Celebrating the 94th anniversary of Finnish independence with the colors of our flag. A fresh sprinkling of snow on the ground suits the day.
Blue and white
Image
Reply
Black Sun Aeon @ Kerubi 4.11.2011
Warming up for Insomnium’s first gig in support of One for Sorrows was Tuomas Saukkonen’s (Before the Dawn) solo project Black Sun Aeon. BSA is quite similar to Before the Dawn. So similar in fact that the only reason that I can see for the solo project is Tuomas Saukkonen’s desire to play every single instrument on the album. And honestly, he plays them well.
Melodic death metal was on the table for the evening, but I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that Janica Lönn was along with the band for the tour. Especially as a photographer it was nice to shoot a female instead of the (mostly hairy) men that dominate metal.
As far as BSA’s set goes, I must admit to being quite disappointed. I’d listened to them through Spotify even before the gig (and afterwards as well) and have quite liked them. I’m fairly certain that my disappointment in the gig comes from the mix being off. It was so bass heavy that it drowned out most of the other instrument – luckily at least the vocals did come through enough to give the songs some atmosphere.
As always, more pictures in our gallery and stay tuned for pictures of the main act, Insomnium.
X never, ever marks the spot
A photo from about a month ago, when we were in the same limbo that we still find ourselves in. Somewhere between the vibrant colors of early autumn and the whiteness of winter.
I’m trying hard to think of where I want to take my photography. Trying to process the backlog of concert photographs I have so that I can tackle some other projects. And finally force myself to make a portfolio for myself.
But I really wish I’d find an X that marks the spot where I’d find the cure for my procrastination :)
It’s Getting Hot: Reckless Love @ Kerubi 7.10.2011
It was just a few months ago that we spent a nice summer evening with Reckless Love in the same venue. That time the gig was free and open to all ages – and it showed. We had a full (or nearly so) house and lots of teens. Now it was a normal gig with the age restriction of 18 and over. Alas, Joensuu should be ashamed since Kerubi was half empty.
Sure, Reckless Love may not be serious metal, but it doesn’t mean that metalheads shouldn’t be able to appreciate well done and happy glam metal. Or hair metal. Or hard rock. Or whatever other genre you want to drop Reckless Love in.
Like every other time, Olli didn’t fail to get in some jump kicks and get the female crowd screaming by tearing off his shirt. The rest of the band rocked a solid show as well.
And of course in my book everything is right in the world now that Pepe has an Ibanez RG shaped guitar in his hands. Especially in a bright neon color. No other guitar says 80s metal quite as well.
This time I’d placed myself dead center and thus didn’t get quite as good an angle on Pepe, but it meant that I got better pictures of Jalle and Hessu, so it a good tradeoff.
All in all, it was a great night filled with good rock and roll. Next up some gloomy melodic death metal once I get the images processed. But as always, more pictures are available in our gallery.
Smoke, heat, and some flames – pictures from inside a burning house
You all know how in the movies structural fires have these nice flames and no smoke at all, right? Well, the truth is quite far from it – at least in the beginning. A few weeks ago our station had a live fire exercise in a house that would have otherwise been torn down.
For us to stay current with our training, we have to have at least one exercise per year in full gear and in hot conditions. That is, we have to train with live fire either in a simulator or by setting fire to a structure and putting it out repeatedly. Alas, most years we have to satisfy ourselves with simulators since finding suitable structures that are going to be torn down is difficult.
As with real fires, gearing up properly is extremely important and we check each others gear before going into the smoky and hot building. In most cases, at least if the structure can still be saved, the rooms are filled with smoke and heat. Moving around in an unfamiliar structure where visibility is minimal is done by crawling and touching everything.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get really big fires going between the pairs that went in so in most cases I didn’t get any suitable pictures since without any flames it was extremely dark.
However, once the ceiling caved in over one of the rooms, we got a movie-like fire going on that I could photograph a bit. By this time being in the building was already quite hazardous since the house had been burning for some time and shooting time was very limited.
Of course, once we can’t practice inside, we complete the teardown by burning the house in a controlled fashion while protecting the surrounding areas.
All in all, all of us got to go in at least once – I think most managed to go in twice. I went in once without a camera and then six or seven times with the camera. As you can imagine, I was feeling quite toasty after the last time. Shooting while completely covered in turnout gear and the breathing mask is challenging – especially when shooting with an older camera without live view. I used our backup, the 30D for this shoot since I’ll never risk our primary inside a burning building.
More pictures in our gallery. You might also be interested in the pictures from our previous live fire exercise in 2008.
