October 2013

This month marks the twelfth Bootleg Basement show, and to celebrate I thought I'd unleash one of my top five favourite bootlegs courtesy of Nine Inch Nails.

This recording was made in 1994 at the infamous Woodstock 94 festival –  that's the one with the rain and mud and not the rioting – and it is a superb outing from the band as part of their Self-Destruct tour. This has been bootlegged many times on CD, and also thanks to it being available to watch on pay-per-view, the performance is also easy to find on DVD.




That was the wonderful Nine Inch Nails I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. For the next couple of months I'll be taking a break from the basement, but don't worry I'll return in the new year with another 12 selections from my archive. But until then, I've been your host and this has been the bootleg basement.

Track List:

"Pinion"

"Terrible Lie"

"Sin"

"March Of The Pigs"

"Something I Can Never Have"

"Closer"

"Reptile"

"Wish"

"Suck"

"Burn"

"The Only Time"

"Down In It"

"Dead Souls"

"Help Me I Am In Hell"

"Happiness In Slavery"

"Head Like A Hole"

To listen to the show you can either visit my page on Mixcloud, or click the embedded player below.

Latest Sean M. Palfrey's Cloudcasts on Mixcloud

August, 2013

This month we have a nice and intimate gig for you courtesy of one of the greatest post-punk bands of the 80s and 90s, The Chameleons.

This recording was made in December 2001 at the Lomax in Liverpool, and is a nice audience recording that only suffers from a little muffling on Mark Burgess' vocals. It's a great archive performance by a band that is still with us in spirit thanks to Burgess' own tribute Chameleons Vox.   

Track List:

01. Intro
02. Shades
03. A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days
04. Pleasure And Pain
05. Dangerous Land
06. Anyone Alive
07. Indiana
08. Intrigue In Tangiers
09. Perfume Garden
10. Tears
11. Soul In Isolation
12. Miracles And Wonders
13. Truth Isn't Truth Anymore
14. Caution
15. Second Skin
16. Encore
17. Splitting In Two   

To listen to the show you can either visit my page on Mixcloud, or click the embedded player below.

Latest Sean M. Palfrey's Cloudcasts on Mixcloud

The Flesh Eating Foundation @ DV8 Festival, York 2010

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Photographing festivals


There are two types of festival: Indoor and Outdoor, and each have their own rules. We give you a few tips on how to get access to them and get great results.

Festivals can be small scale affairs or major events. By the time you’ve shot a few good sized club gigs the chances are you’ll have a portfolio showing the best of your abilities. At this point you may want to contact small print or web publications about providing them with photos for gigs. This will give you the ability to contact band’s, promoters and organisers about getting press passes for larger events.

Shooting at this level has a few more rules to learn. An amateur to intermediate photographer wouldn’t have problem getting access to an event providing they have a publication to confirm they will be receiving the pictures, but they may have equipment limitations. Large festivals for example will require a more powerful lens due to the sizes of the stage. For smaller festivals though it won’t be so much of a problem, so a cheap telephoto lens or the top end of the standard lenses should do the job.

Natural light brings it’s own problems and eases too. There is less adjusting of the camera’s settings to do before hand for one. The abundance of sunlight will give an even spread of light that will allow you to focus on your angles, depth of field, and generally spend more time on looking out for the shots to get. However there can be an excess of UV lighting that will bleach colours - this can be easily compensated for buy buying a £10 UV filter. Glare caused by multiple light sources and excess light can also ruin photos, but again a £5 camera hood will cut this out.

At an indoor festival you will probably have the benefit of a press pit to free you up from the jostle of the crowd, but you must still pay attention to dark and complex lighting conditions and any rules regarding shooting times. In both the indoor and outdoor situations you’ll want to be ready to go without having to adjust throughout songs. The basic set up for your camera should be: ‘Manual’, ISO 400-800, Aperture F/4-6, and a shutter speed of 10th-30th of a second. These will give you a broadly quick starting point to get as many shots as you can.

Get as many shots of one pose as you can, use different angles and crouch if need be. Use different focal lengths, get different band members. Get a good spread of photographs and when the set is over go through them and delete the outright bad ones before the next set. You’ll be glad of this when it comes to post processing.

Luxury Stranger @ DV8 Festival, York 2010

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Hints & Tips:
Get permission!
Some venues have a zero tolerance policy on cameras which may result in ejection from the premises so it’s best to contact the venue owner or the band first preferably by email so you can print a copy to take with you. Bigger venues, festivals, and band’s tour managers will issue press and photo passes to journalists so get in contact with a publication or website about contributing photos and the editor will more often than not sort you out with a pass.


The ‘rule of three’
At some gigs, and most definitely at festivals there is something called the rule of three to watch out for. This basically means you can only shoot the band for the first three songs. Some promoters and venues are more relaxed about this depending on the band. If you attend a concert as an unofficial photographer it doesn’t mean much to you, but it is in place so that photographers don’t get in the way of the audience. As this is the case you’ll want to focus on getting shots of the band at the climactic points of the first three songs which will sometimes require research. Needless to say having your camera ready to go is a must in this situation.


Post-processing
Chances are if you shoot four bands you’ll have deleted a hundred odd photos in total at the gig and still have a full memory card. The worst bit is you need to pick 15-30 to polish. This takes the most time and effort, and it will ultimately determine the look of your portfolio.
A standard way of going through your photos is to transfer the photos you’re considering editing to a separate folder. Only you can determine what you think is a great shot in this environment as all tastes are different. Motion may appeal to you, or you may be a stickler for clarity. In the end it’s your style. Once you’ve picked a few dozen photos, go back through them with a critical eye and any photos that look too similar or have noticeable imperfections should be binned.

If you’re not a fan of complex lighting there are two ways to enhance your photos, and they compliment each other in a portfolio. If you want to keep some of the colour, but not as strongly, simply de-saturate the colours by a few points and then adjust the brightness, midtone and shadow until you’re satisfied. The other option is to convert the picture to black and white and adjust the brightness, midtone, and shadow as well. These will give you sharp and atmospheric looking photos.

If the problem is a matter of noise on the photo, there are several filters built into photoshop and paint shop pro that will help. ‘De-noise’ and ‘Remove noise’ will take away some of the problem, but tools such as ‘Gausin Blur’, ‘Bightness and Contrast’, ‘Clarify’ and photograph restoration features on both programmes can be adjusted to remove major areas of noise.

The final thing to remember is to make high resolution copies of your files for print, in case you want to submit them to magazines or to create a physical portfolio or even to sell as prints through outlets such as Deviant Art. This can be done by simply resizing the image to 300 dots per inch in the image-resize option. However, if you are also making low resolution copies for an electronic gallery/portfolio, remember to add a watermark (if you want) and save the file at 72 dots per inch for a faster loading speed.
 

Wayne Hussey @ DV8 Festival, York 2010

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Screaming Banshee Aircrew @ The Duchess, York 2010

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Photographing touring bands


Shooting in your local is one thing but there are a few different rules and hazards to look out for at club venues. We tell you the ins and outs of club shooting etiquette.

You’ve maybe had a few good goes at shooting local bands which has made you some friends and contacts, and given you a nice start to your concert portfolio. The next step is getting bigger names in that portfolio. It’s all well and good having a great shot of a band nobody has heard of, but it’s even better if at least someone will recognize them. The fact is that most bands don’t play huge arenas, most play venues no bigger than a secondary school’s assembly hall. This means the door price is low (typically £5-25) and there is no set photographer pit. This has it’s advantages and disadvantages. It doesn’t mean it’s necessary that you have to wrangle your way onto the press list, but you will have to watch out for the crowd.

The crowd are there to have a good time and will typically be indifferent to the plight of the local photographer, so expect to be jostled and your movement to be impaired. Also, don’t expect people to let you get to the front, getting in their early is your best bet for a clear view of the stage and when the place fills up, to move about as best you can without annoying people. The other thing to look out for is security, some clubs don’t allow cameras, so be sure to email ahead of time to get permission (and take the email with you just in case) or else you may be ejected.

The lighting will typically be better quality in a club as well so you can expect more ambiance for your photographs, but also more movement and complex saturation. This can be extremely frustrating for the beginner as moving light will throw your camera out of focus, and over saturate pictures. The trick is to keep shooting. Most bands have a set ‘pose’ list meaning that if you miss a fantastic shot or it’s blurred or over saturated, don’t fret as the performers will usually do it at least once more before the end of the set. They want to look their best in your photos and will almost always play up to the presence of cameras.

One thing that many bands and promoters discourage is the use of flash, whether the built in or external variety. It’s already been mentioned how it may effect your photographs, but it may also effect your reputation. Strong flashes on small or busy stages will get in the eyes of performers - remember they only see a dimly lit crowd, not the full brightness of the stage, so bombarding them with flash is not going to help them visually perceive hazards.

 Inertia @ The Electrowerkz, London 2010

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Equipment for your camera
 

1) MEMORY CARD You’ll want a good size compact flash card, preferably 8gb and over plus one for backup. To get that one perfect shot you’ll shoot at least ten others that wont make the grade and when shooting in RAW those memory cards fill up quickly. Also remember to delete the outright bad shots between bands.


2) SPARE BATTERY DSLR batteries drain annoyingly quickly. Four bands doing a 30-45 minute set each will drain half of your battery’s life, so a day long festival will quite likely take the lot. Add shooting in RAW to that equation and you’ll soon realise that it is always best to keep a charged spare.


3) UV LENS FILTER Again it’s an optional extra but it can be useful for outdoor festivals in the summer if not in a tent or shooting a covered main stage. This will give you better colour correction when a strong sun would otherwise bleach out colours.


4) TELESCOPIC LENS This one is a very practical option as in festival situations the press pit can get quite far away from the performers. Even standing to the side of the stage in some indoor venues can put you further away from the action than you’d like so if you have the spare cash a good telescopic lens can work wonders and free up your aperture range as well.

5) SOFTWARE Unfortunately unless you own a top of the range camera ISO noise will be a problem. ISO noise occurs in dark patches on the photograph where the camera struggles to get more light. Shooting in RAW and editing in Photoshop, or now for those on a budget Paint Shop Pro X3, will enable you to edit out noise and also give greater control over colour and white balance.
 

Midnight Configuration @ The Electrowerkz, London 2010

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Part 3 Coming Soon...

Decadenze @ The Duke Of Wellington Pub, Lincoln 2009
(c) Imago Mortis Photography 

Concert photography isn’t the exclusive realm of professionals with extensive magazine contacts. Anyone, with any level of DSLR can get fantastic shots of a band whether it is at an outdoor festival, your local pub, or an arena. We show you how to get stunning results and how to overcome low-light and movement issues.



Photographing the local pub circuit

Everyone who is shooting for magazines, and websites started in the same place. The local pub. The local live circuit is an invaluable place to gain experience and network with bands. Just because a band is playing small venues doesn’t mean they aren’t showmen, and never underestimate the quality of light at pubs that advertise regular gigs. The big advantage to starting out taking photos down your local is the relaxed atmosphere. Exchanging your photos with bands for a credit and link back on their website will mean more invitations to gigs and even being invited to do promo photos. And by the end of this Beginner’s Guide you’ll know all the tricks to get great quality photos that will standout and open doors for you.

There are no set rules to concert photography, so experimentation is the name of the game. For instance, some people like to get a crisp shot, others like over saturated light and some prefer motion blur and light trails. Atmosphere is king as it is about documentation rather than promotional portraiture. This means that you are free to use whatever tools are at your disposal: entry level cameras such as the Sony Alpha 200 with the standard lens can produce the same level of quality as the top-spec counterpart as long as you know your way around the settings.

A good sized memory card (2gb and over) is sufficient for a four band line up, and with an average set lasting about 30-40 minutes there is plenty of opportunity to take a few test shots, adjust the ISO and aperture settings, and see what works for the band. What is a must though, is to set your camera to continuous shooting. This will allow the camera to work at it’s maximum speed to increase the chance of getting that perfect shot.
Exposure times will add the atmosphere to a shot. A shorter exposure will mean crisper foreground colours and a darker background. This works particularly well in intimate gigs to ‘hide’ the size of the venue. A longer exposure will allow more light into the camera at the expense of sharpness leading to movement blur and light streaks. These can be used to great effect but it reduces your chances of getting a clear shot. A wider aperture setting with a shallower depth of field however can compensate for this as it will blur the background and make batter use of the available light, thus increasing your shutter speed.

The flash, whether it is your camera’s internal flash or a flashgun with a diffuser fitted will not be needed in any concert situations. The flash will only serve to over illuminate the subjects, eliminating the natural ambiance and bleach the skin tones. The internal flash will also decrease the shutter speed and over expose your shots. There are other reasons for not using the flash but we’ll come to those in the next section.

Eibon La Furies @ The Duke Of Wellington Pub, Lincoln 2009

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Settings for your camera

1) MODE You can set your DSLR camera to ‘Action’ mode - this will automatically set the camera up to capture fast movements. This on it’s own may be sufficient for acoustic gigs or small gigs in pub beer gardens or local playing fields, however some small adjustments may also have to be made to get the correct exposure. But for situations where natural light is plentiful, the beginner can get away with shooting in this mode with no fiddling. Otherwise set you camera to ‘Full Manual’ and adjust the spot metering, this will take the meter reading of a smaller area when shooting complex lighting situations.

2) EXPOSURE Set your exposure as low as you dare - a longer exposure will create vivid colours and streaks. If you like this then go for it. If not, you’ll want to make that shutter speed as fast as possible. This will create sharper images with darker backgrounds that will hide the size of your venue, and when shot from the right angles, capture a more dramatic shot of the subject.


3) ISO The rule of thumb is that the more ‘professional’ the camera, the higher you can crank up the ISO setting. Top of the range DSLRs will give you sharper images with less “noise” on them if you increase the ISO setting. On entry level DSLRs it is best to either stick to around the 400-800 ISO mark depending on the light quality, or leave the setting to automatic if you’re not sure. Again this is an area where trial and error is best - sacrificing a few early shots in the set to find the right setting will lead to more great photos overall.

4) APERTURE A wider aperture with a shallow depth of field will use all of the available light to the camera’s advantage, creating a sharper foreground capture while blurring a distracting background. A setting of around F/4-6 works best if using a standard lens. An expensive telephoto lens will allow you to move outside of this range but it isn’t necessary for this level of concert.

5) FORMAT Consider shooting in RAW format. This has advantages and disadvantages, RAW captures more information than JPG meaning that you have greater control over the editing of the image. However as the camera works harder to process the information your shutter speed decreases. Fine quality JPG is still OK and will let you shoot in faster bursts, but the compression noise on the final image coupled with ISO noise can sometimes ruin otherwise great captures.
 
 

Fall Of Industry @ The Duke Of Wellington Pub, Lincoln 2009

(c) Imago Mortis Photography

Part 2 Coming Soon...

Wow it has been a long time since I updated this. I do apologise to any of my regular browsers out there but things have been hectic (MA Dissertation + New Job etc). Anyway here is part 3 of the DV8 Report (Finally!)...

Flesh Eating Foundation:
What a fantastic shock to the Sunday malaise that had ensnared me courtesy of a rather substantial dinner at The Guy Fawkes Inn. FEF's brand of sonic dissonance was more infectious than the T-Virus and played with utter conviction.

Zeitgeist Zero:
Cor blimey what a busy bunch! I caught them on the third day in the Duchess but they had been the only band to play all three days on all three stages as different versions of themselves. It was a shame I didn't manage to see the other two incarnations of the band, but if their set was half as good as this one then I'm sure I would have enjoyed them.

Rhombus:
I reviewed the Rhombus' album 'Open the Sky' a few months ago for www.ReflectionsOfDarkness.com, so I was really looking forward to this set. The band didn't disappoint. Their traditional blend of hard Gothic rock accented with female backing vocals, and the obligatory big hat really hit the nail on the head for what modern Gothic Rock is all about.

Pretentious, Moi?:Another solid Gothic Rock band that fed off the tried and tested formula, but in a way such as to make it their own. he band's sound was familiar yet didn't immediately bring to mind any specific sound-a-like influences - which can only be a mission accomplished. I do hope to catch this lot again at some point in the future.

Gene Loves Jezebel:

More specifically Jay Aston's Gene Loves Jezebel. After these guys left the stage, bringing about a close to the weekend, I deffinately felt sold that these guys were the real deal. Jay had all the rockstar prowess of Mick Jagger and the energy to match it. A fantastic sing-a-long of the hit song 'Desire' sealed the deal on a fantastic performance.

*Phew*

I know I have been rather lax over the past two months (time flies unfortunately!) but you can expect pleanty more from me in the coming months. The next bunch of live photos will be courtesy of the next Nightbreed event 'Dark Souls' in December, and tomorrow I'll post some infrared experiments and a link to my new casting call. I will also, no doubt, be posting reviews (or summaries with a link to reviews) for Killing Joke (16/10/10), Dark Souls (11/12/10), and Swallow The Sun (19/12/10) as well as the links and bits of news that have interested me.

I've also begun to rebuild the Imago Mortis website to better reflect my style. I think you will all like it. I've included lots off hidden links and messages throughout it to make it a more interactive experience rather than just a portfolio. I will try to time it so that the main Adversaria website is complete at the same time which will house both this blog and all the various links to my articles around the website.

Ok everyone here is part 2 of the DV8 festival roundup. Sorry it has taken so long but it was a bit of a challenge getting this last lot of photos sorted due to an astonishingly annoying head cold that made staring at the computer screen to fine tune photographs nigh on impossible for a couple of days. Once again the full sets are available to view in the photostream and live music folder on my Flickr account: www.flickr.com/photos/imagomortisuk  


Luxury Stranger:

These guys didn't disappoint me. There has been a buzz about this band for a while and they are making a name for themselves on the live circuit by playing anywhere and everywhere they can. So it was great to finally catch them. Their energetic post-punk will be palatable for most and their energy on stage is infectious.

Screaming Banshee Aircrew:

This was Screaming Banshee Aircrew's final gig, and what a way to go out! (despite the early death of their violin) I've caught these guys a couple of times in the past, most notably at the Electric Ballroom supporting The Cruxshadows. Three years later they've thrown in the towel but thanks to this performance they won't be quickly forgotten.

Inkubus Sukkubus:

The Pagan-Goth-Rock legends need no introduction, do they? One of the most infamous names in the British Gothic scene they've honed their skills over the years and are as slick as it gets on the stage. Despite a little wobble towards the end of their set they had the audience eating out of their hands the whole time, and quite rightly proved why they are one of the best bands in the scene.

Wayne Hussey:
Now if I need to introduce Wayne Hussey to you I'd suspect you'd need to polish up on your music history. He may be getting on a bit but in his sharp suit and sunglasses Wayne Hussey is still the epitome of cool. Taking songs from accross his years with The Mission as well as a solo artist and announcing a 25th anniversary reunion tour for The Mission next year he left a lot of people very satisified.

Photographs and a quick round-up of day three of DV8 Festival will come a little later in the week, featuring: Flesh Eating Foundation, Zeitgeist Zero, Pretentious Moi?, Goteki, and Gene Loves Jezebel.
Hopefully I won't catch a headcold again in the meantime!

What a weekend!

Congratulations to the organizers, artists, and performers who did an excellent job at DV8 Festival in York this past weekend. As you can guess I took a lot of photographs of the bands over the weekend and these will all appear in my portfolio over the next couple of weeks. There were so many standout bands it would be hard to choose which ones impressed me the most and I'd deffinately be up for seeing many of them again.

Worth special mentions were the Burlesque performers who put on some great and very funny shows over the course of the weekend, as well as the hostess with the mostess Rosie Lugosi.

Now I have to whittle around 3-4,000 photos down to 20 each for each band I saw...

*Phew!*

Just a quick update today as I'm tired :)

I went to Wolverhampton to see KMFDM last night thanks to Gary from the band Deadfilmstar who sent me a free ticket (cheers mate) I took the camera along but due to my own ineptness I was only allowed to shoot Deadfilmstar's set as I forgot to check with the other bands first. If I'd had the presence of mind I would have caught the other bands while they were at the bar (d'oh). Nevermind, as I got some good pics of DFS's set anyway! (I'll post those soon).

Deadfilmstar were on form once again. Gary's sleazed-up-semi-alien-rockstar persona oozes stage presence, the band were tight and the music was fun and full of groove. But again as last time (at Slimelight) it was a short and sweet set lasting about five songs.

AlterRed were baffling, but in a good way. I'd bought a couple of their 'DUST' albums back when they were on Wasp Factory Records and had seen them prior to their change into AlterRed in 2007 and had really enjoyed them. I think that musically the band are still pretty damn good and they have great presence, but the 'Nightmares from your toybox' characters that joined them onstage were somewhat superfluous to proceedings. I can see what the logic is behind it but that area needs some work, though I'm sure the small stage didn't help.

KMFDM... What can you say? Tighter than a duck's arse and heavier than a really heavy thing. The band's veteran status is well deserved as they directed the crowd with a mere flick of their wrists. Sascha and Lucia's chemestry onstage is beyond fault, and the backing of Jules, Andy and Steve was spotless. I honestly can't think of anything wrong with that set. Of course 'Hau Rock', 'Meglomaniac', 'Drug Against War' 'World War III' and 'Godlike' were the highlights of the set, but it's nice to see that even with 26 years worth of material the band don't just do the bog-standard Greatest Hits. Instead they mix it up and seem as fresh as they always have.

The highlight of the night was probably the hour me and my friends spent with the guys in KMFDM after the gig across the road at The Planet. I think that 80% of the conversation was centred around the World Cup, which was surreal enough. But they were a charming and friendly bunch that were quite happy to have a laugh and a smoke with us despite the rain.

Guess who had to take the photo and hence didn't get in the photo :P