We don't celebrate Sundays anymore.

On first note: Ha, I don't talk about anything else than photography and music in this blog anymore now don't I? Oh well, I kind of like the direction where this blog is going. :) I've grown a lot as a person since I started this blog so it's pretty obvious this blog has changed as well. Anyway...

On Monday I came here to hype about the Bronx show that I was desperate to get into (and succeeded). The next day I attended yet another great show; Hardcore Superstar at Tavastia. I got a photopass for the show through the webzine and I was stoked to be working on my live photographing skills so intently this week. I really want to become a better photographer, and I think that simply pursuing it is just the best way to learn. 

What made Hardcore Superstar so brilliant was probably its energy, they had a great one. A lot of bands have energy on stage, pretty much all of them do, but there are energies of all sorts. This energy was vibrant and pushed to the limit. They had obviously came to have fun and I was happy to see them connect with the crowd so strongly. On top of entertaining them, they were really present and showed their excitement.

As a reporter I get to see a lot of live shows which I am grateful of, but at the same time the bar just keeps going up when talking about "liking" a show. Comparing today to a few years ago, I need so much from the band to objectively say "that was a GREAT show!" This has nothing to do with the enjoyability of the show, of course I always adore seeing live music. But some shows just come and go with no lasting memory of them created in between, they are unremarkable, and they've started to taste like old gum. 

But like I said, this has been a good week. You see, both of the shows I attended were remarkably good. I felt inspired afterwards, and I know that I will remember these shows later on in my life. The shows were inspiring. 

Recently I've been exploring my skills as a live photographer. I love music, I love art and I love taking pictures so live photography is an ovious conclusion. As a reporter it's also good to expand my comfort zone and see what else I could do. If I could photograph well, I could do show reports even all by myself if I don't have a photographer interested to go with me. It's fun to compare photography and writing like that, especially now as I've tried a bit of both. In my experience both need skills and time. 

In my opinion writing requires more work. When you see a concert that you're going to write about, you truly need to pay attention to the show from the beginning to the end if you wish to write a good report. At home you have to reminisce what you've experienced and felt, notes help a lot. Then you have to transport those thoughts from your brain to the paper correctly, so that other people can understand what you really mean. Once you've wrote everything down, you're still not finished. You have to read it through, maybe make changes, move paragraphs around or re-consider the palcing of words. There are thousands of opportunities to make a sentence work and look beautiful. Basically there isn't even a way to tell when that piece of work is finished anyway. Though is there ever with art?

Live photography requires a good visual taste and an eye for it, good equipment and some knowledge about using that equipment. I - in my own humble opinion - have the first one so now I'm working on the last two. I have a professional camera but for now only a kit lense for it and even that has some issues with the auto focus. Knowledge... well, that's what I'm working on. 

As a photographer you have two moments to impact the way that the picture works out - at the moment when you take the picture and at home photoshopping it. At shows photographers usually have three first songs to take pictures from the photo pit, which is an area in between the stage and the crowd. At that moment it's all about quick decisions, capturing moments and pushing the button at the right time. 

Once you get in front of the computer, you have the chance to (maybe) save the pictures that failed, or perfect the ones that didn't. Photoshopping is about choices as well, it may take a lot of time but in the end if you start to have a lot of pictures to go through, photoshopping becomes an auto piloting task that you don't much that much effort to. But with written reports... you go to bed with and wake up with until you figure out how to put that one simple line just right.

Another plus side of live photography is definitely that it feels way more social than writing. When you write a report, you go to a show, you come home, and you finish the raport - alone. Okay, you might go to the show with friends and meet some new people but there's no way you'll spot another reporter by one's outlook and start talking to that person. As a photographer there's the security guard that makes you line up before entering the pit, there's a lot of waiting and at some point one of you will probably open their mouth and new friends are made. This was one of the first things I noticed - shooting concerts is social (if you want it to be.)

I added watermarks to my pictures for the first time. I guess that's just something that all the photographers should do. I don't mind my pictures spreading around the internet but I do mind if there isn't any sign of the source. I've never really cared for watermarks in my picture because they ruin the viewing experience for me. An ugly piece of text at some corner or at worst cases in the middle or across the picture. Yuck, I just hate that even though I get the point. 

I made mine small and have no intention of ever placing it anywhere else than where it visually fits best in the picture. I wrote down my art site's address rather than my name so that people would find their way there more easily. Besides, I wanted to highlight my art more than myself.

FI: Olin katsomassa Hardcore Superstaria tiistaina, oli huippu keikka! Kuvat ovat itseottamiani, harjoittelen vasta valokuvausta mutta koen oppivani juuri tekemisen kautta. Mitä pidätte?

Anyway, what do you think about the pictures, the comparisons, Hardcore Superstar or the watermark? (Pheew, I had a lot to say in this post!

XOXO

Joanna