music
Oh guys! It's been a long while! I know, i suck!
There's been a heap of concerts since the last photostrip - most of which you'll find easily over on coolibri.de!
It's a new month, so a new mission to blog regularly has begun!!!
First up this month, the visit of British nearly-old-timers Depeche Mode to Cologne! Enjoy! Please leave a comment if you have time!
Finally a fellow Englishman in the house again!
Sunday night took me back to the Luxor in Cologne to see Alex Clare in action! That guys voice is crazy good! Here's the pics! Thanks for looking!
Supporting Avenged Sevenfold last week in Düsseldorf, Disturbed had a good shot at stealing the show!! Plenty of fire and metal here!!
Last Wednesday saw me heading back to the Lanxess Arena, this time to shoot Kings of Leon.
I had high hopes for this one, but it turned out to be a nightmare! Very low light and not allowed to move around the stage due to TV cameras! 7 photographers, all with the same crap pictures!! Here's mine!!
Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro returned to Germany this month supporting their lastest album 'Ellipsis'. A magical evening, and a set-list stuffed full of of fan-favourites! Here's the photos guys, enjoy!
The Naked and Famous are currently touring Europe supporting the release of their most recent album 'Simple Forms'.
I shot the bands Cologne performance for Coolibri Magazine, and also managed to get a backstage shoot with the groups singer Alisa.
Here's the photos from the show. Enjoy!
Any photographer will know that feeling... You got the composition right, had your exposure all set hit the shutter, and walk away with the shot in the bag. Until... you get home, get the images off of your memory card to find the big shot of your shoot was off - you missed focus.
This, of course may not have been down to you - such cases usually are, but heres a case where one shot that i missed wasn't necessarily down to me!
The image below is Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, shot on 30.01.17 in Cologne. I knew this moment was coming. Billie was already starting to sprint along the stage runway back to the stage.
My metering was set. My focus was tracking him. Locked and loaded.
His feet leave the floor. The lighting totally changes and that's it! The camera freaks out. It has a split second to decipher the new levels of contrast it's now seeing on the subject it's tracking - and in the split second that i press the shutter, focus hasn't been totally re-aquired. The microphone stand that came into the foreground may have confused things further. Shame. But these things happen. This would have been THE shot of the night. But hey, there were a bucket load of great shots!
I've come across pro's that would still use a great shot even if the focus was missed and it wasn't quite sharp. I was torn myself, but decided against it in the end.
What would you have done? Use or lose?
Let me know in the comments!
Hey guys!!
So, last week i shot Green Day live in Cologne. A sold out arena awaited the California rockers, and rock they did! They tore the place up!!!
Check out my photos from the show here:
See you again soon!!!
Guys!! It's been forever!!
Sorry it's taken so long to get a post up in 2017 - things have been so busy! Anyway! Thanks to my friends over at Monkeypress for getting these pictures out into the world - i've edited a few more too!
So, the first show of the year was at the Kulturkirche in Cologne. I've been wanting to shoot this venue for a while, and Von Brücken coming to town was the perfect opportunity! So, enjoy, leave a comment, and come back soon for more! I promise i'll post again next week!
TemperTrap - those fuckers done that deliberately!
Read MoreHey guys,
This week saw me head back to Cologne to shoot The Human League in concert! I was totally ill, and only managed to hang around until the first three songs were done and i was out of the pit! Shame, as the start of the show was really cool!
Here's some pics folks! Until next time!
Hi everyone!
Well, there's dark gigs, and you know, theres DARK gigs. Gigs where not only are you risking life and limb walking through the photo pit, but also not getting much in the way of fruits for your perilous labour.
Well, last weekend Warpaint gig in Cologne was one such event!
Toil and trouble (as it was the night before hallowe'en) led to not too much in the way of keepers! Sometime's i really wonder if bands are interested in their marketing at all? I mean presumably they do want people to see what they get up to on stage? I'm sometimes not sure if they do. Although, in all fairness - there aren't that many live images of Warpaint around, so maybe thats the reason why. I may not have the most light-sensitive camera (there's much better available), but for future reference, should i shoot this band again, i'll need to hire some night-vision-aparatus!!
Anyway - moan over - here's some pics!
Cheers!
Friday night last week saw me visiting the Capitol Theatre in Düsseldorf. I was invited by PopNRW to shoot their special evening of music from bands supported by the PopNRW funding committee.
Acts included Goldroger, The Day, Blackberries, GiantRooks and Moglebaum.
Enjoy the pictures, and feel free to leave a comment!
Don't forget - sharing is caring!
Hey!
Last week i got the chance to shoot the Kaiser Chiefs, performing performing live in Cologne.
Front man Ricky Wilson threw his microphone into the rafters after the first song, and spend the next few songs singing up in to it while it remained suspended from the ceiling!!
Hope you enjoy the shots from the show!
Cheers, Ant
Hey!
Last night I shot White Lies, performing for the first time in Germany for a few years. The guys are currently touring their latest album 'Friends' - check it out here.
Hope you enjoy the shots from the show! A new episode of 'From the Photopit' from this show will be coming to my youtube channel soon!
Cheers!
Ant
ALL pictures © Ant Palmer/Ape.Photos. Use ONLY with permission.
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to shoot the Way Back When festival in Dortmund. The highlight act of the weekend were Augustines, who are currently on tour for the final time together - photos from their set will be coming soon.
The festival featured many other bands, including some great acts from the UK. Among them were newcomers Palace. The London four-piece have a really laid back alternative indie guitar sound. It really bought me back to some of Editors early work.
A great band who will hopefully go on to great things! Their debut album 'So Long Forever' comes out on 04.11.16. Pre-order now at http://po.st/PALSLFP
Check them out!
Enjoy the pictures from their set - and don't forget to share!
ALL pictures © Ant Palmer/Ape.Photos. Use ONLY with permission.
tap images to scroll through
A couple of weeks back I wrote about having to shoot in low light. Not by choice either. Events and concerts are usually dark places. In the case of one concert I shot recently there was virtually no light whatsoever.
Now I want to write about deliberately creating a low light situation - or more so, killing the ambient light you have in order to create low light, or low key photographs. This type of shot is often used in portraiture, lifestyle and fashion photography.
Below are some examples of some shots i took during a shoot with a musician this week. These pictures were taken in a small living room (ca. 20 square meters), using one flash. Wait - flash? Shouldn't that mean bright, well lit pictures? Well, not always. The technique used here is known as killing the light, or killing the ambient light.
The method?
Well, don't worry about how bright the room is you're shooting in. Obviously, shooting outside in bright daylight or in a room flooded with midday sun isn't the best thing, but a light room won't derail things too seriously.
First, set your cameras shutter speed to the highest sync speed of your speed light - this is usually around 1/250th of a second. You may be able to go faster if you can use high speed sync. Next, select ISO 100 so as to make your cameras sensor as resistant to light as possible.
Finally, play with the aperture and get shooting. You basically want to end up underexposing your shot to the point that the picture is dark. Black in fact. Once you've metered your camera for darkness, it's time to add some flash.
For the best results you should have your flash stand and subject as far away from a background/wall as the space you're in allows.
Set your speedlight(s) firstly to low power and fire some shots - they may still be on the dark side, but you've got a good starting point from which you can then work with your subject and increase flash power as necessary until you get the desired result.
Here's some of my shots - don't forget, this small room was flooded with daylight, there wasn't much separation between the subject and wall either, but enough to provide a virtually non-existent background to remove in post. Dark and a little moody was what I was looking for, which I think I pulled off fine.
Kit used for these shots: Canon 7D, Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS II, Canon 580EX, light stand and 60x40 softbox.
