Steel Panther Show at Gasometer Hall, Vienna

Last night I went to shoot Steel Panther gig at Vienna Gasometer. The band from Los Angeles, California, mostly known for their profane and humorous lyrics as well as their exaggerated on-stage personas that reimagine and parody the glam metal music and lifestyle of the 1980s. 

Formed in 2000 as Metal School, and changed their name to Steel Panther in 2008.

It was their first show in Vienna, and the concert was completely sold-out, the hall was packed full. The band was rock solid on sound, I could hear bass guitar through my guts. You may wonder how can you get such great sound from only one lead guitar and one bass.

Guitarist Satchel with his furious, fantastic solos, drummer Stix Zadinia, singer Michael Starr resembling Motley Crue singer Vince Neil is not only vocally good, but he surpassed him by now, bassist Lexxi Foxx with his extravagant look. He kept fixing his hair and make-up.

Steel Panther do not have to cover others artists any more, they  can provide their own songs to get wild applause.

Combining humour with music may well be the ultimate form of entertainment, and if that is the case I just witnessed the best, when it comes to the heavy metal genre. 

Steel Panther simply blew me away.

One listen to Steel Panther's songs will tell you all you need to know about what direction the band is taking. Song titles like "Supersonic Sex Machine", "Asian Hooker" or "Let Me Cum In" conform to the perfected to the last detail showmanship, Steel Panther have more show than concert. 

Words like fuck and pussy kept coming from the mouths of musicians with a speed of machine-gun. 

Breaks between songs were filled with jokes and even more show. 

These guys, and particularly lead vocalist Michael Starr and guitarist Satchel, were absolutely hilarious and they connect so well with an audience. 

Steel Panther's charm is to deliver their music in a tongue and cheek way while poking fun at themselves and their audience. What was a common occurrence throughout the show was the laughter and smiles from most in the audience as the band kept cracking jokes and simply making one ridiculous statement after another.

Self Portrait - Alternative To Pouring Rain Weather.

Weather decided to stay stable i.e. wet, and grey and on top of it rained like hell today. I had this desire to shoot something indoor. In the end I chose myself - let's do low key self-portrait. Perhaps I can start model career on top of JBModel.eu :-) Or perhaps not, I am shooting and not modelling in terms of being a model.

I used one strobe with softbox as key light, reflector, and second strobe to highlight my hair to get some separation. Very simple setup.

580EX II flash at full power in manual mode, actually everything in full manual mode, second flash at 1/4 of power. Camera on tripod with 70-200mm lens with focal length set to around 150mm. Camera pre-focused and set to 1/160s, ISO 200, f/16. Such settings completely kill any ambient light, and everything around falls into complete darkness. In fact I shot myself with lights on and they not visible at all. So closed aperture - f/16 - also gives me relatively large depth of field which is helpful when shooting yourself and you can always position yourself few centimetres further or closer to pre-defined distance. As a backdrop I used piece of black paper.

Softbox is placed exactly to camera left of the model (me), on the other side I mounted round white reflector to give me fill light coming from the key light. To get some separation and to highlight my messy evening hair I placed second strobe above me pointing almost exactly towards my head but also slightly swivelled towards reflector, so some light would bounce back onto my face. 

Getting correct manual focus

Note, that I am wearing glasses, my eyes are not as good as they used to be... I need them to read. I put them for the portrait on purpose.

Glasses are built of glass, and glass reflects light. You have to take care of lights' angles and their reflections in order to see through the glass and see eyes properly. This is one of the reason I put lights on both my sides and above and not in front. If I had an assistant... I might have played more, but I was on my own thus went for safest option, and you can see my eyes normally.

To trigger everything the whole lot I used radio poppers, which also fired the camera remotely. 

First things first -  find your correct exposure. As mentioned I wanted to kill fully ambient light so I had to play around 1/200s - 1/160s shutter speed - 1/200s is typical synch speed of most of the cameras. Key strobe set to full power but soft box takes quite some light so in fact real output is way weaker. 

With little experience you will know where to start and what to tweak, I typically start with 1/4 of power and f/8 and keep on adjusting to my needs. 

Bad Weather Cont'd - Höllental Valley

Bridge over Schwarza river in Höllental
by Reichenau an der Rax
16mm, 13 sec, f/16, ISO 100

Weather has been quite stable, all the time grey and wet and sometimes also foggy. For shooting concerts assignments that occupied me recently it did not really matter but for landscapes, I had to take that into consideration. If you cannot change it, you have to adapt to the conditions and find advantages of the situation. This morning I got up quite late... way after 10, however considering the fact I came back from the gig shooting last night and had one day before, it was quite early... I need to sleep from time to time. (CRO pictures from Gasometer Halle can be seen on my site).

I looked through the window and saw same grey and wet world. But I had to go out somewhere, I needed some nature, and silence, and water, and colours, and trees, and fresh air. When whole surrounding is covered by thick layer of clouds time of the day does not matter, I mean to have quality light. You can shoot all day under that massive soft box spread all over you. I headed towards Höllental around noon in the end. Höllental means... Hell Valley, it is a narrow valley between the steep limestone massifs of the Schneeberg and Rax with Schwarza river in between. Magnificent location to say the least, you have got mountains, forest, river, waterfalls, from time to time you even loose phone coverage.

Playing with Clouds and Fog and Guitars

Quite a long time since last post. Been extremely busy and been away just as well, and have six gigs to shoot this week. Anyway, it is high time to catch up with some photos for the blog.

Recent weather conditions i.e. rains and fogs encouraged me to play with it and take them into my advantage. Not always successfully or to my intentions but still interesting.

Few days ago I headed to Mörbisch by Neusiedlersee to shoot some guitars equipment, pictures needed for one of my new projects. 

16mm, 30sec, F16, ISO 200
Lee Circular Polarizer and Reds Enhancer

I was after some great wooden texture and rising sun, that should have come up at specific moment and place (right side of the frame above). And probably it did, but thick layer of clouds and fog successfully covered it. I was after great morning colours, brought my strobes and softbox to play with and to illuminate guitars and great old Marshal amplifier... but let's rewind a little bit.

Don't Trust Your Camera Preview, Use RAW and Gold-N-Blue Polarizer

Orth an der Donau

Don't Trust Your Camera Preview,

Use RAW, and Gold-N-Blue Polarizer... so many topics in one title.

I wanted to share a story of one picture. Here you can see final result, later at the bottom you will see 2nd version of same frame with different polarization. You may like the other one... I like both, but had to choose one.

I drove to Orth by Danube, not far from Vienna towards Slovakian border, to have a look around, still looking for Autumn, and thought that with late afternoon sun I can get something.

Overall the day and scenery looked quite dull, I did some shots here and there but I am not too happy with them. Real colourful Autumn has still not arrived. Then at one stage I spotted this shed built on water with its reflection and setting sky and reflected in water. I thought then, well, I will come back with at least one picture today. 

70mm, 1/5s, F16, ISO50
No filters

I liked the composition, old wooden shed with lots of texture, it had some atmosphere that captured my attention. The only thing I do not like is advertisement text, which I might in the future remove in photoshop. For now it is there.

Scenery as such is quite tough to capture properly not talking about focal length and f stops. But since I mentione them, this time I wanted tighter frame and I used 70 mm length with my typical f16 to have large depth of field. The problem was tonal range which is really great here. You have really bright sky, not seen by our eyes, then really dark stripe with trees, bushes and the shed and then again really bright water with reflecting sky. Here you can see the picture straight from the camera with no filters used, and what can you say... boring and grey.

Nostalgic Night of Steam - Railroad Musem in Strasshof

Wow, wow and wow again.

25mm, 30 sec, f/5, ISO 400 

The sound, the heat, the smell, almost the taste of burning coal. Fantastic to say the least. 

My grandfather used to drive one of those during the war... there was one here in the museum built in 1942, and he must have been driving one of very similar type. To see all those locomotives aged back from end of 19th century breathing again is fantastic. And to see them at night with all the lights on was even better.

16mm, 4 min,  f/11, ISO 200

So many memories came back when I used to visit my grandparents as a kid, back in late 70s  many of those steam engines were still in use, I used to visit engine house in Białogard (Belgard). I loved it as kid and still have some special feeling about trains especially older ones. I bet, I know, I am not the only one. Those nostalgic trips bring something special.

Boars and Deers - 300mm + 2x Converter Tests

Boar heard me...
600mm, 1/25s, f/5.6, ISO 6400

I keep on testing 300mm f2.8 lens and yesterday afternoon I also took 2 times converter to give whole setup a go. Results are good and bad, I am still not sure if I should go for the lens in the longer run. 300mm is a lot but sometimes still not enough. Problem with 2x times converter is that it takes 2 full stops of light i.e. from f/2.8 you start with f/5.6 which is crucial in the woods.

I went to Lainzer Tiergarten, at the edge of Vienna, and headed deep into forest where I spotted boars last week and hoped for new meeting. Afternoon light relatively strong, simply disappeared within shadows of wood, when I measured the scene and camera metering system told me simply... it is dark. To get relatively fast shutter speed I had to pump up ISO to 6400 and even 12800 in some cases. Even with those settings I was not able to go higher that 1/100s. Boars, and deers were relatively still but if I had to shoot running object, I would not be able to do so.

On the other hand 600mm is 600mm. Few days ago I was complaining about stabilization while shooting sports, this time having to go down all the way to 1/100s and even 1/50s stabilization and monopod did the miracle. The basic rule says that shutter speed should not be slower that focal length, in my case that would have to be 1/600s... I had to go down by around 3 stops and in this situation I was really grateful for stabilizer.

Boar in Lainzer Tiergarten
600mm, 1/50s, f/5.6, ISO 12800

Baseball Cont'd. Vienna Wanderers Won Finals

Shortstop throwing at 1st base
300mm, 1/400s, f2.8, ISO 6400

Vienna Wanderers won Austrian baseball finals. First few innings game looked quite tight and I hoped Diving Ducks would go ahead and win this game, then tomorrow I would have had a chance to watch and shoot next game of the finals. But it did not happen.

I was surprised to see so many photographers and media today including national TV. Ok, this was Austrian finals and some coverage was required. Funny thing, I was explaining to few guys from Gepa, Kurier basic sequences of actions, most of them (all of them) simply had no idea what was going on baseball field. And with baseball, actions anticipation is crucial... when you have runner on 1st and/or 2nd base with 1 out, and 3-2 count, or runner on 3rd and game is tied with one out... you have to feel it!

You point your lens to where the most probable action might happen like nice tagging at home plate when runners tackle catcher who finally even drops the ball after impact and runner is safe and scores... you do not want to photograph all the time the batter, there is so much happening besides home plate.

Johannesbachklamm - Is Autumn Late Or What Is Going On?

Johannesbachklamm
16mm, 30 sec, F16, ISO 100

I cannot find those great deep autumn colours those weeks. We have entered into October on our calendar, at least the one in front of me, and still everything is more or less green. Leaves are falling and falling and still things are green. Wherever I go I look for colours of Autumn and to me it has not waken up yet fully. I keep visiting different places with trees and nothing ends up as planned. One, two weeks I hope. At the most. Then it will be only few days and all will be over for this year, snow will come and all will change. Gosh, I need to get new winter tyres this month.

Anyway, today in search of autumn I decided to visit Johannesbachklamm (gorge) by Würflach (Schneeberg Land, Niederösterreich) not far from Hohe Wand, one of my favourite locations around Vienna. The gorge itself is approximately 1 km long and 60m deep.

In principle I was after deep reds and yellows and water streams with floating fallen leaves. I got streams, rocks, greens in quite good quantities but reds and yellows are still not there, at least not as much as I wished for. I went shooting during midday and this was another reason to head into woods to kill sunlight above me. Shadows from trees even during midday can create nice atmosphere and produce good soft diffused light. So in the end I should not complain.

Schloss Pottendorf - Two Birds With One Stone

Schloss Pottendorf
17mm, 4 sec, f16, ISO 100,
ND 2 Stops Grad and Reds Enhancer

Schloss Pottendorf - Two Birds With One Stone session so to speak...
I thought I would have some photo fun today. I Drove to Pottendorf located basically at border of Burgenland and Niederösterreich. I wanted to scout the location and do some basic shots of Pottendorf castle. The castle Pottendorf was first documented in 1130 by Rudolf von Pottendorf and was probably built shortly before. Originally romanesque gothic and then baroque especially the first free-standing, mainly late gothic chapel was connected to the main building in 1519. The three-story water tower had a nearly square courtyard. In 1737-38 two corner towers were added and the mighty Roman gate tower from the 13th Century. The castle belonged for a long time to Esterházy family....

All buildings are surrounded by moat... next time I will get my waders and will get even closer. But today wanted to get some water reflections and have fun with... second camera, flash, and radio transmitters . This is what I meant by "two birds with one stone". Besides taking photos of the castle I also was shooting myself from different positions. And all shots were triggered by main camera doing actual castle photos. Radio popper on the camera triggered transmitter on camera behind me or somewhere by me, this second camera triggered by radio flash mainly hidden by my bag illuminating me.

24mm, 1/6s, f16, ISO 200, 580EX flash at 1/4 power placed behind my bag
Picture slightly desaturated. Effect achieved, eye wanders from the castle to my face
leaving ruins as main subject, me only as an add-on