Blunt Issue 86

The most recent issue of Blunt has a bunch of my photos in it.

They asked me to shoot the 50 lions, Trapped Under Ice Canberra show.

I'll probably put up the rest of the photos in the future.

I also had 2 promo photos in the issue, one of Dead Kings, and one of I Exist. Both bands are featured in the '25 local bands to hype in 2010' section, and a song from each is included on the CD that comes with the magazine.

Dead Kings are heaps into I Exist

From left to right. Damo, Aaron, Rohan, Paul, Morgan and Mitch

This is the most recent promo photo of Dead Kings, we did it just for this issue of blunt, despite the previous set of promos being only 6 months old, everyone in the band looks a bit different, specifically Morgan, who has gained a ridiculously large beard since then. I turned up to Better Music, where Mitch and Morgan both work, the only concept for the photo being that we would try to get on a roof and take a photo of the band against the sky. After a little while Paul and Rohan walked into the store with fake moustaches. I'm not sure but I think this was because I had mentioned to Rohan that the new photos were needed because both Morgan and Damo were now sporting beards. As well as wearing fake facial hair the two of them both came in I Exist shirts, this wouldn't have been a problem but Morgan happened to be wearing the same shirt as Rohan, and it would have looked a little weird having two dudes wearing the same shirt, at that point Paddy came up with the idea that the best option was for the entire band to wear I Exist merch, A call was put into Aaron from I Exist to come by with more of their shirts for the rest of the band. Unfortunately he didn't bring enough shirts, so Damo, Mitch and Morgan had to wear the same shirt, but Morgan wore it backwards. It also became clear that it was too difficult to get onto any nearby roofs, so I chose to just shoot it in the street behind Better Music. Aaron decided to jump into the background of the photo. I did want to do a serious one but after I shot this photo the guys looked at it and said we were done.

In terms of setup for the photo, I used both of my 430ex speedlites through one shoot through umbrella, positioned just out of frame camera left. The sun was getting low in the sky camera right and I hoped this would provide  some ¾ backlight  on the guys, it only really worked on Damo and Rohan.

While waiting for the others to arrive, I shot this photo of Morgan.

I Exist are heaps into Kiss

The description of the I Exist KISS photo is in a previous post.

I Exist Melbourne - Halloween shows – Day 1

This is the third time I've gone on the road with I Exist, both other times have been short tours with two shows. This time they played a house show on the 31^st of October with Terror Firma.

And on the 2^nd of November they played at a nightclub called Plastic in Melbourne.

12 of us went down in  12 seater van.
This photo was taken during a stop on the way back to Canberra.

From Clockwise from left; Sean, Benny, Sam, Murph, Jullian, Josh, Jarred, Paddy, Me, Jake, and Aaron. Emma also came down with us in the van but flew back.

So 4 members of I Exist and 8 friends.

The ride down in a van is always half the fun of the tour.

My mate Jake the electrician loves his fireworks.

 The sea is his mistress

Sean decided to buy a Picture magazine at one of the servos which provided hours of entertainment.

At some point we passed a couple of cars with Krew stickers on the rear windows, recalling that the Krew skateboard were currently on tour in the country, I mentioned that Chad Muska was part of this team. Jake seemed to take this as proof that Muska was in the one of the cars, and was determined to get his attention, we kept driving along side them until they got sick of us and sped away.

When we got to Melbourne the hessian contingent of the van went dumpster diving behind a coles, and came back with a load of bread and crumpets, some of which contained bugs, and most of which spent the rest of the trip on the van floor.

For a while now the I Exist have talked about doing a promo photo with KISS makeup, and since it was halloween, it was decided they might as well play the show in it as well.

The make up was done by Aaron's girlfriend Lauren and Benny.

Each member was photographed individually and I blacked out their necks and shoulders and arranged them in photoshop. We were in a rush and so I used a very simple set up. Out in the street at night, 1 speedlight through a shoottrought umbrella on a stand above my head pointing down onto the subject.
This was kind of the reference for the group shot

We got to the house party just in time for I Exist to play.
The show was in a small room, and was extremely hot and sweaty in there.

Suprisingly a bunch of kids new the words to the songs and were really into it.
I took photos, Julian videoed the set and Sean activated the pit.

Terror Firma played afterwards, I didn't take any  photos, but I videoed the set, I'll put in online one day.

Then we drove to the city in hopes of seeing the Kiss cover band Kisstroyer play at bang, by the time we got there we had missed them, so we spent two hours walking around to find bar/club without a ridiculously long line for entry, and ended up listening to a Pantera CD at Pony for about 3 seconds before going to sleep on various couches around Melbourne.