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Some images from The Pentaxians of Rock......

JonSchick
Posted 01/12/2010 - 11:44 Link
Managed to get a photo pass for John Lees' Barclay James Harvest at a small venue in London last Friday. Why the Pentaxians of Rock? Well...

(1) many people think they're dead
(2) people who know they're not still think they live on their past glories
(3) they're far more capable than the nay-sayers would have you believe
(4) understated, capable and on occasion exquisite...

On this occasion they had to triumph out of adversity because their main keyboard player - original band member Woolly Wolstenholme - was admitted to hospital just before their mini-tour began. So a five piece band became a four piece band and the show remained on the road. A few shots using the K-7 with Sigma 50-150:

First up and looking distinctly worried is keyboard player Jez Smith, who worked double time to keep the show going:

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He was awarded a "Rick Wakeman" award at the end of the show. Apparently he is a banker normally (Barclays, perhaps?).

Second is Craig Fletcher - who had to fill in for Woolly's legendary sense of (appalling) humour, and did so with remarkable ease. A future career on the northern comedy circuit beckons....

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Drummer for the past decade or so has been Kev Whitehead. I remembered to get a photo of him during my allotted first three songs before the SLR had to be put away - not the best of photos, but he was way back in the shadows so he's lucky I got one at all....

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Finally, founder member and lead guitarist John Lees, who plays and sings beautifully but it's almost impossible to get a shot with him looking at you! Here he is singing one of their more famous songs - "Child of the Universe":

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After this lot, the K-7 had to go away but I did use my Lumix GF-1 with 20mm pancake for a few shots later on. As this is a Pentax forum I know it's not the done thing to post shots from another camera - but just to show them all together, here is a black and white JPEG straight out of the box:

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So, after my first attempt at a gig with decent equipment I have to say that it's pretty hard work! Perhaps a band that is a little more "dynamic" on stage may have made my life easier in terms of getting interesting shots, but even getting the technical stuff right is quite a challenge... fun though.

Hope this lot was of some interest.

Jon
Jon

Some occasional random stuff at The Photographers Block: link
johnriley
Posted 01/12/2010 - 11:50 Link
Moved to Your Photos section.
Best regards, John
JonSchick
Posted 01/12/2010 - 13:00 Link
Thanks John.
Jon

Some occasional random stuff at The Photographers Block: link
aliengrove
Posted 01/12/2010 - 13:04 Link
Wow, wish I could have seen the gig! Of all the pictures, I like the mono shot most, the stage lights have produced some odd colours in the others. I guess this is inevitable with stage lighting. The picture of John Lees looks a bit sharper than the other colour pictures, and is my pick of the colour ones.
JonSchick
Posted 01/12/2010 - 13:26 Link
aliengrove wrote:
Wow, wish I could have seen the gig!

They were excellent, especially given they clearly missed having Woolly on stage with them. The response of the audience was amazing - most people singing along to almost every song - and two hours disappeared very quickly. It's nice to see an old band like this go out simply because they want to, rather than because it's part of a huge commercial enterprise.

I agree with your comments about the pictures (although the colours are pretty close to what it was like on the night). A few contributory factors:

(1) I had accidently knocked the AF/MF switch on my Sigma 50-150 lens (none of my other lenses have this) and couldn't work out why it wasn't focussing! Grrr! So they were all manual focus at wide aperture in rubbish light.

(2) I was closest to John Lees so it was easier to get a sharp shot of him!

(3) the black and white JPEGs from the GF-1 are outstanding (I have a pile more of them from the gig) and I now routinely set the camera to Raw+JPEG with dynamic B&W - that way I get the best of both worlds but often don't bother to do anything with the RAW file once I've seen the JPEG B&W.
Jon

Some occasional random stuff at The Photographers Block: link

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