Paparazzi

Studio Lighting Day long workshop, Artarmon, Sydney

So as you may or may not know, I have been emersing myself in the world of photography over the past year or so, one thing that still felt very foreign however, was the use of off camera flash, and lighting people.

I decided to take a course with the same company I've done courses with in the past - a studio lighting course. I travelled over to Artarmon early in the morning and learned step by step how to light a low key shot and a high key shot with 3-5 studio lights, light metres and radio triggers.

The whole day was tiring, but massively beneficial to my learning and understanding in photography. I quickly shelled out for an extra brolly and a small softbox attachment for my flash... and started experimenting quickly.

Bring Change

ShapeShifter & Kora at the SoCo Mobile Cargo Club, Sydney.

The format of gigs seem to be one of those things that don't get tampered with too often. A concert hall, a bar or two, a merchandise stand, a stage, a band, a big crown, a lack of sufficient air conditioning; they're pretty standard. So the SoCo Mobile venue pretty much sold itself to me before I even knew who was playing. Actually, this is a lie, since the aforementioned is generally true; I struggled to work out what the heck this mobile venue would be like.

Benny and I decided to give this a whirl. We met before for a few beers discussing our thoughts of what we envisaged the gig to be.

We approached the venue, which basically looked like 4 shipping containers side by side, with some noise eminating from the steel. The doorman was like a circus freak... no offense - he wasn't ugly as a slate layers nail bag, but he had the crazy shades, massive Outkast style afro styled out with flares and a psycadellic skin tight t-shirt. Mad. We get in after have a laugh with said door staff and are greeted by a girl with 8cm long eye-lashes who gives us some blig to wear. The gig was sponsored by Southern Comfort, so it was all branded accordingly. In we go - to see an inverted sea of twinkle lights - on the ceiling. Couches and a comfort zone to one side, a bar straight ahead, and a stage not much more than 10cms in height from the ground. The band playing could be touched, if you really wanted to. I think it was women singing about "Gash" if memory serves. Nice.

Benny and I made our way through many of the manlier sounding SoCo mix drinks right before Shapeshifter would make it out on stage. By this point, the coke, red bull, ginger beer and SoCo had kicked in properly - not to mention the foundational beers... all this adding up to a totally healthy night, as we rocked out to ShapeShifter - great crowd, great band (who even came out and partied afterwards). Great idea. See it, if it comes to a town near you.