Since I started this photography lark there has been one band above all bands that I have wanted to photograph.  They were one of the first bands I ever got into (as in buying all the albums, the 12″s for the extra tracks, the dodgy live bootleg tapes etc) and, more importantly, they were the first (headline) band I ever saw live.

Today I was given the opportunity to photograph this band.  Only it was a last minute thing and it was emailed to me.  I had to let them know ASAP and at worst within 20 minutes.

I didn’t check my mail until 30 minutes after they sent it; I was 10 minutes too late.

And that’s why there won’t be any pictures of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton or Larry Mullen Jr in my blog anytime soon…

I can’t even begin to put into words how gutted I am. But you probably won’t see me with a camera in my hand for a while.

Took some photos of The Mean Streaks at The Zoo last Thursday night. Although did a few of them at Ric’s a couple weeks back (between Wolf & Cub and Mercy Arms at The Zoo), I realised that haven’t photographed them properly since Coolangatta when they played their last show with Faker, Van She and The Valentinos. Ah, happy days…

Still playing around with different toning and alternative processes, especially lith and cyanotype. Still trying to work out which photos it works best on.

My latest favourite photographer is Jean-Baptiste Mondino so I think I’ll be working towards doing stuff as good as his next *ahem*.

A few examples below and a few more on flickr.

*Note: PVC-clad dominatrix and whip not featured*

One of my favourite photographers is Anton Corbijn

I bought his U2 and i book earlier in the year as a birthday present to myself and it’s been a great source of inspiration and envy in recent months.

(Note to bands: if any of you are planning on world domination please can you let me know so I can photograph you for the next 22 years. It’ll be really cool. kthxbai).

For a long while I’ve been fed up with so many venues in Brisbane only having red light and bored with how my photos look, having to convert them to black and white all the time. So I had been thinking of doing some alternative processing and toning à la Anton Corbijn. I tried lith and cyanotype printing properly in the dark room a few years back; it took forever and came out pretty crappy, so it’s a good job I can now cheat on a computer.

I tried out a few different things with the photos I took on Friday at The Columbian of The Drones and Darling Downs. Some things work better than others but I’m happy that they at least have some colour in them and look a bit different from what I normally come up with. I expect there will be more to come in the coming weeks… Feel free to let me know what you think of them.

Some below and stuck a few more on my Flickr account.

The Drones

I photographed Hard-Fi and Vanlustbader at The Arena last night. Thanks to the joys of promoter contracts I can’t show you the photos but they’re here.

I was only allowed to photograph in the first 3 songs. I was walking out the pit at the start of Vanlustbader’s 4th song when whoever was running the lights decided to start putting on a light show. And it was even worse for Hard-Fi, who played the best part of the first 1 ½ songs in the dark before some decent lighting in song 3. It meant that I ended up with about 3 1/2 minutes to get some photos…

For both bands, I got to watch song 4 onwards thinking I could get some really great photos with this great lighting… yeah, awesome…