It was absolutely a remarkable experience, shooting my 1st music concert in the island of Penang! Of course, it is indeed a great opportunity to be there at the recent ‘World Music Festival Penang 2008’.
The location is marvelous, at the heart of Penang’s Botanic Garden lies the Quarry Garden, an outdoor arena under the stars.
As dusk’s falls, the rhythmic sounds of drums fill the air and slowly stirring up senses of audiences and the garden’s local primates. As I looked through the trees, I could just imagine them having as much fun as their more intelligent cousins!
Marveling at the enormity and grandeur of this year’s music festival, 2 gigantic stages were erected. These stages provided a non-stop and continuous stream of performances throughout the night. It was a 3-full nights’ of passionate encounters with performers from all over the world.
Like anyone else, I chose my favorite performers and it's the Irish band ‘TEADA’ from Ireland. They played beautiful and rousing Irish tunes, now I am in love with the Irish!
I got a media pass so that actually accord me to get very ‘Up Close & Personal’ divided only by the height of the stage. Disadvantaged by my height, I had to resort to other avenues of getting my pictures. Scouring from stage to stage for a strategic location to capture my master pieces, I stumbled upon this stones- ledge perched quite close to one end of the stage. So during some of the shows, I decided to position myself here to get the shots that I want. Of course, not surprising the spot became a popular place for other photographers, too!
During these 3-days events, it actually gave me an opportunity to study the situation and improve on my shots the next 2 days. I do not practice using ‘burst mode’ or multiple shots mode, I prefer to compose my shots before clicking the shutter at the precious moment.
My intention was to capture their facial expression that shows the performers’ emotions. My pictures reflect my own emotions and feelings of how I was when I took those shots. By immersing myself into the rhythmic music of the night, I sensed the heighten adrenalins of each performers in my veins too! And each shot that I took is a predictive moment of the performers.
This is one of my personal favorite, for most people, this could be an ordinary ‘mug shot’ of a performance. Nothing extraordinary about this shot, anyone with a long lens can capture this photo. But for me, it holds a personal favorite. As I sat at the stone ledge, I saw this performer that looked so shy. I took aim and shot a few of him then all of a sudden he started to notice me. I felt exhilarated and knew that I must take a close-up because he will look at me again. So I held my camera, aimed and waited. It seems like ages, a Canon 350D with a 70~300mm lens held up to my face, my hands were beginning to ache and started to wobble a bit when at a split second he looked at me. I snapped and hoped for the best, of course, I got it. And he never looked my way again because the show ended. So to me, it was a chance shot.
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Thank you.
