M for Montreal ... M for Music ... M for Memorable

Montreal is renowned for its festivals. The biggest being the Jazz Festival and the Just for Laughs comedy festival. A new festival is picking up steam. M For Montreal had its 6th edition this year. For those who don’t know, M is focused on local talent. But not just putting them on a stage to play, they have a goal of promoting local acts internationally to help opens doors. They invite music industry delegates from around the world to come to Montreal for the 4 day festival and watch the bands put on a showcase of what they do. In the past, this has led to some breakthroughs for great local bands, US tours, European tours, Asian tours, and help in promoting new albums... You can check out M’s website http://www.mpourmontreal.com/

How did I get involved in M this year? It was semi last minute. I had planned on watching Hollerado, one of the bands that are getting regular play in my headphones, who was headlining a showcase at Sala Rosa. One of the shooters who was scheduled to do the bigger shows was no longer available, so I decided to step in and shoot the shows he was scheduled to do.... which unfortunately meant that I did not get a chance to see Hollerado live.

My first gig was the M For Midnight show at Club Soda. Plaster, making their return to stage, Misteur Valaire, who are on a really quick rise, and Montreal’s darlings Bran Van 3000 were on stage for this late show. And was it ever packed. And when I mean packed, I mean PACKED. The show was actually oversold, which meant that we media had to wait outside until they could determine how much room was left in the venue. Yes, there is a disclaimer on the back of the media pass that says “if there is room”.

We weren’t the only ones waiting outside. Some fans had bought a 4 day pass that grants them access to all shows, and they were waiting outside. With the show starting at midnight, and myself and a journalist getting there around 11pm, we finally got inside around 12:30am and unfortunately only caught the tail end of Plaster’s set.

Disappointed, yes, but we were rewarded with an awesome show from Misteur Valaire and Bran Van 3000. Shooting wise, I decided to stay on the 2nd floor balcony which was initially reserved for the delegates (but they were nice enough to let me squat there). I was able to move up and down the balcony area giving me some fun angles, instead of being down on the floor with no photo pit in the middle of the chaos.

Being perched up top allows you to get some pretty fun shots of bands, like the ones below. Not traditional angles, but they can work. The problem with being more stationary is that you need to be aware and ready to shoot when the artists turn around or give a look, as this is how you will get your variety.



You can see the Mister Valaire image gallery here




You can see the Bran Van image gallery here

After a few hours of sleep and image processing, it was back out for the closing show on Saturday. I was psyched for this show as the promoter managed to put together an awesome line-up. Some artists such as Ariane Moffatt and Marie-Pierre Arthur, who are currently in studio, were convinced to come out and play on stage. Other artists such as Karkwa, Galaxie, Random Recipe and The Barr Brothers all have their stars rising and this was a great way for them to get more exposure. It was great to see Random Recipe so excited to be on the stage of the Metropolis for the first time (and definitely not the last!)

Again, no photo pit for this show, so I decided to arrive early (that being 7pm for a show that starts at 8pm) and wiggle into the front row and stay there for the evening. I’m stuck in a static position again, but I tried to use the lights to create variety in my shots. Doing this can sometimes backfire, as it did for Galaxie, as they set the backup singers right in front of me, severely limiting the shooting angles. But life gives you lemons, you make lemon vodka shooters!

The lights were all over the place. They had these tiny yellow spots down below that cast some really odd and eerie light on the artists from down below, and were often the only lights on. When the spots weren’t on, the stage was blasted from either side with these giant white lights. While I always love white light, the intensity of these lights meant quick finger dialing of new settings but gave many of the images an “I used onboard flash” look where the artist is bright and white and the rest of the scene is total black.

Using the light for a more dramatic effect during Marie-Pierre Arthur





































See the full MP Arthur gallery here



See the full The Barr Brothers gallery here




See the full Ariane Moffatt gallery here




See the full Random Recipe gallery here


Small yellow spot lights gave an eerie “ghost story around the camp fire” feel to many images.




































See the full Galaxie gallery here

You sometimes get interesting angles on drummers and percussionists



See the full Karkwa gallery here

It was a long and intense 2 days of shooting. Technically, as the Club Soda show started at 12:30, it was all on the same day. ;)

Thanks for reading!

More Retro Spex

Looks like Montreal's coolest rock cover band has a new lineup. And with a new lineup comes....NEW PICTURES!

This new lineup is actually near and dear to my heart as my wife Andrea is their new female vocalist. So now I can do event shots, music shots and shots of my love all in one night. Not a bad gig, eh?

Here are a few from last night's show. If you have read my blog before, you know the drill. Below, some of my fave shots from the night. Click on an image to go to my flickr with more shots (30 ish).

Retro Spex - live at Double Deuce

The great about having friends who are musicians is that you get to go shoot live events often. And lucky for me, I love music and I love shooting live events :)

John invited me to his new band's show at the Double Deuce in La Prairie. The band is great, they play covers of the 60s - 90s rock. Fun tunes, make you want to get up and dance! They are very new, this is only their second show, so I'm looking forward to many more shoots with them in the near future.

More images up on my flickr, just click an image to go to my flickr

More live music

I was asked by a good friend (and amazing drummer) John to shoot his band during a battle of the bands in Sainte-Catherine on the South Shore of Montreal. His band, Retrospex, is a very new band and does really funky 70s rock, fun stuff you can dance to. I'll definitely be shooting them again.

I didn't stick around for the last band, but here are some of the pics from the first two (Retrospex and TNT). Both bands had different styles...in the end, John's band did bring home the cash.

Retrospex








TNT

Cirque du Soleil - Les Chemins Invisibles

I had the amazing opportunity to take some images of the Cirque du Soleil last weekend during their outdoor show in the streets of Quebec City. The venue for the show is not your typical yellow and blue Cirque big top, it is actually held outdoors under the Dufferin-Montmorency overpass (highway 440).

The show is called Les Chemins Invisibles (The invisibles paths) and brings together over 50 artists – dancers, jugglers, singers, acrobats and contortionists.

The show was launched in summer 2009 to celebrate the Cirque du Soleil’s 25th anniversary. The first chapter was based on a fictitious story of three tribes known as Brumes, Brasiers and Sables (fog, fire and sand), living in Quebec’s Saint-Roch district who sought to form a single community with the current inhabitants of the area known as Les Embarassants (The Embarrassments).

This year, the second chapter titled Furrow of Dreams continues upon the new community theme. The show begins with the leaders of the three tribes making their way back to the stage through the crowd, some carried in, some riding mechanical birds and others flying in over the crowd. The show goes on in typical Cirque du Soleil fashion with some daring aerial acts, incredible costumes and amazing choreography all the while backed with great music and lyrics.

The troupe receiving funding from the city to put on the show for 5 consecutive years...so looks like there are 3 more chapters to come! It started on June 24th and runs until September 1st. I think I’ll be making time each year to go and follow the rest of their story.

Here are some images from the show. I have about 60 of them uploaded on my FLICKR account if you want to see more.

Needless to say, if you have never seen a Cirque du Soleil show, make the time. This was my fifth or sixth show, and I’m definitely not done.

Take Two ... a second time.

I had the opportunity to shoot the Take Two dance show this past Saturday night. It was my second time shooting, and as always, the dancers put on a great show which led to some fun shots. 2 hours, small theatre, 400 shots. I was being picky about my shots, only using the 8 fps of my camera on a few occasions.

A bit of history... last year around this time, my friend Didier asked me to shoot a dance show with him. Having never really done it (neither of us) we were up for the challenge. Take Two is a local group that raises just enough money each year to put on 1 dance show. They are all graduates of a high school dance program, and some of the older graduates decided to form Take Two. Great initiative, so I'm all for supporting them via photography.

It is funny how much we can grow or change in a year of doing a hobby. I remember when we showed up last year, we were all focused (no pun intended) on the settings of our cameras and where we would shoot from. Didier had showed up early and taken shots during rehearsals so we could know what we were facing in terms of light and exposure. He had a list of routines the group was doing, with the number of dancers per routine so we could prepare our lenses ahead of time, or at least have an idea of what was coming up. Yeah, I know, totally over prepared, but when you are new at something, always better to be over prepared than under prepared! I was shooting with an XSI, had 4 lenses with me and ended up taking about 700 shots.

Fast foward 365 days later. We meet up again at the same place. Instead of his huge assortment of lenses, he has a 50mm f/1.4. I brought along three lenses, two of mine and a third that I rented and was considering buying, but wanted to compare to my current lens. I had a 10-22mm, 28-75mm and a 24-70mm (the renter). Aaaaanyways. We chatted a bit about how it was last year and laughed at ourselves. The plan this time around? Do whatever. We each went to one side of the stage to ensure max close ups of the dancers on either side, but that was pretty much it. The shoot went fine, had a great time. While I shot half as many images this year, I had more keepers and spent less time processing, which in my eyes, is the way to go. I was happy to have rented the 24-70 instead of buying it. It is way more expensive than my current lens, similar image quality and sharpness, but a faster auto focusing. Not worth the extra coin.

So looking back, after a year of shooting, my thought process while shooting has something changed. I tried out some thing with my wide angle lens and love the results. And while I had some great shots from last year, I had some interesting shots this year.

Click here for a link to the set of images from this year, and here for the set of images from last year (both links point to the respective flickr sets).

These first two images are where I was playing with a wide angle




And some of my other favorites from the show:

The Real Deal

A few weeks ago a friend of mine was playing a gig down in Vermont. She is the singer for a really funky band called The Real Deal. They are based in Vermont and play a great set of classic R&B, soul and rock songs. They know how to get the crowd up and dancing. Check out their website.

While the show as in a bar, it had somewhat decent lighting. Got most of these shots using a 50mm 1.8 @ ISO 2000. It was a fun challenge trying to make my way around the dancing crowd to get into good shooting angles.

The rest of the weekend was spent camping out in Little River State Park, near Williston in Vermont, spending some great time with great people.

You can check out the full set on my flickr, and here are a few of my faves from the evening.