Rumena noč has finished almost a week ago, and it has taken me this long to put a few pictures online. I’m sorry, it’s just that It’s been a busy week. And besides I’m struggling to find space to put it on. This is why I’m in the process of buying a “storage vault”, a custom made PC with 1,1 TB of space (with 2×400 Gb and 1×320 Gb disks in RAID 5 configuration). Maybe this is a good time to ask you, how are you solving your backup and storage issues?

About the pictures, a couple of them are… flashy, if that’s the right word. It’s just that, you can’t resist taking them, and yet they’re a cliché… well, I like them, and that’s what matters in the end, IMHO. Comments appriciated!

And now, for the concert photos. The focus of the photos is, as you probably noticed, Jan Plestenjak. I’ve already mentioned once he’s a good photo subject .

I’m also testing a new signature graphics. What do you think? Should I keep it? Does anybody know how to automate this in Photoshop? With custom graphics, etc?

Along came saturday, and another day of the Festiko festival, or Rumena noč, or whatever. Temma X should really define this better and not confuse the audience. Anyway, the thing that really amazed me was the performance of Šank rock. It’s the second concerts of theirs I’ve been too, but I was pleasantly surprised. The energy of the band was amazing.

The other thing was the fireworks. It was the first time I shot fireworks with a tripod so there was some experimenting. But some pics turned out interesting.

On friday, there was another concert on the Tito square in Koper, continuing the “Rumena noč” festival, which is a part of the Festiko festival. Anyway, on the stage were some great bands, McLaren, Slon in Sadež, Neisha and Tinkara Kovač. McLaren is a relatively fresh, young band, which me and a photographer colleague both agree are pretty good. I got their CD, but I still have to listen to it in a normal setting, not at 3 AM in the morning. But my first impression is that the band is better live. Anyway, a couple of interesting pictures.

I need some help though, the last two are the same, as you no doubt has noticed. However, I am not sure which one is better, with colors or B&W. The last two days, or maybe the last week (starting with Robert Plant) I’ve started to notice an increase in my likness of BW photos. So, I’d really appriciate your thoughts on the matter.

The continuation of the Festiko festival has served us with a concert from currently two of the most popular groups in Slovenia, Dan D, and Siddharta, who have recently joined forces to create a combination song from Dan D’s Voda, and Siddharta’s Male roke performed for the first time for the Viktorji awards. The song has become immensly popular. My personal opinion is that Siddharta got really lucky by joining Dan D as their popularity was starting to fall and Dan D’s is rising. I think that Petrolea is not as good (lyricaly) as their previous albums and I believe it’s starting to show.

Well, anyway, the lightning was still terrible. Almost no frontal lights and lots of back lightning.

 
 The green one ^^ is something which I havent’ really decided if I like it or not, but I do like the way the guitarist is blurred and the guitar is sharp. What’s your take on it? One more comment on the lightning though, we’ve talked with a colleage photographer about the lights and decided that for Siddharta at least, it seemed like it was a race to change as much colors as possible in one song. I’m not sure why, but that’s how it looked .

Right, so that’s 3 posts in one day, so I hope I made up for the time out.

Who he? Just kidding, you probably all know the guy as the vocalist of über legendary group Led Zeppelin (Stairway to heaven, Whole lota love, Black dog… and many, many more). He was in Koper to open the Festiko festival. He’s changed his rock ways for a more ethno-kind vibe. He also doesn’t perform topless anymore…

Taking pictures of this concert was a horrible experience. First, the manager had issues with deciding if they will even allow photographers, then half of the photographers were cut from the list. And to top things off, the lightning was horrible and the position we had was on stage. I’ve heard and seen a lot of strange things but this one tops it. We went on stage in 3 groups; consisting of 4, 4, and in the end 2 photographers. I was in the last group (intentionally). Through the whole song (each group had one song) he was more or less facing the audience and it was hard to get a good photo of him. When he did manage to turn around you really needed ISO 1600 and an F/2.8 lens to get it. But, on the other hand, it was a rare opportunity to get a shot of the audience.

As far as the mood goes, when I edited the pictures I really saw them in black&white, and I think that it emphasises the feeling that I got on the concert.

 I’m not sure how to translate it properly, but ok. It was a night at the Zbilje lake, with a concert =). The band I really wanted to see were Pop Design. I like their style of music, it reminds me of 80’s rock, as that’s exactly what it is. Although Jan Plestenjak wasn’t half bad. Anyway, the lighthning wasn’t bad, and the ambience was amazing, particulary the involvement of the audience. There were about 20 000 people according to the organizers. They sang through most of the songs from both of the above mentioned bands (and some songs from Saška Lendero).

During the performance of Pop Design the band really got “live”. First the bassist (Tone Košmrlj), jumed off the stage and gave out flyers to the crowd. Then the vocalist (Miran Rudan) sang with the audience and gave the microhone to the crows. All in all, it was a fun night.

Ok, maybe a bit a lot of the pictures, but I really like them so I decided to show them. The last two are interesting as they were taken hand held, on ISO 800, 1/10 and F/7.

This weekend was über busy. To start things off, me and Alja went to Koper for Disco Nautica. Although the event was dance/techno oriented, there was a concert I really wanted to take pictures off. The performing artists I wanted to see were Laibach and Lara B. Also appearing were Melodrom, and I think Octex. Although this fellow (DJ) performed to an empty space… Ah well… Anyway, here are a few pictures from the event.

Next post, report from the “Zbiljska noč 2007″.

P.S.: I had to repost this one, just in case you’re wondering =).

In support of the Live Earth iniciative (http://www.liveearth.org/), an organization called Planet Zemlja (Planet earth), organized a concert yesterday, Rock for future generations here in Ljubljana. The organizers said that there were approximately 3000 people. My guess would be the same, but they were not constant – rather, there was a flux of people coming to and going away from the concert.

The bands that played were interesting, from yound and emerging talents to some “old folkes” like Benč, and Pero Lovšin.

The light was horrible (after dusk), but that didn’t really matter that much, since I made a “rookie” mistake. The battery drained on me towards the end. Ah well, we live and we learn. Anyway a couple of photos.

P.S.: I’ll post the reason why the battery drained out in my next post, but half of the reason is in my previous post . I didn’t recharge the battery after the concert until today.

First things first. I’ve moved my blog from Microsoft’s Live platform to something a bit more improved and working. Not having images that worked kind of annoyned the living daylight out of me, so I hope this will be better. I’ll consider the first month or so as a test era.

As I thought about what would be the best way to start this blog with, I thought of Pink. I could have blogged about today’s concert but I’ll be leaving that for tomorrow.

In, what was partially my, review of Pink’s concert, avaiable at this location, I’ve noted (beneath the pictures) that I thought the concert was great, even spectacular. Especailly compared to other concerts that I’ve seen recentely, like Iron Maiden and Marilyn Manson. This review has recieved its share of critics from people who seem to disagree. However I feel that, based on the fact that Pink had bronhitis (which led to a cancelation of two shows just before our show), and that the tour is in the 17^th month, we saw a lot of energy.

As far as photography was concerned, IMHO the lightning was great, as were Pink’s poses. It seems I’m not the only one who feels this way though.