Maria Franz of Heilung

1/11/2020 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco

I hadn't heard of Heilung more than two weeks before the show but saw some photos and was intriqued. They also got "Best Undergroud Band" award from Metal Hammer so obviously my interest was heightened. The visuals of the show were awesome, the lights, the costumes, makeup. Allw as impeccable. The music itself is like chants set to percussions and different flutes. Absolutely worth checking out!

Motionless in White

1/7/2020 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco

Happy New Year! First show of the year and everybody were rusty. I brought my travel lens to music shos. Light dude only brought his pink filters. Not impressive, and I'll just file this under warmup show for the year.

Charlie Puth

12/8/2019 SF Masonic, San Francisco

WiLD 94.9's FM's Jingle Ball 2019. Probably the last show of the year for me.

Matti Pike, High on Fire

12/6/2019 UC Theater, Berkeley

NCT 127

12/5/2019 99.7fm Poptopia, SAP Center, San Jose

I always get to shoot few holiday shows that radio stations put up in the weeks leading to christmas. They always include the some of the more popular acts for the station and for this year fot 99.7FM it included NCT 127, a korean boy group.

This is a weird experience for me. Nobody in the group sang live, the boys are all very feminine but act masculine and the main atraction is the dance moves. I'm also used to picking up shots of individuals from bands and only have few shots where the whole group is in, but with this kind of a group, individuality comes second and the group first. Everybody performs but as part of the collective. There is personality in each performer, but it's still very through through through the whole rather than real differentiator for the indiviuals. GOod experience for me tho.

Tom Araya, Slayer

11/26/2019, Oracle Arena, Oakland

This was probably the last time I got to see and shoot Slayer. I chose to show photo of Tom because he's the least likely member to be seen after this tour is over. It has been awesome to be able to witness this great band from close and I'll continue to enjoy yheir music in the future.

Arnocorps

11/22/2019, Cornersone, Berkeley

Alternative Tentackes 40th year anniversary and possibly Arnocorps last show. I hope they will be back. Thank you for all thgge good times over the years!

Johan Hegg, Amon Amarth

10/25/2019, The Warfield, San Francisco

Amon Amarth is another fine example of scandinavian metal bands. They are theatrical, have a strong concept and do't take themselves too seriously. Johan keeps smiling through out the gig even thought thir lyrics are about vikings pillaging and murdering for the glory of norse gods and the promised afterlife in Valhalla. Awesome show, catch them if you can!

Joe Bonamassa

10/18/2019 Paramount Theater, Oakland

GWAR

10/17/2019 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco

Head, Korn

10/13/2019 Aftershock Festival, Sacramento

Rob Zombie amd John 5

10/12/2019 Aftershock Festival, Sacramento

Mike Mushok, Staind

10/11/2019 Aftershock Festival, Sacramento

Tommy Karevik, Kamelot

10/4/2019 Palace of fine Arts, San Francisco

Palace of fine Arts is a weirs concert venue. The stage is wide, it's seated room only, sound is not spectacular and lighting ... Nevertheless, Battle Beast, Sonata Arctica and Kamelot put on a great, ver energetic show.

Tom DeLonge, Angels & Airwaves

9/30/2019 The Warfield, San Francisco

Dababy

9/29/2019, Rolling Loud festival, Oakland/2019 

Dababy stoe the show for me in Rolling Loud. He wasn't the headliner of the festival, but he had one of the most energetic shows and his pohtos have been selling like hot cakes afterwards. Needless to say that this is not my kind of music, but it was a good experience shooting the festival.

G-Easy

9/28/2019, Rolling Loud festival, Oakland

"Queen" Kyla Vera, Metalachi

9/20/2019 Slim's, San Francisco

This was the first time I have seen Metalachi perform live. I knew it was going to be a crazy show, but not quite sure how crazy. The band didn't disappoint and I had an awesome night with weird versions of metal classics and more traditional tunes. It's great to see there are still bands out there who don't take themselves too seriously. Go check out a show if you can!

K.FLay

9/7/2019 Fox Theater, Oakland

James "Munky" Shaffer, Korn

9/4/2019 Shoreline Amphitheater, Mt View

I was pretty big Korn fan like everybody else in mid to late 90's. Since then I have moved on musically, but it's still great to see these bands and see them alive and kicking. Korn is also one band that is always great to photograph as they really put on a show. Nowadays it's feels more like five guys at the stage at the same time rather than a tight group, but their individual performances are energetic. At times we have to shoot half way to the mixing table at Shoreline, but I'm sohappy with my recently acquired 400mm lens that I don't even mind the distance.

Young the Giant

8/15/2019 Greek Theater, Berkeley

Kygo

Outside Lands Festival, San Francisco

Kygo closed up the festival on Sunday night with smoke and flames

Ella Mai

Outside Lands Festival, San Francisco

Ella Mai was one of the highlights on the Twin Peaks stage on Saturday

The Lumineers

Outside Lands Festival, San Francisco

The Lumineers headlined Twin Peks stage on Friday, the first day of the festival

Slash

7/15/2019 The Warfield, San Francisco



This is the first time I got to take some photos of Slash. So far I haven't been able to shoot Guns and Roses so this was my first opportunity to take some photos of him. There's a showmanship and something so cool in the way he plays guitar even though he's not running around the stage at lightning speed. One big name off my bucket list for sure!

Jake Hout, Dead Boys

6/7/2019 Burger Boogaloo, Oakland



This is my first time shooting at Burger Boogaloo. I hear that this year is smaller than few previous ones and I was a bit disappointed at the soze of the festival. For me the most interesting band was Dead Boys who somehow reminded me of Michael Monroe shows I have seen. Maybe it's the demeanor and performance of Jake Hout. He spent more time crowdsurfing and walking than on stage. Cool performer for sure!

Claudio Sanchez, Coheed & Cambria

6/25/2019 The Masonic, San Francisco

Claudio has an awesome lion mane-like hair and during the first two songs the stage was lit very well. This allowed me to almost stop the fast moving performance. This is the second time in a few weeks that I'm in a show at The Masonic and there's almost too much light on the stage. I'm liking the venue more and more.

Wu-Tang Clan

6/23/2019 Shoreline, Mt. View

Third Eye Blind

6/15/2019, Bill Graham Auditorium, San Francisco



It's always cool to shoot at Bil Graham because the venue itself has a ton of light and because of the size of the venue, the bands usually bring a great show. Third Eye Blind was no exception but they opted for visual, but less photographer friendly performance. Most of the first song was perfomed behind a curtain with only shadows of the band seen on it. Once the curtain dropped, the stong backlight was still there and it was challenging to get anything else than silhouettes of the band. The next two songs were easier for me, but I feel this shot is representative of the night

Paul Jason Klein, Lany

6/14/2019, The Masonic, San Francisco



The first show I shot with my "new" 400mm lens. It was a perfect sow for this baby also. THere was SO MUCH LIGHT!. I don't think I have ever shot a cocert with ISO 100 at 2.8/1000. The lens is HEAVY but awesome. This was sold in bargain condition but with my testing I haven't found anything wrong with it optically. The barrel has few dings but you really have to look for them to find them. It's actually easy to handle on a monopod. I recently got myself a new stepstool to replace one I left somewhere and the new one is few inches taller and now my monopod is too short. Well, another small acquisition for me :)

Ian Astbury, The Cult

6/12/2019 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco



I have managed to shoot The Cult few times and this was the first time I got to shoot them from the photo pit. I have been a fan of their music since Electric came out in '87. Did I just date myself?

Wiley Arnett, Sacred Reich

5/29/2019 Oakland Metro Operahouse, Oakland



I have been a fan of Sacred Reich for a very long time and my music collection seems to include all their albums. They started all the way back in '80s and called it quits in early 2000s but couldn't stay away from the road. Happy to be able to see the guys play!

Skeletonwitch

5/27/2019 The Independent, San Francisco

I try to be truthful to the colors of the shows I shoot. It's always a hard proposition as camera records the colors differently than our eyes and our brains process the information very differently. Every photo that is taken is edited somehow, no matter how little the photographer does in post production, there is a ton of settings chosen in the camera that affect the outcome of the photos. I shoot my photos as RAW files and set exposure manually so that the camera does the least amount of "thinking" for me. I do use autofocus when I can and when shooting fast moving subjects in dark concert halls it's a lifesaver for me.

Sometimes (more often than I'd like) the band, the light designer or lighting guy at the venue makes it next to impossible to pull pleasing colors out of the photos. This usually happens in smaller venues with smaller bands. Some venues don't have a lot of lights to work with. Some bands have a very strong visual style they want to go for.

I understand that the shows are not for the photographers (shocking, I know) but is meant as a dialogue between the performer and the audience. My job is to record the show so that people who didn't get to go have a chance to experience some of the show and the people who did, can reminiscence on the evening through my work. Both of these require the photos to be somewhat accurate representation on what happened on stage and how it looked like. I don't want to do heavy handedly edited, strongly stylized photos of bands. So my solution is to turn the evenings where I can't be truthful to the band into a set of black and white photos.

This allows me to work with the contrast on the images, bringing up details from shots that are heavily saturated with one color and still keep the feeling of the photos. The outcome feels similar to what I shot when I did black and white photos on film. The top corner is the unedited, full frame photo where I started my editing from.

Jai Wolf

5/18/2019 The Warfield, San Francisco

This is not my usual kind of a show to shoot, but every now and again I like to expand my range. Shooting different kinds of bands gives you ideas on how to approach the genre you gravitate to also. Rock bands make you focus on the musicians, they want to show off their skills with the instruments. EDM bands focus on visuals, because the DJ/producer performance itself rarely is super interesting. I got a questions last night at Jai Wolf show from the audience: "Did you come here to shoot the lights? Thants why we are here". And yes, in this kind of a show it's mostly about the lights. I have few decent photos of Jai Wolf himself, but the shots of the whole stage and lights are way more interesting..

EELS

5/13/2019 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco

The Midnight

5/4/2019 Fox Theater, Oakland

Jyrki 69, 69 Eyes

4/30/2019 DNA Lounge, San Francisco

This was first time I have been back to DNA lounge since I was banned from shooting there several years ago. Not sure if I'm still banned, but at least I got to shoot my fellow Finns, the 69 Eyes, perform first time in ten years in the USA. Somehow they ended up at the small room at DNA while the bigger one was occupied by soem Death Metal bands. The attic was full of fans and surely it was a dream come true for quite a few "kids" in the audience.

Metal Allegiance

4/20/2019 The FIllmore, San Francisco

Metal Allegiance is an awesomely insane collection of musicians who seem to have so much fun when they get together on stage. Youd think there would be soem personality clashes but nothing of the kind. Awesome guys, awesome music!

Rivers Cuomo, Weezer

4/10/2019 Oracle Arena, Oakland

Michael Buble

4/3/2019 Oracle Arena, Oakland

And then something very different. Between shooting rock and metan bands I got the chance to photograph Michael Buble in concert. It was very interesting to see how intimate or personal this kind of a big show can be as there's only one person to focus on even though there was a whole orchestra onthe stage. Michael is definitely a showman and was chatting with the audience, knew the environment and people. GOes without saying that his singing was top notch. I actually enjoyed the show and the photos are pretty dramatic from a big set like this.

Alexi Laiho, Children of Bodom

4/1/2019 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco

I have shot Children of Bodom a handful of times and this was probably the best performance and at the same time the most challenging to shoot. There were three finnish bands on the bill, Wolfheart, Swallow the Sun and CoB. It's important for myself to try to shoot all traveling finnish bands and hopefully meet up with the guys. I didn't manage to meet up with CoB, but had the privilege to chat briefly with Wolfheart guys. Awesome night in the end!

Jon Mess, Dance Gavin Dance

3/31/2019 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco

I have to admit this wasn't my favorite show of the year, month or even the week. The performances were OK, lighting was so-so but so not my music even though the lineup was somewhat metal. I'll chalk it down to "been there, done that"

Todd La Torre, Queensryche

3/29/2019 Slim's, San Francisco

There has been a lot of great bands at Slim's but I have never seen it as full as it was when Queensryche came to town. The venue is relatively small and there is an awesome pillar in front of the stage but Queensryche made the most of the space. The audience really enjoyed the show, to the extend that I couldn't make my way out of the venue through the front door but had to sneak out through the back.

Sharon den Adel, Within Temptation

3/18/2019 The Warfield, San Francisco

Second time in a week for me at The Warfield with very different performances. Within Temptations was on tour with Swedish bands Smash Into Pieces and In Flames. All bands are quite different from one another and it made for an interestign night. Within Temptation was the lightest of the bands and had the most thought thrrough performance both musically and visually. I might not be the biggest fan, but I did like the show.

Graveyard

3/16/2019 The Warfield, San Francisco

Another first for me. First time seeing Graveyard and they were cool. The music ius very roots based hard rock. The songs are catchy but the lyrics have actual meaning and there's a social commentary in them. It feels like the band and music is a throwback to age when music was a protest rather than "just" entertainment.

Billy Idol

3/8/2010 Palace of FIne Arts, San Francisco

Two firsts on the same night. I have never shot at Palace of FIne Arts and this was my first time seeing Billy Idol with a camera on me. Billy was performing with just his guitarists Steve Stevens and the show was awesoem. Billy talked a lot between the songs and even thought the venue is quite big the night had an intimate feeling to it. It was great to cross one more big name form my photography bucket list.

Daron Malakian And Scars On Broadway

3/6/2019 Slim's, San Francisco

This is the closest I have gotten to System of a Down. Shooting Daron Malakian at Slim's. I really have poor memory as I always get to Slim's even when I know the light is never stellar. Great to see Daron and the band even if photography wasn't super good.

Lords Of Acid

2/24/2019 UC Theater, Berkeley

This was a bit of a different show for me. I'm not familiar with the bands and can't say I'm still a big fan, but the night was good because of other reason;

I'm testing out a mirrorless camera, Canon EOS R, this week. I took it to two shows with me. For image quality it's similar to my EOS 5D MI IV but ergonimically very different. I'm leaning towards not switching yet for two reasons.

1) There's a lag on when the electronic viewfinder switches on. This makes me miss shots as i'm used to pulling my camera to my face and immediately seeing through it.

2) I can't set up the camera in a way that the LCD screen is only used for reviewing my photos. I'm sure there will be a software update at some point for this but it bugs me.

Add these to the fact that I would need to teach my muscles to handle a very different body. I currently shoot with two different bodies, 5D and 1D, and there are differences but my hands already feel which is which and I operate them without thinking.