Day fifteen is a bit of a strange one… I can’t stand Oasis for the most part, but I love this song… (Maybe it was when I was told to F**K OFF! by their security, back stage at Benicassim?…
Wipe that tear away now from your eye… Slowly walkin’ down the hall faster than a cannon ball…
Where were you while we were getting high?
Seal | Crazy
We’re never going to survive. Unless.
Morning all! It’s Sunday night her ein Melbourne, I’ve finally made that move back across the ocean, car, baby, container and all… Living with family for a little while until our stuff arrives, I have the essentials (camera) and am excited about being ‘home’ and all the associated gubbins… I’ve flicked a few emails around looking to shoot some music – I shall see what comes of it! I’ll be in Coffs Harbour for a month, and hope to get a couple of gigs in up there – should be fun!
Thailand on the way home was lovely, well, parts of it were… Phuket, yeah nah… Khaolak was great though…
But enough of that… I’ve had to pop over the road to Maccas to post, update, email and work – internet here in Aus isn’t what I’m used to! (Heidi, you were right!) so, more on that later, Telstra?
I’ve started a list of venues in Melbourne I’d like to shoot at, so we’ll post on that in the coming week – see what we can rustle up (when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘me’ and have no idea why I said ‘we’ actually)
Things to ponder (Coming up this week)
Hope you’re all well! Post a comment, say hello…
Sime
So, this web page you’re on, gtvone.com… it’s largely just my place to blurt out thoughts and stuff I find interesting and pop up a post or twenty about gigs I’ve had the good fortune to photograph… I don’t actively promote my website aside from the tweet about a gig with a link or some such lark, however, there are some people that rely on their websites to sell their products – photos is what I’m specifically talking about – and so they are interested in numbers much more than I ever would be… but I have just reinstalled statcounter on gtvone.com, alongside Google analytics, I used statcounter exclusively and as it’s still storing my history, I thought it was interesting to lok at the numbers of unique visitors to my blog over the last three years…
In 2008, I had 10,890 unique visitors who read 13,910 individual pages of content… 2,558 of them became returning visitors… what does that tell you? that your content is crap… or, to put it nicely, your content is ‘niche’
In 2009, I had 7,844 unique visitors who read 10,538 individual pages of content… 1,803 of them were returning visitors… that tells you that your content is only getting more and more ‘niche’ read: rubbish
so, 2010 I was more actively posting actual readable content, not just mental ramblings from 2am… more stuff about tech, real world and much more photography…
In 2010, I had 26,356 unique visitors who read 54,731 individual pages of content… 8,037 of those people bothered to come back…
I made more sense to people in 2010, or, had people become used to my random brand of stupidity, humour and silliness?
Either way, Happy New Year to the ragged lot of you that do visit, please say hello below in the comments.
Can’t read | Won’t read? — Semi-Full gallery available here — http://gtvone.com/jedward-at-indigo2/
My last post was all about “Is there enough room in music photography for everyone?” and, while there probably isn’t, there really is – it all depends on who you are, as to how you answer. But see, I’ve been ridiculed over the last 24 hours because I went out and photographed Jedward… Yes, that Jedward!
John and Edward, or.. is it Edward and John?
So, I left home at about 5pm as there was a tube strike, it took me about two hours to get to the venue, iNdigo2 at the o2 Arena, I picked up my pass and a coffee and wandered into the venue… Nine times out of the proverbial ten I’m told before if it’s a seated gig, as it’s mostly a long lens show then, from the sound desk, well, Sam told me on the way in “Oh, it’s three songs, no flash, seated…” I was like… oh my goodness, two hours to get here, now it’s seated?!.. Smiled and went inside… The crowd, a very young crowd littered with parents and the occasional not so young person, were starting to fill the 2100 capacity venue, which I think has a slightly lower capacity when in seated config..
“We’re celebrating the life of Chazz Haddon, frontman of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, who sadly passed away on 20th August 2010″ Me too – they were awesome on stage.
Chazz… I hope you’re still singing wherever you are — http://www.myspace.com/ouestleswimmingpool
Perez Hilton hosted “One Night in London” at Indigo2 at o2 Arena on the weekend, with performances by Kelis, Peaches, Diana Vickers, The Hoosiers, and the Capital Children’s Choir.
You can see some images by clicking on the photograph above.
All images are © Simon Pollock / www.gtvone.com and not to be used without permission
I’d finished shooting Blondie and Little Fish and was walking out of the o2 complex..
…it was still light’ish and I wanted to see how much of the dome I could fit in with the Sigma 8-16mm that I have at the moment, within moments of pointing my camera at the dome, this is what happened..
Sec. “You’re taking a photo?”
Me. “No doubt”
Sec. “You’re not allowed”
Me. “Why not? You’ve not stopped me the last ohh, THOUSAND times…”
Sec. “Who are you?”
Me. “Nobody… Why don’t you stop that girl? *points*”
Sec. “She doesn’t have a professional camera, she won’t sell the photograph”
Sec. *on his walkie talkie* “Would you please check out the guy at the main doors, he won’t stop taking photos”
Me. “I’ve got my shot, bye bye”
Sec. *looking deflated* “Tell me your name”
Me. “You don’t need to know my name”
You can't take photos here!
By this point, a young lad has wandered over and has asked me “do you want to know what they did to me in there tonight?” of course I’m interested… The venue security at o2 leave a lot to be desired – I’m talking the general mob, not iNdigo2 who are actually brilliant… Just the general venue security.. So, he shows me his arms [where you would be carried by security if there was one on either side of you] both bruised… The young lad claims that after some sort of emotional outburst, they were ejected (His GF’s mum had died and Jack Johnson’s music reminded her of old times.. so fair play) the lad and his mate had words with security and after a minor scuffle in the lift (no cameras!) and some bruised arms, they were ejected…
How does this all tie in?It actually doesn’t..
But, by this time “security guard number one” had called his boss who was now standing next to me [with four others] I was talking to the beaten kid… security guard number one, let’s call him SG1 was trying to get his words in “he’s given beaten kid his business card!” ..over and over… Yeah, I did? does that bother you? Do you have something to hide?
So Security Boss asks what the issue is, I tell him there’s no issue with me, I know it’s private property and I’ve stopped taking photos, but, that I have taken about a thousand photos here before and have had no issues – he actually remembers me and has no issues… we move on to beaten kid – I look at the kids arm, then back to security boss and say “This isn’t on, what are you going to do about it” to which he replies “I don’t know, I didn’t see it” convenient, wouldn’t you say…
I don’t think that’s the end of beaten kid’s story – the security boss took him away to [I hope] sweeten him [This is after he spies my press card] with [I think] a refund… [at least]
That’s not the end of my story though… What I’d like to know is what made me different from the girl that was taking photos? She was using a Canon G11, I was using a Canon 30D …hers had more MP than mine, the potential to take as good a shot as mine (obv depending on the user) but mine was black and bulky… I certainly didn’t whip my press card out and say “hey, back off scumbag” but after him stating “You have no idea what the rules are” I showed him my press card and explained that I had some idea what the rules were and that I was on private land and that he was right to ask me to stop – but what he couldn’t answer was why it was OK for the girl with the slightly smaller camera to take almost the same photo I was taking? – I will never get an answer and no doubt I’ll take photos there again…
For those of you that want to know where o2 security can’t touch you any more… see below (get out of the green bit before you take another photo)
Right then!
Part one was “Why D’you wanna”
Part two was “How you gunna?”
And today I thought I’d tell you what happens, from the minute you decide to shoot a gig… Who you contact and what happens if they say yes!
If only there were a piano, do you think the crowd will notice?
It’s exciting, that decision to “Step it up” you’ve been shooting bands at pubs and free gigs, that sort of thing, but you think you’re ready to take the next step – to up it to the next level of amazingness, you’re ready to
step into the ring, so to speak… So, let’s walk you through the steps of my Dave Matthews Band gig – that was pure amazing, standing literally inches away from a musician that has inspired you, musically, to better things… There’s no real way to explain the energy that flows off stage, through the pit and out into the crowd… These guys play music because they love playing music, the live it… And that’s what you’re there trying to capture – you have to show those shots to the world and hope that they can live it through your eyes…
Well, every story has a beginning and I guess I should start at that part of this story…
We all start somewhere...
Today, lesson number one, we’re going to assume a few things.. (assumption… making an ASS out of YOU and UMPTION)