First let me apologise for the lack of posts recently, this time last year there was an absence of posts because I hadn’t been doing much shooting. This year it’s (happily) the opposite problem; I’ve been shooting so much my feet have hardly touched the ground. I’ll do some more in depth posts again soon but here’s a quick catch up.

One aspect of my concert photography that has changed most recently is that it’s very rare I have time to hang around to watch the headliners after the usual “three songs, no flash”. Most of my shooting now is for Music Pics UK which means the edits have to be all done and uploaded by 1am at the latest. Given that most headliners don’t come on stage until around 9:30pm, and the three songs are done by say 9:45pm – I’m usually not back at my desk until around 10:30 which means editing has to be much quicker these days. On the plus side I’ve seen some belting support acts over the last few months so expect to hear more on that soon.

I’ve been toying with the idea of producing a Gig-Shots calendar for a while now, but it’s usually around Christmas that I remember I still haven’t done anything about it by which time it’s too late. This year is different, I’ve decided that there will be a 2012 Gig-Shots calendar produced and the plan is that each month will contain an image from that month in 2011. One of the challenges however is choosing which images make it into the calendar. As a photographer I’m often too close to my images to be objective about them, I might love an image because I know the lighting was appalling and I still got the shot or because I particularly like the song that was being performed, all of which means nothing to you my adoring public ;-). To try and mitigate against that, I’m letting you the fans choose which images make it into the calendar. Hop over to the gig-shots facebook fan page look for the Calendar Competition Photo Gallery and click the like button for your favourite shot. As a reward for taking part, all votes will be put in a hat and one lucky winner will receive a hand-printed Signature Edition A2 print of the image they voted for, now how cool is that?

Just to whet your appetite here’s a sneak preview of the images up for the January Vote:-

The Walkmen live at Manchester Central Methodist Hall, 2011-01-20 (Mike Gatiss)

live at Manchester Methodist Central Hall, 2011-01-20 (Mike Gatiss)

Ani Difranco performing live at the Lowry Theatre, Manchester, 2011-01-25 (Mike Gatiss)

live at Manchester Methodist Central Hall, 2011-01-20 (Mike Gatiss)

Ani Difranco performing live at the Lowry Theatre, Manchester, 2011-01-25 (Mike Gatiss)