Since my look back had nearly thirty images and Jim Goldstein’s listing requires only ten, I’m bothering you with another post of an even more curated list. Of course, editing and selecting is always a good skill so it was great to narrow the list down even a bit more.
Update the list of all entries can be found on Jim’s blog.
Moonlit
Well, another year gone by with the camera more or less grown on to my hand. However, even though I took more than enough photographs during the year, somehow I’m left with the feeling that I should have done more. Note, this will be an exceptionally photo heavy post.
As the final installment of the Sotkamon Syke 2011 photographs we get the final artist of the evening – Amorphis (previously The Man-Eating Tree, Tarot). Initially I was hoping we’d be getting some pyros during the show, but unfortunately none were set up and I found out from the crew that the stage was too small for them to use pyros. I was also fairly certain that the gig would be challenging lighting wise – as Amorphis practically always is. Especially during the first three songs.
Early on into the set it became apparent that during the first three, Tomi wouldn’t be getting any significant amount of light in his face so I concentrated on getting good silhouettes of him and trying to get good shots of the rest of the band. Continuing from the audience after the first three with a longer lens then let me get some good shots of Tomi that were lit a bit better.
And I also got the chance to get some shots that showed the rain that had been plaguing us all evening.
Since we’ve seen the play quite a few times and I have a good amount of solid and typical concert photography shots of the band I really decided to explore the possibilities that the strong backlight and raindrops on the lens would give me. This is one of my favorites:
The Amorphis set was as solid as they usually are and contained most of the typical songs they play in a festival setting. Majestic Beast was a great exception to the typical set.
As always, more pictures in our gallery.
Yes, I know the gig was almost a month ago… I blame the holidays and our everlasting house remodeling project. But I finally got around to making my selections and editing the images from the gig today. As fans probably know, Amorphis published an album filled with remakes of songs from their first three albums with the new vocalist as a celebration of their 20 years in the business. In honor of the album, they made a club tour of Finland in late November and early December. Since they weren’t going to hit Joensuu and we were heading south anyway, we decided to catch them in Lahti for a very enjoyable session of Magic & Mayhem.
Like the album, the gigs songs were only from the first three albums as well – in Lahti we even got to hear Tomi Joutsen performing Elegy live for the first time. Another added bonus to fans during the tour was the appearance of Amorphis alumni on-stage. Only one gig (in Tavastia) had the full complement of past and present members, we got to see three: Olli-Pekka Laine, Pekka Kasari, and Kim Rantala.
I also selected a slightly different position than usual when seeing them so that I could get better pictures of the members I didn’t have good shots of. I can’t say that I chose poorly – especially when the stage in Lahti was much larger than in Kuopio or Joensuu and the lighting was bright enough.
It was also the first gig that I shot with my (still) new 7D and EF-S 17-55/2.8. Neither the body nor lens disappointed me and I think I’ve found my new goto setup for concert photography in our small venues.
As always, more pictures available in our photo gallery.
Our week of seeing good live acts ended with Amorphis playing live in Puikkari (review and pictures of Suburban Tribe coming soon). Which meant another drive to Kuopio, but what wouldn’t we do to see Amorphis live. In fact, we were considering a crazy drive to Oulu in early August just to see them and drive back the same night to make to a dog show the next morning… This was the fourth time we’ve seen them live (Kuopio Rock 2009, Kohti rokkia 2008). I’ve shot every time, but still haven’t gone through the pictures of them playing in Kellari last November. I blame breaking my hand the next day for my procrastination ;)
