Places I’d Rather Be: Evia, Greece
Lunch in the garden at Sunshine House
Nikon D5000 f/1.8 ISO 250
I have a not so unknown confession to make. I take photographs of food. No, not stylish, arty, cook-book style photographs (though it’s something I’d love to have the kitchen, food and natural lighting to do). I take photos with my iPhone, with my Canon Powershot, with my Nikon D5000, of the food I cook and the food I eat in places. I do it probably every other day. Whether this is because I’ve lived in Japan for too long, who knows. Maybe it’s just that I like to keep a record of good food. When I’m on the train home thinking of ways to pacify my growling stomach, I flick back through photos of salads I’ve made, soups I’ve cooked, and try to find some inspiration.
Veggie burgers made with millet, peas, veggies, mint… and a bit of love!
Nikon D5000 f/1.8 ISO 400
One set of photos I do always come back to though, comes from the trip I took to Sunshine House in Evia, Greece. Located 1.5 hours from Athens, Evia is part of the Aegean Islands, where the urban sprawl peters out along graffiti-adorned higways and then into olive and orange groves, farmland and traditional stuccoe’d houses. Sunshine House (website currently unavailable) is a combination of organic farm, Thai massage and yoga centre, and family home.
Making beetroot salad in the kitchen
Nikon D5000 f/1.8 ISO 400
Having been on the ship for so long (where my idea of vegetarianism was clearly at odds with the chef’s), I was getting serious cravings for healthy, delicious food, and I was not disappointed. In fact, I recall that day as one of the best of the trip – yoga, steam rooms, cooking, eating, lounging around in the the garden.
I was talking to a chef friend of mine the other day about cooking with your heart. She told me that one should endeavour not only to sate the physical appetite of the eater, but that they should go away with thier heart full too. This can be achieved through the passion of the person cooking the food and through the act of receiving by the person eating it. The reason I always come back to these pictures is because they represent both – immense passion from our chef, and (at least on my part) huge gratitude.
I’m trying to keep these short and sweet, but you can also enjoy this video which my good friend Aaron made while we were there:
Kiryu at Shibuya O-East
Takemasa and Hiyori rocking together.
I’ve got a couple of favourite venues in Tokyo for photographing – Akasaka Blitz, Shinjuku Blaze and Shibuya’s O-East, so I was looking forward to the Kiryu gig on March 3rd. That was, until I got down to the stage and found a video camera, on a tripod, on tracks that ran the width of the stage and took up the whole run. Having recently fought off video cameras at the Versailles gig at the CC Lemon Hall, where space is comparitively abundant, this did not look good. And then 2 more camera guys turned up – and they had bigger and better gear than me. There’s nothing like a bit of lens envy to make you want to crawl back under your amateur rock sometimes, but it’s not always about who’s got the best camera, it’s about how you use it, ne?
As the lights came down the two other photographers scampered off to centre-stage and I followed, but kept an eye on the video camera, whose brusque operator wheeled it down the tracks at alarming speed and sent all three photographers back the way they came tumbling over each other. And that’s pretty much how the show went the whole time. The other two photographers, being of the skinny Japanese perdsuasion, realized that with a well-timed duck and wiggle they could get behind the video camera. I had no such luck. After a couple of awkward fumbles with the cameraman, I gave up and disappeared up to the 2nd floor guest balcony to shoot some crowd and stage shots before moving to the other side of the stage,where I not only had to contend with the cable for the camera under my feet, but some over-zealous moshing from the audience which resulted in a couple of near concussions.
Mahiro
Kiryu came bounding on to stage dressed in some amazing kimono-inspired costumes, which they describe as “Tsuuzetsu Nostalgic” or tradition Japanese aesthetics in a modern context. My particular favourites were singer Mahiro’s baggy trousers beneath a purple kimono-top tied up with obis and rope, along with occasional flourishes from his fan. By the third song the band’s exuberance and costumes were creating some impressive sweating and it must have been pretty gruelling under all the lights. At one point later in the show Mahiro ducked down on stage to suck on a can of oxygen, and during the encore one audience member passed out and had to be carried out by security. A pretty intense show for everyone then.
Despite the difficulties of shooting, I did manage to get some great shots, and this final one is now probably one of my all-time favourite photos. Guitarist Mitsuki was rocking another amazing outfit, and was also doing a very good job of playing up to the camera for me for much of the show. I love the enthusiasm of the crowd in the shot, as well as Mitsuki’s amzaing costume and huge smile.
Current favourite photo – Kiryu’s Mitsuki strikes a pose.
Check out the write-up and more photos at Rokkyuu Magazine.
Places I’d Rather Be: The Arabian Sea
I have to work hard at pretending that life is great. It’s easy to forget that life is not all drudgery, frustration, worry and disappointment. This time last year I was working on board a ship sailing around the world. It was bloody hard work, and I won’t deny that it had its own frustrations, annoyances and low points, but it was also one of the high points of my life (so far…), one where I felt like I was actually doing something useful with my existence. There’s nothing like waking up in the dark bowels of the ship to the monotonous thunder of the engine and then going up into the fierce golden light of morning to check out what colour the ocean is today.
This time last year then, we were on our way from India to Egypt, passing through the eerily calm waters of the Arabian Sea. I think for three days there was nothing except this weird flat sea which glowed at night…and dolphins…and pirates. I took my camera everywhere, and one morning was rewarded with the early sun creating this peculiar gold-satin appearance on the ocean. I caught the wake of the ship echoing off into the stillness of the empty ocean. It had me reciting lines from Coleridge’s “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”, though here was a fortunate lack of albatrosses around.
Sunrise on the Arabian Sea
It was around this time also that there was a serious increase in the number of dolphin sightings, and I was getting rather jealous of people running around raving about porpoises and showing off their video footage. So, on the same day as the photo above was taken, I was sitting in the upstairs restuarant overlooking the prow of the ship when a flurry of passengers leapt up, flung themselves at the windows and started shrieking. As the hoards gathered at the windows, I exited in the opposite direction and ran upstairs to the deck above, knowing that the dolphins were likely to fall alongside the ship.
My intuition was right and I had just enough time to swap to my zoom lens before the pod began some impressive acrobatics in the ship’s wake trail, flipping and somersaulting around in the waves exuding a joy that is hard to see from other animals, humans included. This became one of my favourite images from the voyage and I have it hanging opposite my bed so that every morning when I wake up, I still get to see dolphins:
Dolphins and Flying Fish in the Arabian Sea.
For the next few months then, I’m going to endeavour to reflect a bit more on that journey and use this as an excuse to finally get those Venezuela photos sorted out. Expect more “Places I’d Rather Be” to come.
Sex Faces, Booze, and Rock n’ Roll With The Mootekkis
The Mootekkis at the Akasaka Crawfish
Nishi-Ogikubo, located west of Shinjuku in Tokyo, is something of a suburban desolation on a Sunday evening. Navigating my way through the streets from the station, I come across few people. Cosy house lights pop out of the darkness, cars whirr quietly past, but there’s little except the peace and quiet to enamour you to the place. I come bearing a six-pack of beer, a camera and a notebook, with the purpose of interviewing one of Tokyo’s favourite live bands. When I finally arrive at the Tuppence Studio, I find a house set away from the street, it’s verdant exterior a welcome prequel to the equally grand design of the house and studio within.
Opening the door then presents a dichotomy between the sleepy weekend dormancy outside and the rock ‘n roll scene with which I am met. From the studio I can hear the thump of drums and a clamour of guitar from where the Mootekkis are setting up in the basement, every so often re-surfacing for beer and cigarettes. While the band come and go, Mootekkis singer Mike and I sit upstairs across from each other at a table littered with an ever-accruing collection of beer cans and ashtrays, discussing the purpose behind this evening’s recording session. Having just recently started working with a Korea-based record label they share with label-mates Magna Fall (last seen in Tokyo during Japan Music Week), the Mootekkis are planning to tour the US East Coast in August. As such, much of tonight’s work is marked for future single and EP releases.
In true "firecracker"style, Koji rocks the Ruby Room.
This new direction for the band follows on from playing the Tokyo live circuit since their formation in 2008. Perhaps the highlight of the past few of years was winning Japanzine’s 2010 Battle of the Gaijin Bands and appearing on the front cover of the same magazine – something that caught my attention, back when the Mootekkis were a niggling name I kept hearing being bandied about in conversation. The coverage cemented them as one of the main attractions of the Tokyo ex-pat live scene, and was consolidated with the release of their self-titled 2011 EP – a sweaty and sexily sleazy release that brilliantly captured their live vibe.
Previous interviews with the Mootekkis have covered the backgrounds of this band, however It’s worth pointing out that the members of the band each bring something a little their own, be it attitude, experience, or influence. Guitarist and band “firecracker” Koji’s blues background; seiju (“sex-beast”) guitarist Jude’s upbringing on surf rock and heavy metal, and impressively-coiffed bassist Yocchan’s love of punk all dissolve into a grimy, groovy vibe so thick you could run a finger through it like steam on a window. Perhaps those influences could seem at odds, but Yocchan argues otherwise: “We all love music, we respect each other. This is the most important thing,” he says about how all those influences come together in the in the band. And the Mootekkis do demonstrate a keen awareness of their musical differences and how they compromise in order to maintain their sound.
Yocchan at the Ruby Room
“There have been some songs that we’ve discarded because they were outside what we wanted to do,” says Mike. “Everybody in the band has different influences, and they don’t always fit into what we’re trying to get out there.”
”For writing the parts we come together with ideas,” Jude adds. “It’s good because we want to stick to our roots. It’s easy to get off track and make some pussy rock. We wanna keep that rawness to it. Someone comes up with an idea and we try to come together to keep the Mootekkis sound. That’s quite important.”
Once everything is ready in the studio below, we move downstairs to a beautifully wood-panelled recording studio where drummer Masa, Jude, Koji and Yocchan sit in the studio itself, whilst Mike and myself view proceedings from the sound booth. As the guys start recording the lyrically lascivious The Milky Way, Mike accompanies on vocals from the booth:
“Lock all the doors like I got u under house arrest
I’ll leave my pearly signature all over yours…”
My thoughts listening to the tracks this evening are that the recording demonstrates a more polished sound than the Mootekkis’ eponymous EP, whilst still maintaining all that made the release so good – the dirty, live quality still remains, but the music and attitude feels tighter and more assured. It’s the kind of music girls take their clothes off to.
In between takes the band come together in the sound booth to discuss the tracks during play back. Reviewing the tracks, it seems that drummer Masa (described by Yocchan as “serious”) is looked to for the final word on whether or not a track needs to be done again. Tasked as he is with holding his shit together throughout a whole recording, and with his depth of experience, it’s appreciable that the otherwise reticent and somewhat elusive drummer has the deciding vote.
Watching this process take place, it’s quite a change to watch the quieter, more business-like attitude of the band in comparison to the frenetic on-stage energy they exhibited the previous evening at a packed-out show in Shibuya’s Ruby Room. Comparing this show to the previous one I had seen at The Crawfish in Akasaka, I asked the band what made the difference to them in terms of live energy and performance.
I finally get to see Masa play!
“Some of it comes down to the level of drunkenness,” replies Mike, who is famed for removing his shirt halfway through shows – quite possibly at the same time the whiskey starts to take full effect.
“We feed off of the audience a lot,” says Jude. “If the audience are into it, we feed off of that energy…Recently, the crowd we’ve been pulling is really energetic. It’s a good time in Tokyo.”
It seems every time I go to a Mootekkis show there are more and more people packed into the venues. I ask the boys about recent favourite moments from their live shows, and Mike points out something I had been noticing more and more of:
“Recently we’ve been getting a lot of girls up the front supporting us in a big way – really getting into it. That always makes us very happy, because we’re guys…and we like girls.”
Having been guilty of ardent groupie-dom in my younger years, I’m not totally ignorant of why a girl might be hanging around at the front of a gig – a combination of having the hots for one of the band, being vertically disadvantaged, or wielding a camera were my main reasons, but I brought the question up with one of the Mootekkis’ regular supporters, Mana. Her response was two fold – the Mootekkis are a good-time, non-threatening band that appeal to a female audience as equally as to the male. Mike’s penchant for removing clothing was also mentioned as another reason. Clearly the ladies of Tokyo go in for hairy nipples.
“About two months ago at the Crawfish it was really cool coz everyone came on stage and people were actually jumping off the stage”, says Jude of his favourite recent moment. “I really liked that because the energy was just amazing.”
“Something that has to be said is that when we play with Icon Girl Pistols, we always get some crowd surfing,” continues Mike. “It doesn’t matter how big the place is: they come up on stage and it explodes. We have a good chemistry.”
In The Nude - at the Ruby Room, Shibuya
The Mootekkis are part of a web of expat/Japanese bands currently playing in Tokyo, and the aforementioned Icon Girl Pistols are another band whose live shows truly do rival the Mootekkis in terms of energy and boisterous crowds. Getting the two bands in the same place can be incendiary. As such then, I asked the band what their thoughts were on the current live scene in Tokyo, in a country where music sales are the second largest in the world, but where overseas talent accounts for less than one fifth of domestic sales.
“The underground live scene in Tokyo is really good. There’re a lot of really good quality bands playing at the moment,” says Mike. “ But the closer you get to commercial stuff, the shitter it gets. Basically, you have to be shit and eat corporate cock to make money off music in Japan.”
When I ask how they think things could be improved in Tokyo, Mike and Jude are quick to point out the main point of contention.
“It’s a good time in Tokyo. The vibe is great,” begins Jude. “But the venues? Sometimes they don’t like to pay you. In the States we often made a $100 a piece, and it didn’t matter about the customers – you were like an employee almost. In Tokyo live places make you pay. It’s a little off-putting.”
Kicking back and singing at Tuppence
“We made a song called Norma and it’s about the shit system of having to pay to entertain people rather than being paid,” says Mike.
Norma, in fact, is one of the tracks the band are laying down this evening, and the lyrics are a biting criticism of the のるま (noruma – appearance) system which obliges bands performing at a venue to pay for any unsold tickets:
“I’ve heard them call you master
Your surname must be Bates
Get your hands out of our pockets
Pay us to entertain”
Two years ago, The Mootekkis decided not to play at live houses in reaction to these “rock ‘n roll dictators”, as Mike explained:
“We depend on our fans to pay ¥1500, ¥2500, sometimes up to ¥3000 just to see us play for half an hour. It shouldn’t be that way. So what we’ve been doing is basically playing at places where they respect the musicians more. We very rarely set a door charge because we want people to come in and spend money that they wouldn’t be spending on entry on alcohol, and getting juiced up and enjoying themselves.”
"Seiju" Jude - One from the archives at The Pink Cow, Shibuya.
And alcohol is one aspect of the rock ’n roll lifestyle which is key to the Mootekkis’ ethos. The band cite new track “The Whiskey”, a grungy number full of rangy guitar and Hendrix swagger, as their current favourite song.
“Yocchan came up with the original riff,” Mike says of the writing process. “And when I listened to it I felt myself in a dark Jim Morrison-esque state, and so instantly my mind went to whiskey, all about getting drunk and totally vulnerable…”
“That’s a big part of our band,” adds Jude. “We always drink. That’s quintessential rock and roll to us.”
And beer is where the evening takes us. By the time the guys have finished recording and interviewing any chance of catching the last train home has disappeared. So, I find myself in an izakaya with Mike, Jude and Masa for the rest of the night. Some things are best left unrecorded, but I have to say I’ve not enjoyed being bullied into having another beer (or considerably more) for some time. We talk music, TV; and the faces musicians (but mostly Jude) pull on stage – what I term the “sex-face”, which is pretty much expected when you play guitar like you might play a certain bodily appendage.
Ever wondered what it's like to sleep with Jude? Now you know.
At Gamuso in Asagaya, December 2011
When the izakaya kicks us out at 4.30am we stumble blearily to the station. It’s that weird deepest shade of early-morning blue in the sky as I say goodnight to the Mootekkis, and as I walk home in that awkward half-light with birds beginning to chatter and other drunken stop-outs weaving their weary ways home, the lyrics to new track “Shit Out of Luck” go round and round in my head. Over the course of one evening, I feel that I’ve got somewhat closer to what the Mootekkis are all about, but mostly I’ve hung out with a great, hard-working band of dedicated brothers who love their beer, their music and their rock n roll. As Masa signs off on the Mootekkis’ blog: “No beer, no Mootekkis”.
A-men to that.
The Mootekkis next play: What the Dickens in Ebisu on May 19th 2012, from 9pm and Tribal Rock Vol.6 at the Akasaka Crawfish on May 27th 2012, from 7pm.
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- At the Ruby Room, Shibuya
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- At The Ruby Room, Shibuya
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- Recoring at Tuppence
Different Ways to Drink a Bar Dry
The "Toys" show from early 2012 was a packed out night of art, bands and DJs.
When I first moved to Japan back in 2006, I lived in the mountainous depths of Nagano prefecture, in a small city where pretty much the only entertainment (apart from running, jumping and skipping about the beautiful scenery) was to be found at the bottom of a beer glass. And there were so many ways you could drink that beer – snack bars, hostess bars, rock bars, karaoke bars, dubious gangster hangouts, little mom and pop bars, Vietnamese cafe/bars, organic sake bars. My favourite bar 4545 (yon-go yon-go – the height of a Himalayan mountain whose name evades me) won my heart immediately when I walked in and found a tiny Indonesian-themed bar blaring Metallica over the stereo and serving South-east Asian food to the local musicians. The ancient Mama-san, Keiko, and I would spend quiet evenings together eating Vietnamese spring rolls, playing heavy metal CDs and discussing how tight Steve Vai’s leather trousers were. I recall her being particularly taken with a dream I told her about which featured me and Slash going partying in LA, so much so that she ripped a picture of Slash out of one of her heavy metal mags and gave it to me. I also give her all the credit/blame for getting me hooked on Whitesnake.
Bikinis don't always feature.
Nowadays in Tokyo, there’re still plenty of ways to get those beers in, but I always return to the same place – partly for reasons of laziness (it’s ridiculously close to my apartment), but mostly because it’s a good bar. Gamuso in Asagaya has been around for a long time, and some of the regulars have been around before it was even called that. Spread over three floors, the bar downstairs (2F) sees most of the action on quieter weekdays, whilst the 3rd floor doubles as an art and live music space. The 4th floor is whatever it needs to be – black-light room, “backstage”, chill-out space, occasional bedroom where unfortunate casualties of too much fun pass out.
There’s something on most days of the week – art shows, live music, gay nights, improvisational theatre, awkward poetry readings, the occasional “challenging” theatre show (we’re talking attacking young men with dildos on poles, among other dubious performance pieces). My favourites are the live shows, where some of the best bands come to play, and the quarterly big group art shows where some cool artists, DJs and bands get together to pack the place to the rafters.
Gamuso Live organiser Iain introduces The Mootekkis.
I was asked back in February to take some photos of the bar to appear on a TV show on the Tokyo MX station. Not having a TV, I only got to see the show a couple of weeks ago and saw two of photos were used in the 7 minute piece, so it seemed like time to write this little piece up. In addition, I’m exhibiting in the forthcoming “Colors” show next weekend – the night features and bunch of hugely talented artists, DJs, bands and will no doubt be an event to remember. You should come!
You can't miss the entrance to Gamuso. The van belongs to the yakitori place downstairs. Hit the stairs to the right and go up!
Symphonic Metal for Artistocrats
Versailles finish the night in epic rock style.
The outside of the CC Lemon Hall in Shibuya was swamped by fans waiting patiently in the February chill to see Versailles. In addition to the more generic gothic garb of some fans, others dressed in homage to their favourite members with not a few ball gowns worn in emulation of Hizaki, as well as layers of lace, velvet and back combed hair in tribute to the late Jasmine You. Despite their relatively young status as a band (Versailles only formed back in 2007) they band have earned a status both in their home country and abroad which come other bands in the Visual Kei genre can only aspire to. Perhaps it’s the theatrical aesthetic, or maybe it’s the quite stunning musical talent they display in their blend of operatic, symphonic heavy metal, but 2000 fans from young to old are happy to stand out in the cold for hours to see their heroes return from a successful world tour. Inside the CC Lemon lobby, huge banners collected from venues around the globe – the UK, Europe, South America, North America – attest to just how successfully Versailles have cracked a market that not many Japanese bands have done so well at.
As the auditorium filled up, classical music was piped over the speakers, and the stage was bare save for a drum kit dripping heavily with roses and foliage, and a huge Marshall stack. The lights dimmed quickly, and the giant screen above the stage introduced each band member as they took to the stage , descending the stairs and greeting the screaming crowd with dramatic flourishes.
The ridiculously talented and amazing beautiful Hizaki strikes a pose.
Versailles launched straight into their set – all duelling guitars and orchestral strings – with Hizaki spinning around to show off his dress to full effect. Guitarist Teru rocked out stage right while drummer Yuki and bassist Masashi held the rhythm to the rear, with Kamijo rocking out in the centre. One thing I’m always amazed by is the ability of Visual Kei bands to consistently outdo themselves live – the energy and passion involved in performing is quite astounding, and it’s something that rarely makes it fully onto CD. My favourite two songs of the night in this respect were the epically Baroque “Vampire” and “Prince” with its amazing guitar solo.
I love it when the band give the crowd a moody finger point - Masashi.
In terms of settings Versailles was one gig where my usual overcompensation for the venue gloom was not needed. The lighting was well-designed – brightly lit, but saturated with colour combinations that made for great photos – and there was very little red light to spoil things. If anything, most photos cam out a little over-exposed.
Amazing colours and amazing music - Masashi and Teru.
While all this great stuff was taking place on stage, down beneath the band myself and another photographer dodged a crew of cameramen who were filming the event – rolling around on wheeled seats with huge film cameras, paying little heed to whoever they might be crushing in the process. This gig required your attention to be in about four places at once – whatever’s in your viewfinder, whatever the other band members are up to, where the other photographer is, and who is about to take you out with a camera. It’s something I seem to be getting progressively more used to.
The band were amazing – tight, symphonic, a joy to shoot – rocking out at the front of the stage and pulling pose after epic pose. I’m pretty pleased with how the photos turned out, and it seems that the Rokkyuu readers felt similarly. It’s encouraging to get feedback from fans on the photos - you know you’re doing a good job when people say they felt like they were there.
Kamijo
See the full live report and a tonne of photos here at Rokkyuu Magazine.
Click here to see my earlier comments on the Versailles gig.
Happy Hanami Accidents
As I mentioned in my first ever post on this blog: “Cherry Blossom Viewing” (お花見 – ohanami) is a spring-time celebration of the spectacular blossoming of the cherry trees, which sweeps across the country every April, accompanied by the over-consumption of alcohol under said cherry trees, pressed up against a throng of thousands on blue tarpaulins doing exactly the same thing.”
It’s currently the height of cherry blossom season in Japan. Facebook pages everywhere are smothered in swathes of pink and white blossoms and to be perfectly honest, I’m getting a little weary. However, it’s a perfect excuse for me to post one of my favourite hanami photos.
At first it just looks like a mess of cherry blossoms, but keep looking. It’s a bit like those Magic Eye photos.
This was the result of what I believe Lomographers like to call a “happy accident”. I was shooting double-exposed images up in my old “hometown” of Ina, Nagano and forgot to wind on the film, resulting in this triple-exposed image.
One Year On
At Todaiji Temple in Nara.
Despire considering myself to be in possession of a mighty fine vocabulary and the ability to be mostly articulate, days like today leave me rather at a loss for words. One year ago, the world went of kilter – and not just in the figurative sense. As such, I am struggling to find something to say that hasn’t been said already. I guess this is where pictures come in handy. So as my own mark of respect on the one year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, here are a couple of pictures from the week following the quake. During that week I spent most of my daylight and nightime hours walking, thinking, absorbing the unreal events of that day, talking with disbelief and an unforeseen comraderie with my friends, and riding out the aftershocks.
The weather was beautiful that week, and the first plum blossoms were out at a tiny temple I found and have not been able to locate again since.
Cameraman Blues
I haven’t posted for a while, I know, but I have the very good excuse of having gone back to school.
However, I am still making time for photography. Last Friday I had a great time at the Kiryuu gig in Shibuya’s O-East. The band were really great fun, though from my point of view shooting was rather hellish. I’ll tell you all about it when the review goes live, but lets just say that getting nutted and slapped in the back of the head by obliviously headbanging fans throwing themselves over the barrier is not the way I like to take photos! The perils of the job, I guess.
I also photographed one of Tokyo’s hottest and hardest-gigging bands, The Mootekkis a couple of weeks back. The venue was pretty tiny – Akasaka’s Crawfish – but there were a tonne of people packed in, and the lighting was better than I’ve been able to shoot them in before. Alas, I wasn’t too happy with the photos I got. I actually thought that the one’s someone took using Instagram surpassed those of mine – it’s all about the atmosphere, which I’m not totally sure I captured at that show. I guess that’s a good excuse to get my butt down to another show.
Skin Exposure
Last weekend I had the privilege of photographing Rocco-fashioned, symphonic metal band Versailles. As I was led to believe, they have not previously allowed many outside photographers to shoot them live, so I was determined to do my best to earn my coveted place at the final show in their World Tour. Whether or not I accomplished that remains to be seen as outside of the gig itself, I haven’t yet been able to peruse the photos. I handed the memory card over to the editor of the magazine I was shooting for after the gig, and am waiting for them to be mailed to me. From scanning through though, I’m pretty certain there are some amazing photos to come, so stay tuned for those.
I took this photo upside-down in the dark. Good thing I did as I couldn't sneak this one out of the venue and into my scrapbook.
Handing over of the memory card to someone else got me thinking about images, photographers, artists and their subjects. Who owns these images? I took the photos with my camera, using what I hope are my artistic sensibilities to set up and shoot some good photos. But I put my photos, other people’s images, onto someone else’s memory card and effectively disowned them when I handed that card over. Or at least, that’s how it feels. I guess I am protective of my work.
I have no experience of shooting major bands in Western countries, so I am unfamiliar with the process of publishing images of musicians, but I suspect it is quite different from the set up with a lot of bands here. Very often when I’ve shot bands before, I send over the images to the magazine editor, who then selects the shots they want to use and then sends those to the band’s management. These photos are then approved for use or not. Last weekend, knowing that the vast majority of images would probably be rejected, I was asked to aim for 900 photos during the 2-hour show. This would be cut to perhaps 300 to send to management, and then perhaps 75 might be approved for the publication (to provide a blow-by-blow visual account of the concert to readers).
This practice was made most clear to me last year when I was photographing the Asia Girls Explosion, a fashion event featuring X Japan Yoshiki’s Yoshikimono collection, guest appearances from Marilyn Manson among others, and a live show with X-Japan themselves and Violet UK. Prior to the show beginning, we were given a long sheet detailing the uses of the images by media and blogs – the amount of skin exposure would be determined by the management, and all images for use by the media would need to be approved prior to use (though fortunately, not blogs).
Part of the amazing Yoshikimono collection at Asia Girls Explosion.
Sound strange? Should I not be able to use any image I deem to be acceptable, by the merit that I photographed that image? In most cases yes, but in this case I don’t think so. Visual Kei by its very definition is all about appearances, so control of that image is paramount, and rightly so. Allowing photos of your band not looking their very best would be damaging to the image they have constructed – double chins and inappropriate smiling do not the VK band make. The fact that Versailles spend a good few hours getting ready to perform would be all for nought if one of the beautiful Hizaki’s false eyelashes was snapped slipping down his face.
I used to think that this sort of thing should be practised on Facebook to prevent people tagging pictures of you with a man’s face plastered to your corset-enhanced cleavage (ahem), or drooling quietly in the back of a karaoke box when you passed out due to over-exerting yourself on a Dream Theatre song. I guess that’s why you can now approved photos with you in, though sadly that doesn’t stop them existing at all.
In the end, I checked out what my concert photography go-to-guru Todd Owyoung had to say on the issue, which negated much of the mental hand-wringing you’ve just read. Thank you, Todd.
I was up until 2.30am last night photographing my friend’s bar for what may amount to a few seconds of air-time on a TV show tomorrow night between 9 and 10pm. You can see the website for the show here. There was a good event on, with lots of people enjoying themselves, so I hope I managed to capture the energy of the event, as well as the artwork on the walls. So, I’ll be posting about the different way to drink a bar dry in a few days – there’s always plenty going on at this bar, and plenty of challenges for low-light photography.
