I'm sure that this is probably a common theme with everyone else out there, and I probably say it every year, but it's hard to believe that we're already at the end of another year. As with all of you, it's a time of reflection for Your Friendly Neighbouhood Photographer as well. The Old Blog is handy in that I can easily go through the months along the side of the page and see what I've been up to this past year. It was definitely a very musical year for yours truly. In 2022, I shot 23 concerts and this year I had quietly hoped to be able to shoot an average of two per month and get to 24. I ended up going a little bit passed that as I ended up shooting 27 concerts and a total of 72 bands over the course of the year. The most fun was the series of Summer concerts that the Ville de Longueuil
produced. A couple got rained out, and we got caught in a thunder
storm for another, but these shows are great because I get to go them
with the whole gang. Once again, The Heir Apparent was front and center
with me at the foot of the stages, with her little wooden camera in
tow. She also got to enjoy some of the spotlight as well. She was
invited up on the stage by Francis Degrandpré, was given guitar picks by Joli Jolie and Justin Saladino and even went to meet Lou-Adriane Cassidy
who told her she was impressed by all of her dancing. She's already
saying that she can't wait for the shows next Summer, and neither can I. Once again, I send a message of thanks to all of the managers, concert promoters and public relations firms who have allowed me to shoot those shows. An even bigger thank you goes out to My Lovely Assistant who keeps her hands full with The Heir Apparent and Crown Prince while I go out an play concert photographer on those nights. I wouldn't have been able to do any of that without you, so thank you very, very much. For our yearly sunset, we're going to grab one from the archives. With all of my concert going, I decided to cut back on other photographic outings to compensate for the times I was gone. That being said, I still managed to find a wide selection of insects, toys, flowers and flames in my immediate surroundings to get another 130 updates done this year. This shot will probably need to be updated as I'm pretty sure that a couple more buildings have sprung up since it was taken. Cloudy sunsets with a break over the horizon are the best as they clouds really swallow up the colours of the setting sun. By underexposing the shot and using a small aperture, you can really grab lots of the colours and also get that little star effect around the sun, as you can see in the bottom left of the shot. It was taken at f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 70mm. Thanks to all of you who take the time to stop by here, look at my photographs and read my words. Traffic went up here again this year, so though you all remain a silent bunch, the fact that you all keep coming back means that I must be doing something right. Happy New Year to all of you out on the internets, see you all in 2024.
Friday 29 December 2023
The Sun Sets On 2023
Tuesday 26 December 2023
Silent Night
All of the excitement of the season should be staring to gear down a little bit as we enter that week between holidays where nobody really knows what day that it is anymore. Unless you have an Heir Apparent and a Crown Prince running around your house sill a little hooped up on sugar and trying out all of their toys and gadgets. In one of the few quiet moments, I like to look at the Christmas tree and all of the lights and decorations. I found this little Santa perfectly positioned around some lights and tinsel so I decided to spend some of my quiet time around the tree, taking his picture. The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/20sec, ISO 4000 at 70mm. After all of the excitment, I hope you all have a few silent nights as well. Oh, and as of this writing, it is Tuesday night, heading towards Wednesday morning. You're welcome.
Friday 22 December 2023
Elf No Longer On A Shelf
With Christmas right around the corner, I'm sure that we aren't the only place that has had a tricky little elf running around and causing trouble. Our annoying little visitor has been causing all kinds of craziness around the house. He hung himself a hammock from the ceiling, tried to steal the chocolates from our advent calendar, went fishing in The Heir Apparent's cereal bowl and various other little seasonal tricks. However, he made a bit of a mistake the other night when he ended up getting a little to close to the world famous citizen from the Double Cross Ranch, Terry Funk. No one swings a steel chair with more accuracy that Terry Funk, and he certainly didn't miss his shot here, knocking that tricksters toque straight off of his head. This is the second year in a row that our little elf had run afoul of the wrestlers that he shares living quarters with, hopefully he will have finally learned his lesson this year. The photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/30sec, ISO 6400 at 44mm. Hopefully your elves have been a little better behaved this Christmas season.
Wednesday 20 December 2023
Meshuggah At Place Bell
If you're going to go out, they say, you should go out with a bang. That's exactly what we did last Saturday night at the Place Bell in Laval. It was our final concert of the year and it was headlined by the mighty Meshuggah. The Swedish extreme metallers have been dominating the stage since the late 1980's and show no signs of slowing down any time soon. At this point I'd usually talk a little bit about my experience with the band, but the truth of the matter is that I don't have one. Their existence on my personal radar is pretty much limited to yelling "Gesundheit!" at my friend Louie while we would pass their albums at a music store and then asking him how to pronounce the name. It's still a classic bit of humour as far as I am concerned. I did do a little bit of looking in to them before the show. Known for the complex song structures and
innovative style, Meshuggah is known as one of the most important and influential bands in the Extreme Metal genre, though they've also been described as being Progessive or Experiemental Metal. Yes, there are a whole lot of genres and sub-genres for this style of music. They've been named as one of the ten most important bands in metal and hard rock by Rolling Stone Magazine and have a huge following in Europe and across the globe as well. In addition to their music, they have a very unique lighting structure for their shows, which was a both great to see and challenging to work with. I still had fun with it though, trying to time the flashes of light to get a shot of an eye or even some silhouette style shots as 
well. I particularly like the photographs of guitarist Mårten Hagström. Between the shadows and his hair, he looks like some kind of faceless warrior straight out of The Lord of the Rings. Meshuggah have nine albums to their name, the most recent of which, Immutable, was released last year. It was my first Meshuggah concert, and what an introduction. Just before the show began, my friend Louie, was in the crowd, texted me the message 'Welcome to Meshuggah', a message that in hindsight was just perfect as their concert isn't just about the music, it is a complete sensory experience. The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 10000 at 59mm, the second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/80sec, ISO 4000 at 24mm and the third photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 4000 at 70mm. Here are several more photographs of their performance.
Monday 18 December 2023
Voivod At Place Bell
As we get closer to the end of the year, I headed out to the Place Bell in Laval on Saturday night to make sure that my final concert of the year would end things very loudly. With time being a little short as we enter the holiday season, we're going to do things a little backwards with this update. There were four bands on the bill Saturday night, which means that I would usually get the headliner done and then try and get the other bands done when time permits. However, in this case my pass to shoot the show was given to me by one of the other bands, so they get priority. Another reason for priority to be given would be because that band was Montreal's own heavy metal legends, Voivod. This show brought a close to a year long 40th Anniversary celebration for the band and the local faithful were on hands to make sure that their heroes
were celebrated with a party that matches their awesome musical catalogue. A new album, Morgoth Tales, was also released this year and features re-recorded versions of what they describe as more obscure tracks from their celebrated musical catalogue. It's been four long years since I last got to Voivod, and though the light was kind of low for the duration of their set, it was still an honour to be able to share a moment with this local legends and a band that I have been listening to for about 30 of those 40 years. The first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 12800 at 35mm and the second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 12800 at 42mm. Here are a few more photographs that I took of their performance.
