Ronny comes to Melbourne next friday and we catch Metric on Saturday! Hopefully I’ll be able to take him to a couple of other shows while he’s here. We need to inspire the boy!
In other news, early bird tickets came!
I predicted 2010 is gonna be a fan-fucking-tastic year. The only downer is that after Xmas break I won’t be back in SG till January 2011 and I honestly don’t even know if I want to go back anymore. Ronny and I were discussing the possibility of moving here for a couple of years but haven’t come up with with a solid plan just yet. We’ll just wait and see.
I think this isn’t the first time this issue’s been brought up because I know Jbarks once wrote about it as well last year or the year before but a certain photographer at a show I went to a couple of days ago has forced me to want to write this post.
Gig photography has grown increasingly popular the past couple of years and while I do appreciate what they essentially do for us the audience (take pictures for us to remember said show/performance and capturing important moments in local music history) the increasing number of young punks who think they’re bona fide photographers just because they own a dslr is becoming such a problem, its become irritating for us the audience.
These young punks basically had their daddys or mummys buy them cameras and they suddenly think their good enough to be gig photogs. They come into shows carrying their camera bags with pride but basically don’t know shit about basic photography or know the photo taking etiquette when shooting shows. They take photos lousy in composition, stand in front of you for way to damn long blocking your view of the band and are unaware of their surroundings.
Said show I attended last week was an event I had to cover for work and said photographer basically stood in front of Ronny and I for so damn long we couldn’t see anything unless we leaned forward which then caused us to block the people seated beside us. Yes it was a seated show, you’d think he’d have been more aware that he was blocking us when he stood there but no he didn’t at all. Every other photographer in the venue knew what to do except for this young punk.
He was even given an official photographer tag so I knew I was going to end up viewing his pictures and passing them to my editor. I’ll send anyone his official web link if you wanna see the pictures. They were as predicted, horrible. Bad composition (hello learn the 1/3 rule please! Also, chopping some one’s head or arm out of the picture automatically makes it a lousy shot cuz you made the person look like he’s decapitated and learn how to focus please. Also if you don’t know how to work with light don’t be a gig photographer cuz you clearly overly relied on you flash which you didn’t even use properly) and told no story whatsoever. The performers ended up looking horrible in the pictures too. I predict the designer’s gonna have one hell of a time trying to make those pictures work for the publication. Wayne Umehara would have screamed at him till he pissed his pants if he was in our photog class.
So kids, what I’m really trying to say is, if you don’t know the basics and you don’t know how to use light and you don’t know the proper etiquette then don’t bother being a gig photographer. Go learn the basics and improve before you dive into it. We have enough extremely talented people taking pictures (even if they rarely come out to shows to shoot nowadays) for shows for the time being. And no, just because a scene kid tells you your pictures are awesome that it really means they’re awesome.
No. 4: Amatuer Takes Control-You, Me and The Things Unsaid
No. 5: Coldplay-Viva la Vida
No. 6: Plainsunset-Plainsunset
No. 7: Pendulum-Hold Your Colour
No. 8: Priscilla Ahn-A Good Day
No. 9: The Ting Tings-We Started Nothing
No. 10: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones-Medium Rare (This was more a Dec 2007 release but I only got it in 2008 and none of the other albums deserved to be in my Top 10 really so there.)
I tag Gordon, Timmy, Josie, Cherry, Dharma, Ave. I wanna see your top 10s!
Tickets for Death Cab for Cutie went on sale on June 27. On June 28, a bunch of my friends tried getting tickets online only to find out only Cat 8 tickets were left. They tried getting 2 and couldn’t get any because the system says they are unable to process the request. Called Sistic to book tickets via their phone booking system and guess what? 1 FUCKING TICKET LEFT.
1 FUCKING DAY AND SUDDENLY ALL THE TICKETS ARE GONE?
Since when was Death Cab soooooo mainstream in SG? How many people that actually bought tickets actually REALLY REALLY listen to Death Cab and actually know their music from before that lame ass OC show? Urghhh I swear if I find out idiots who bought tickets leave after the first song like that did with Broken Social Scene I will get even more pissed off! So many of us could have gotten better seats if it weren’t for those who bought tickets cuz they thought it’d be wayyyyy cool to attend BSS then leave after the first song. If the same thing happens for Death Cab, urghh war!!!
