His Guitar may have had problems but he was still happy to play!

R.P.G (Rabid Punk Guitars) were doing a warm up gig for The Curtains at the Twa Tams pub in Perth which is known for supporting local bands. So after sharing a bottle of wine with Fee we headed down to the Tams and while she bought me some strange concoction of a drink which included red bull, which I’m not allowed to drink normally for the sanity of those around me, I went and checked out the stage and crowd form the back of the stage. The band were just setting up and the crowd of avid fans were in place so after checking how long I had before they started I joined Fee in the beer garden and drank the bizarre 2 part drink. It all got a little vague after that!!!

As the 1st song was playing we headed inside and squeezed through the crowd and the small brawl (it was a punk gig after all) and my lens cap got knocked off and I had to risk my hands under shuffling feet to retrieve it, but we made it more or less in one piece to the front where I set up to do my thing! Through the tipsy haze (Fee was still plying me with drink) I managed to set up my camera to all the right setting for a change, in raw to give more flexibility in processing, manual mode to control F number and shutter speed (low F for tight depth of field and shutter about 100th to capture without blur) and ISO 1600 to make most of the awful light. Has no pub in Perth got proper lighting for their stages? Remote flash was set and ready with good new batteries and all went pretty smoothly. It was a short set but a great one with all their own songs and the crowd loved it, even if there were a few tuning problems with the lead guitar. Goes to show a successful gig is more than just the music, it’s the atmosphere and the show as well and as always RPG provided this with their great energy and obvious love of the music. Dodging the occasional dancer, or is that moshers, I breezed around the stage and balanced the flash on whatever I could find (including Fee) and even stood on a chair to get the perfect shots. And I must admit I’m happy with what I got.

After RPGs set we took a break before the main band and as we met an old friend of mine and got talking we kinda lost track of time and next thing we knew it was after midnight and The Curtains were finishing up. Ooops, sorry guys! But all in all a good night with good company and great music and some good photos, just wish I could shoot them somewhere with decent lighting for a change! If you want to find out more about RPG you can now find them on facebook, just look up RabidPunkGuitars there.

Rabid Punk Guitars doing their thing

There’s a condition at work which we call “nightshift brain”and this is when during or after working waking nightshifts your brain gives up its higher levels of functioning due to the tiredness, isolation and general messing about of the body clock. The phenomenon can last for a good few days after the last nightshift. Now due to doing 4 waking nights, finishing on the wed morning, then doing a sleepover shift (which is a late shift, sleep at the service then do an early the next day) on Friday, by Saturday my brain had pretty much given out. This all made my shoot of the wonderful R.P.G on Saturday a bit of a challenge.

Although I was faultly RPG weren't

They were again playing the Corinna Hotel in all it’s dodgy glory.  This time they had a warm up act, Patrol, who were just finishing when I turned up. They did sound very good and everyone gave them a glowing review. Sorry I missed you guys! As always the light was shocking there but this time I had come with a plan. I had used coloured acetone to make filters that fit on the flash, ingenious! They would of worked really well too if I didn’t have so many problems with the flash gun. I had put in cheap batteries which the flash just ate through at an amazing rate and only with very fresh batteries did it work to it’s best. Lesson leaned though, you get what you pay for! This along with my faulty brain that set the camera up with ISO 100 instead of 1600 and at no point figured this out until the next day, made for a challenging shoot. But through the technical difficulties and the rather rowdy crowds (my thanks to Pauline and Sandra who acted as my bouncers and stopped me getting stood on even though it put them in the line of danger) I managed to get some great shots.  Again I also used rear flash and slow shutter approach and as the band and crowd were quite lively I got some good movement shots. I did need to do quite a bit of photoshop work to lighten them up though, knew I should of worked in RAW format so I could play around with exposure and that and due to the low ISO and hence darker shots I did tend to transfer a lot of shots in to black & white to get the contrast and detail I wanted.

Although I was not at my best, RPG were. They played their hearts out and put up with the drunks wondering onto the stage area and were gratified with proper screaming fans and demands for more. It sounded like and felt like being at a proper concert, apart from the venue. I’m sure if they did a CD it would do very well, who says you have to be in your youth to make it big in the music world!!!!

R.P.G. at the rehearsal studio

Last weekend I took photos for a local punk band R.P.G and I’m pleased to say they were happy with the outcome. I agreed to meet up with them at their rehearsal studio in Perth to give them a hard version of the shots and also to take some album and rehearsal shots. That is how on Saturday evening after spending the day climbing cliffs and getting stung by nettles I ended up at a very dubious looking building in the red light district of Perth (not that I saw anyone selling their bodies). This group seem to thrive on dodgy looking places. This one looks like something out of a hard American urban movie or a post apocalyptic one. However the band are nothing to fear and greeted me with smiles and compliments (a good way to keep the photographer happy).  I listened to the rehearsal for a while before getting the camera out. Their music was still fabulous and real toe tapping, jump around singing stuff (though must admit I didn’t jump around and sing, not really enough space). After half an hour or so they took a break to rest our ears and their hands and voices. I took advantage of the opportunity to get some shots of them all together in their urban surrounding. The sun was still up but the light was pretty bleak, but that suited the aura of the place. My 1st problem was getting Bod to look at the camera, he looks everywhere but, the 2nd was getting them to put down beer and ciggies, which must admit gave up on, adds to their persona as a band. I had Smiler (their number one fan) hold the flash for me to try and get some more interesting light on them, thanks Smiler job well done. We used what was around us to set the mood so thanks whoevers van that was! They did want the prison in the background as this ties in with one of their songs but I just couldn’t get the definition on it with the sucky light, sorry guys maybe next time though. Once I was happy with what I had I let them get back to work and returned back inside with them to get some shots of them in action again.

The lighting was pretty drab but using the remote flash, Smiler, various tables and amps I got some cracking shots. I kept the camera on manual with the shutter speed at about 80th of a second, the aperture about F5 and iso 1600. This allowed the camera to deal with any movement and also with the flash and the drab light. However in processing at home I did have to remove some noise in some shots using noise ninja in photoshop, sometimes the pixel noise adds to the effect but sometimes sadly not!.  I captured their creative juices flowing in a rather compact space, thanks to the fabulous wide lens (best thing I ever got). Stan had written 3 new songs, though they worked mostly on one, the lyrics I believe are done by the singer Sandy. I am always impressed that people can write music, just something way out of my comfort zone, can’t even play a musical instrument and really struggle to read music. So writing 3 songs in a week or so is amazing in my books and such great tunes too. Keep up the good work. I gave up my photo spree when my flash started to struggle thanks to the batteries running out (that flash just eats through batteries like nothing on Earth). I stayed to watch the discussion, which involved a lot of hand gestures and raised voices, about the drums part in the new song. I am told this is just how they do it and it’s all in good humour. It def seems to work anyway so carry on boys. I left them to it at about 2300 and they were still in full flow. Guess  that’s why the rehearsal studio is outside of town. Their next gig is on 19th June at the Corinna hotel so they don’t have long to get those songs down to a T. Of course I will be there capturing it all on film, well memory card, for them.

The wonders of a wide angled lens!

I was invited to take photos at a friends punk gig. His band the Rabid Punk Guitars were playing at a local hotel. As I got my ticket for free I was more than happy to offer my services. So After doing an early shift after a sleepover, helping mum fit her open windowed car with a spare on the back wheel in to a garage about the same size as it, having an impromptu visit from father which included a light dinner followed by  a walk along the riverside and an inspiring conversation about my fabulous grandfather, having a few glasses of rose wine with strawberries at a friends place, I finally found myself at the rather shabby and very hot hotel function room and only a little tipsy.

R.P.G are a group of middle aged punk rockers and are absolutely fabulous. They write a lot of their own songs and do it very well. Although the lighting was awful I plonked myself down at the front and did my thing. I used my remote flash and got some great shadows. A few times I also put the flash onto rear, which means it goes off at the end of the shot when the shutter shuts, and turned down the shutter speed so I got some good movement shots in a very punk style. My friends were also very helpful holding different lenses and pointing the flash gun on command. Thanks folks. All in all a great night and I hope to get to the next gig they have.

2 of the R.P.G guitars