Last night I shot the 2012 Big Day Out sideshow of Foster the People at The Tivoli in Brisbane for both Rave magazine and Everguide. 

Local band Last Dinosaurs supported on the night.

Things have been quiet on the gig front for the past few months as the end of my 2011 saw me shooting a tonne of band portraits, corporate events and weddings. This hasn’t left much time for shooting live music. However my 2012 kicked off a little differently with my first shoot back for the work year covering Alpine at The Zoo. Alpine are a band I had heard small snippets from during the year, but had fallen heavily for during the summer break. Their live show was going to make or break my appreciation for the band as their sound on record works but on stage could easily fall apart with bad mixes or a lackluster ’shoe gazing’ performance.  Luckily, the show was anything but lackluster with both Lou and Phoebe combining an amazing, sultry and energetic energy with almost perfect renditions of their loved and lesser known tracks.

Of course I am not a writer, so just take a look at some of the photos from the night. More photos after the jump…

On Friday I shot The Jezabels in the first of their two shows at Brisbane’s The Tivoli for Everguide and Rave magazine. For the first song the band performed behind a black semi-opaque curtain with each band member back-lit projecting shadows for the duration of the song. Once the curtain dropped photographing lead singer Hayley Mary was an easy task as she strutted around the stage hitting her notes by holding interesting angular poses.

So last week I was asked by Stephen Booth (along with fellow photographer Kristen Ashton) to help cover the BigSound conference for Q Music. It was an long, gruelling three days shooting the conferences, delegate lunches, VIP parties and then the all important live music showcases across 8 venues. Not only was I covering the event for BigSound, I was also asked to cover bands and supply photos for Mess and Noise, Everguide and Rave magazine.

The conferences took place at the Judith Wright Centre where delegates either chose to listen in to talks or meet up with other possible industry partners in meeting rooms or in the Judith Wright foyer.

Popping out for lunch down to the Tempo, the BigSound delegates were provided with more opportunity to chat and make connections.

The Valley was transformed during BigSound with shops coming on board to host small performances in their shop front. Kate Martin put on a chilling performance to a small crowd in Drobe on Ann St.

After 5PM the delegates were let loose onto the streets to a nightful of VIP parties, free booze and then music showcases.

Virgin Mobile, Warner, Gold Coast Music Industry and OzTix were part of a few key companies to host VIP nights over the two nights.

Once 8PM rolled around the all important showcases packed out 8 venues across the Valley. Highlights include Ric’s packed to the rafters to watch Oscar and Martin, an always entertaining and energetic set by both DZ Deathrays and the medics plus the chance for me to take in a whole set by my new favourite local act (and recently signed Dew Process act) Mosman Alder.

Shooting 10 band members in a creative way was a bit of a challenge. As an experiment I also played with splicing the bands faces into a little black and white piece below.

It is that time of the year again, the Queensland Poetry Festival. I think this year is my 5th year photographing the festival and as my longest standing clients I always enjoy this time of the year. Not only do the words of the poets inspire me but I also see it as a benchmark to measure how far I have come and what I still want to achieve in the next coming year. The poets and friends of the Queensland Poetry Festival have become more then just familiar faces as the years have gone on. Shooting the Queensland Poetry Festival each year has led to some amazing opportunities, namely photographing the weddings of some of the board members.

The lighting at the Judith Wright Centre helped in making these photos of poets look even more interesting. Sometimes it is hard to get shots that look different because in reality what I am shooting are people mostly just reading/ talking at a microphone. How do you make these shots different? A lot of the time I am looking for different ways to compose my shots, or different expressions to try and capture.

I walked away from the festival with hundreds of favourite photos. A selection of these have been shown above and a few more can be seen below:

Last week I went along to The Zoo to photograph Dead Letter Cirucs for Everguide. The day before the Ekka public holiday, the show sold out earlier that day, so getting in early to get prime spot was mandatory.

Dead Letter Circus were supported by Closure in Moscow.

This is just a snippet of the hundreds of photos I shot over 4 sessions (split into two days) from the festival It still has a couple of days to go so check out the program and what is left to see here.