experience. Conventional photography employs shutter speeds that are designed to roughly correspond to our normal view of the world. The camera’s job is to freeze a discrete instantaneous visual moment and allow us to peruse it at leisure. If a photographer inadvertently uses a shutter speed that is too long to properly freeze the moment in front of the lens, the blurred result is more often than not regarded as incorrect, a mistake. But surely it can be more interesting to try and use a camera to uncover things our visual system does not show us, rather than to simply replicate the things that it does? Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged Flashlab, Katatonia, large format photography, long exposure, stages, The Village | Leave a Comment »
This is bouncy sing-along US pop-punk types The Get Up Kids playing in The Village back in June. I shot a few gigs in The Village back at the beginning of this project but was never happy with the results. It wasn’t possible to get the crowd into the shot, and instead the composition would be dominated by the two giant speaker stacks on either side of the stage and the large empty space above the performer’s heads. This time though I brought along a different lens, one with a longer focal length. This meant I could get in tight on the band and exclude more or less everything else, and it made the world of difference. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged large format photography, long exposure, stages, The Get Up Kids, The Village | Leave a Comment »
This is The Jimmy Cake playing in Whelans a few months back. I’ve seen The Jimmy Cake numerous times over the last decade but I’ve never been a huge fan. In fact, within my own band, the term jimmycakery has long been used to refer to any kind of musical over-elaboration, or unnecessary additional instrumentation. However, I’ve caught them three times over the last year or so and found myself really enjoying their new stripped down incarnation. They still do insanely long songs but now they are built on noisy repetitive Krautrock-style riffs and grooves and it really works. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged Damo Suzuki, large format photography, long exposure, reciprocity failure, stages, The Jimmy Cake, whelans | 2 Comments »
This is Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba playing in the Button Factory back in May. These guys are from Mali which, as everyone knows (or at least as everyone should know), is the source of a whole load of amazing music. For those yet to discover the delights of West African music I would recommend Mark Hudson’s book, The Music In My Head, which is a highly entertaining account of an English music journalist’s adventures in West Africa after falling in love with the sounds of Senegal and Mali. It will make you want to pick up as much of the music as possible, but handily enough, there is an accompanying CD, which is a superb introduction. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged large format photography, stages, long exposure, the button factory, Bassekou Kouyate, mali music, soukous, Mark Hudson | Leave a Comment »
Now and again, as I am doing this project, I get to photograph an act I really like. I have ambivalent feelings about this – sometimes I’d prefer to be just enjoying the music without thinking about taking the photograph. Sometimes though, if things go well, it adds an extra level of enjoyment to the night. When a double-bill of Dinosaur Jr and Built To Spill was announced for a May Vicar Street date it was like someone had designed a gig especially for me. I have been a giant fan of Dinosaur Jr ever since I first saw them in McGonagles in Dublin way back in 1990 or so, and all their recent reunion shows of the last few years have been fantastic. Similarly, Built To Spill have blown me away on those rare occasions I’ve caught them, and albums like Perfect From Now On and Keep It Like A Secret are, for me, just perfect exemplars of what it is possible for a rock band to be. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged Built To Spill, Dinosaur Jr, large format photography, long exposure, vicar street | Leave a Comment »
Dublin’s Grand Canal Theatre opened this year amid much fanfare. It’s a 2000-odd capacity theatre, situated in the Docklands, and designed by Daniel Libeskind. I managed to sneak my way in courtesy of my friend Dave O’Grady of Independent Records who, among other things, manages Josh Ritter. It was quite a strange experience as the staff obviously mistook me for someone important. I turned up and was ushered inside, up and down lifts, through the backstage area and eventually out onto a high balcony stage right. While this offered an incredible view of proceedings it was completely wrong for this type of photograph so, thanks to a co-operative lighting engineer, I ended up setting myself up downstairs at the back instead. Continue Reading »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Daniel Libeskind, Grand Canal Theatre, Josh Ritter, large format photography, long exposure, stages | 1 Comment »
This is the awesome Sea Dog, shot in Whelans, on the same night as the Patrick Kelleher photo I put up earlier. It’s a 7.5 minute exposure taken, according to my notes, while they were playing a song called “Free Beer”. Sea Dog used to have three members but recently added a bass player to make it four. I’m still not used to this.
This blog got a bit of a plug in the Irish Independent last Friday, something I am very happy about. Check out what they had to say here.
Posted in Stages | Tagged large format photography, long exposure, Sea Dog, stages, whelans | 2 Comments »
The Button Factory is fast becoming my favourite venue to shoot these pictures in. It’s got a great balcony that allows both the stage and the crowd to appear in the shot. On Sunday May 2nd they had another Dublin Metal Events gig going on there – this time with long-running English death metal stalwarts Bolt Thrower. I got in around 7:30 just before the the doors were opening and asked the promoter if there was a support act tonight. “Yeah” he said. “Four of them. Bolt Thrower should be on around 12AM”. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged Bolt Thrower, Dublin Metal Events, For Ruin, large format photography, long exposure, Overoth, stages, the button factory | 1 Comment »
Hairy psychedelia from San Fransicso courtesy of Wooden Shjips- what can go wrong? Well the first thing would be that your cable release breaks immediately after setting up the camera. You have to use a cable release for long exposure shots on the 4×5 film camera I use. You press the cable release once to open the shutter and press it again a few minutes later to close it. You try and remember to take the darkslide out before doing so and put it back it when finished. Continue Reading »
Posted in Stages | Tagged large format photography, stages, whelans, long exposure, Wooden Shjips, u:mack productions | Leave a Comment »
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