rapturedmind photography

Suffocation – Death Feast Open Air 2010

Daniel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:56:58 +0000

Suffocation are not only one of the most influential Grindcore Bands out there and pioniers in this genre of music, but also one of the most fun Bands to see live. Not ony is the whole Band giving their best all the time, taking up the entire stage headbanging and moving around, Singer Frank Mullen is also one of the funniest and craziest fronters around. Next to that the Band really knows how to play and with an incredible great sound, there couldn’t have been a better headliner in the last spot of the Festival.

Shooting Notes
Shooting Suffocation this evening wasn’t much different to all the other Bands playing with no ambient light available any longer. I had to get the flash out of the bag, set my ISO to 800 and opened my aperture wide to f2.8. I just changed the shutter speed from time to time between 1/60 and 1/160 of a second to get more stagelight on the sensor, keeping it always fast enough to freeze the guys on stage and work against motionblur (which wasn’t that easy with the Band moving all the time). With singer Frank Mullen getting always up to the edge of the stage the 10-22 was an ideal choice to get a couple of close up wide angle shots.

Suffocation - Death Feast Open Air 2010

Necrophagist – Death Feast Open Air 2010

Daniel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:53:00 +0000

Three Years have passed since the last time the german Band Necrophagist played in Germany. The last time I saw the Band play was four years ago and I was desperately waiting to see them again. Necrophagist play intense and extreme Death Metal, which still is dominated by a lot of melodic elements, which make the Band so enjoyable. Do to the fact that all sets of the previous Bands did get cut short the set of Necrophagist was almost up to length, missing only a couple of minutes of playtime. And even that was to much, because the crowd that had gathered on the grounds was enorm. Necrophagist played an awesome set, which was so much fun to watch, even though the sound wasn’t the best and some of the melodielines and the technical parts got lost in the mix. Nonetheless the Band played a great show and I hope to get a chance to see them again soon.

Shooting Notes
The Band stayed away from the edge of the stage and concentred on playing their parts, so there wasn’t that much action going on on stage. Necrophagist Masterminds Muhammed Suiçmez hair got pretty long since the last time I saw the band and so it was kind of hard to get a good picture of him without hair in his face. I was shooting the 24-70 and the 70-200 for most of the gig, because there was no chance to use the 10-22 with the Band hiding behind the wedges and staying away from the edge of the stage. Since there was no more ambient light, I was using flash to get some light into the faces of the Bandmembers at ISO 800, wide open at f2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/80 of a second.

Necrophagist - Death Feast Open Air 2010

Lock Up – Death Feast Open Air 2010

Daniel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:23:19 +0000

Lock Up is one of those All-Star Projects that was up on stage at the Death Feast delievering an intense mix of Death-/Thrash- and Grindcore. With the Band playing right before Suffocation there were two extremely good and professional Bands up on the last evening and the enormous amount of people in the audience made pretty clear, that both of them were highlighs. Within minutes the first moshpit formed and the amount of stagedivers went exponentially up.

Shooting Notes
Tomas Lindberg and Anton Reisenegger where prime candidates to get the EF 10-22 out and go wide angle again. Both kept at the edge of the stage acting intensively in the direction of the crowd making it so much more fun shooting them. The entire Band was moving quite a lot during the gig and so there was no way around using a higher shutter speed to work against motion blur, having to deal with a darker background and dim stagelights which I had to brighten up in postprocessing. Except of that I was pretty much using the same settings as before: ISO 800, F2.8 (f3.5-4.5 with the Ef 10-22) and of course flash, dialing the power down 1 stop to keep the flash from dominating the picture.

Lock Up - Death Feast Open Air 2010

Hail of Bullets – Death Feast Open Air 2010

Daniel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:36:30 +0000

Last year Asphyx played the Death Feast Open Air, this year it was Hail of Bullets turn. Nearly as enthusiastic and energetic as Asphyx, the Band hit the stage and graped the attention of the audience within minutes. Even though the Band only released one Album and an EP so far, they knew how to deliever and with a crushing sound they made their 55 Minutes of playtime quite enjoyable.

Shooting Notes
Shooting Hail of Bullets this evening wasn’t much different to all the other Bands playing with no ambient light available any longer. I had to get the flash out of the bag, set my ISO to 800 and opened my aperture wide to f2.8. I just changed the shutter speed from time to time between 1/60 and 1/125 of a second to get more stagelight on the sensor, keeping it always fast enough to freeze the guys on stage and work against motionblur.

If you want to see more of Hail of Bullets, check out my Pictures of them at Rock Hard Festival 2009

Hail of Bullets - Death Feast Open Air 2010

Dying Fetus – Death Feast Open Air 2010

Daniel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:22:35 +0000

Without a doubt it was clear that Dying Fetus from the US were headlining the Death Feast Open Air 2010. The place was packed and everybody seemed excited to see the Band. Playing as the last act on thurday with a normal set, the Band had another spot in the billing on saturday playing a special set with only songs of the first two albums. I for my part wasn’t that much into their show on the first evening, while I had quite a lot of fun during the second set. The Band itself had a great sound on both days, even though the generell mix was a bit thin do to the fact, that they keep playing as a trio lately (last time I saw them, they still had two guitar players). Next to that, the show was really static, because both John Gallagher and Sean Beasly stayed at their mics and weren’t moving much.

Shooting Notes
On the first evening I shot the Band at dark, using flash at an aperture of f2.8, ISO 800 and a shutter speed of 1/80. Because the guys on stage didn’t move at all and kept in one spot, I was just using the 24-70 and the 70-200 trying to get at least some different angles. That fact didn’t change on the third day of the festival, but there was way more light. So I didn’t have to use flash and went with ISO 800 at f2.8 and a 1/400.

Day I

Day II

Dying Fetus - Death Feast Open Air 2010

Rompeprop – Death Feast Open Air 2010

Daniel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:40:19 +0000

Rompeprop stepped in for the danish Death Metal Band Illdisposed which had to cancel their appereance shortly before the festival started. While Illdisposed are quite fun to watch and not take themselves that seriously, Rompeprop took that mentality to a whole other level. Introducing themself as Immortal, King Diamond and Kiss the audience was up for 25 minutes of Grindcore with spandex, corpsepaint and beachballs.

Shooting Notes
By now it was totally dark, so there was no way around using flash. The lighttechnician went crazy while Rompeprop played, throwning a wild mix of colours on the stage. To get most of them on my sensor I had shot at f2.8 with an ISO rating of 800 and slowed my shutter speed down to 1/60 to 1/100 of a second. To warm my flash up and take away the hardness of the daylight balanced light I set my white balance to cloudy, ajusting a bit up and down in postprocessing matching the stagelight.

Rompeprop - Death Feast Open Air 2010