Harmaja

I shot the band Harmaja last week at On The Rocks, Helsinki. Very challenging. Monotonous, red-yellow-orange based light, the band was very static. Their music is so peaceful and poetic, it's a challenge to capture the mood in concerts like that. I knew already before shooting them that I'd convert the photos to black and white. I think it better describes the mood in the concert than colour imagery. And I just can't stand the colour of the light that was available in the concert ;)

sometimes more dreams come true

I had been dreaming of shooting an open air festival at some point. I didn't really know how to get a photo pass to any festival (except for Rocknight, which isn't an open air, haha)... So I was going to the Rocksound festival in Huttwil, Switzerland, with my friends anyway and since Ensiferum was playing there I decided I'd try and ask them if they could help me out with the pass and I'd give them photos in return. And against all my expectations I soon got a message from Markus where he said they'll organise it for me. Just like that. That's how I ended up shooting Ensiferum for the first time :) I also shot Korpiklaani, Eluveitie and Queensrÿche, which truly was a dream come true. Hey can you imagine. My first big festival ever and I get to shoot one of my all time favorites, Queensrÿche. I was already excited to be able to finally see and hear Geoff Tate live on stage! I once again couldn't believe how lucky I was.


The Kirder brothers don't play in Eluveitie any more, but I posted the pics here anyway since they were such great characters on stage. The amount of energy and charisma was damn amazing.


Btw, gotta love the red bass strings :)


Here I tried some rather bold post processing... I think it kinda works with him.


Ok and my beloved Ensiferum :) It was raining cats and dogs by the time they were playing and I only stayed in the pit for the first 1.5-2 songs instead of the usual 3 first. Markus and his tongue are an essential part of every Ensiferum show :)


And here's Korpiklaani. I had such a fun party with the guys the night before and they were fun on stage as well. Btw, the Eluveitie, Ensiferum and Korpiklaani gigs were outside and that's why the light is not very interesting.


And here we go... Queensrÿche... Geoff Tate sounded just great, just great. He was a dynamic performer with a lot of expression.


Oh how I loved that moment. I just wished it'd never end. Oh and the lovely Pamela Moore was there too and they played quite a few songs from the amazing Operation: Mindcrime I-album. Which was released 20 years ago, 1988.

P.S. I'm so happy Tate didn't wear those lovely leggins he wore in the 80s :DD
P.S.2. I ended up shooting on 3 festivals last summer, I hope next summer I'll shoot at least as many :)

have yourself a merry heavy christmas...

I shot the Raskasta Joulua-concert 20.12.08 in Tavastia, Helsinki. It was a good experience. There were a couple of problems though... There was no photopit so I had to shoot from the audience. Which was a pain in the ass since Tavastia was sold out and packed. So I was being pushed by people from all directions and taking in-focus pictures was a true challenge. In addition to that the girl in front of me kept on banging her head against my camera. *sigh* Not so bad for my camera, but the poor girl's head...

The pics I shot are going to the website of Dex Viihde, the company that organised the whole concert :) They will appear in the "Media"-section where diverse media can download pics if they need images.

I'm not unequivocally satisfied with the images, but that was what I could do at that time. So, here we go, enjoy :)

the importance of having long lenses

I wasn't too worried about my not having anything longer than my 90mm 2.8 Tamron for concerts until I was standing in the photo pit of Rabarock Festival in Estonia in June 2008, seeing Helloween play on a stage this high:


Took that one with 17mm just to demonstrate how small I felt down there with my 167 cm which isn't even short! So I was happy to have at least my 90mm lens for Rabarock and ended up getting portraits like this:


The lens is a really good lens, but it doesn't give you many choices for framing. Especially when being in the pit, having the first three songs for shooting which means not much space and not much time for trying out stuff. At least for me. So I've been wanting a good 70-200mm lens for concert shooting ever since. Dear Santa... ;)

I must admit the stage was also a kind of a turn off for me as far as large festivals are concerned. A stage like that and it being outside (= the light is flat and boring) is not a very intriguing combination. However, with some luck and good timing it's possible to get energetic and interesting shots as well. The Japanese band Electric Eel Shock was the best band to take photos of in Rabarock, their stage show was just amazing.

So, even though my tent was flooded (it rained almost all the time) and I didn't get much sleep...



...even though I hit my left leg really painfully on an iron rod and mosquitos massacred my legs...




...Rabarock was made worth while by the hilarious, energetic, fun guys of Electric Eel Shock.

sometimes dreams come true

Last February I got to shoot my first huge gig in a stadium. Nightwish was playing and the Hallenstadion in Zurich was sold out. That meant that while being in the photo pit, there were 13 000 people celebrating Nightwish behind me and Nightwish playing in front of me. Something to make a young, inexperienced photographer humble ;) I didn't wet my pants, but it was an awesome feeling. The energy was amazing. The trouble was that our space was strictly limited between two basses so it wasn't too much. And there was this one guy who kept on pushing me aside :P What an asshole. The other ones were really nice and polite, the way I'm used to, acting according to the unwritten rules of photo pit manners. We also only had two songs instead of the normal three first ones, which fortunately were quite long songs ;)

What I really enjoyed was the great lighting. There was really enough of the light (except on Tuomas) and it was beautiful anyway.


I think I managed to capture a couple of really nice situations which still makes me very happy. Considering I'm still rather a beginner, the results looks actually quite nice. I was also still quite ill that evening, I had been ill all week, but hey how could I have missed an opportunity like this.

After the gig I was invited to the after party and yeah, I had a great time with the people ;) Ewo with his Ville Vallaton-drinks was really funny. I went to him to say hi and before he said hi back he gave me a glass, made me a Ville Vallaton and then shook hands with me :D

I want to thank my friends Maarit and Jarkki again for making that evening possible through their contacts and Marco for organizing the passes for me. See you some time soon :)

Cheers,
Ilona

bleak origin, part I

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kamel

A working colleague of mine told me last week their band is playing in Liberte (Kallio, Helsinki) on coming (i.e. now last) Friday. I thought I'd give it a go and support the band by going to see them. So I took my camera with me as well and lucky me I did! Not only did they play well, the singer Toni was a very charismatic performer and took eventually his shirt off ;) Somehow he reminds me of young Iggy Pop here.

His style was pretty dandy and vain. Not his clothes as much as his way of performing though. He was flirting with the few people who were there, giving his best and really managed to get some people on the dance floor to have a party. Anyway, these guys need more gigs, why don't you just book them ;) Listen to them here.

I put up an interactive show with Toni over there, quite funny actually. I had made a HOUSUT POIS!-poster (pants down in English) and showed it to them and Toni was making gestures of me having to pay him for doing that. I coincidentally had my wallet in my hand as I was heading towards the bar to get another beer and I just waved it in my hand and he reacted and I decided to play the demanding one and just "told" him to bugger off with his cost demands. Apparently other ones had their fun as well since people were smiling. Hey I just gotta love that rock n roll!

Cheers,
Ilona