Long time no see...Taiwan

It’s been a while! Actually, way too long without any update, but that’s to be expected after all, given that life took a turn and work started cutting into my life more and more. I did however NOT stop occasionally taking photographs yet and my reoccurring trips to Taiwan did present me with an ample opportunities to take my Pejka with me and dedicate a few evenings to my favorite pastime - aimless roaming through the night streets and getting lost!

For some reason, whenever I looked at the streets of Taichung and Taipei, I could not avoid the urge to shoot vertically, which as my former mentor would describe is very “un-natural-like“ approach and yet, verticality of life here is omnipresent, even in the darkest, most hidden corner of the side-streets and so - here I am, looking at the life in the concrete jungle vertically.

For some reason, whenever I visit Taiwan, there is a typhoon making its way across the island, but avoids me as if it knew. I won’t complain though.

Amplifest 2022 ...or the coziest hard music festival in Porto

I may have already mentioned this before, but ever since I stopped working in press and taking any event photography related assignments, the need to deliver photographs to agency or press disappeared for me. Personally, I find that rather enjoyable and developed my photography philosophy around the idea of letting my photographs “sit“ for a while before revisiting and potentially publishing them anywhere, be it the remaining SoMe that I still have, this website or simply have them published anywhere “out there“.

Brutus @Amplifest 2022

This applies also for my very sporadic urge to revisit the thrill of condensed time spent documenting live shows where so much happens within such a short time and one needs to be prepared to tackle ever changing light conditions, moving subjects and a very chaotic surrounding overall. I do not go out and document live shows, but when I do its a veritable visual feast for me and I can’t help but feel strong nostalgia for those nights spent running around the venue and attempting to document the whole atmosphere of the event I was documenting.

There is one exception to my wish to revisit those days though and that is the usual need to come prepared with at least three “press“ lenses, laptop and all the things live event photographers usually haul around. Since I no longer have any particular objectives to depict crowd, whole band, details and all that the press might usually require, I usually challenge myself and bring with me one of the least suitable tools for the task but my favorite one to work with - Leica M rangefinder camera with either only one prime lens or maximum of two - one wide angle and one 50mm. And so it was exactly this setup that I took with me to Porto, when I traveled there to visit what has now became my absolutely most favorite music festival - Amplifest. To be honest, I also wanted to revisit Porto as its also a destination I wanted to return to for years and even not knowing, whether I won’t be thrown out of the venue for taking pictures with a “professional“ camera, I brought it with me anyway as Porto on its own has a lot to offer.

Complete program of the Amplifest 2022 festival spanned across almost two weeks and I thought it would be good to make at least a short selection of photograps from each weeks program separately. I have to admit I could not attend all the concerts as there were sooo many good bands and so many concerts overall, but I am nontheless pleased with the pictures I was able to capture and which will remind me of the wonderful two weeks I spent listening to good music, enjoying mild and pleasant October weather of Porto, satisfy my urge to use long unused set of skills required to do even photography and last but not least, I indulged my other senses with lots of excellent food and wine.

Amplifest - FDS1 (7-9.10.2022)

Amplifest - FDS2 (13-15.10.2022)

As I wrote earlier, I like to revisit the photographs I took only after certain time has passed, but in this case I have to admit that I got slightly carried away in the mood and took altogether 2333 pictures, far more than I intended or anticipated and the sheer volume somewhat loomed as a prospect of a whole day spent in front of the screen and another to process them into somewhat useable form and with my usually packed work schedule (and hours spent by looking at the screen there), I very seldom had will to sit down to it and actually go through all those pictures. Nonetheless, here they while processing them, I quickly realized, two short selections simply won’t do so for those really into looking at them, here is a little bit larger selection from Amplifest 2022, Hard Club, Porto, Portugal. (if you would like to know more about the lineup, feel free to click on the link).

I hope you will enjoy browsing through these pictures as I did taking them. Until next time… (which would appear to be somewhere in 2024, with my pace posting or generally updating this website). Mike

PS: To add just one thing about these photos, I truly enjoyed a very inclusive nature of the festival, lenience nature of organizers, allowing me to bring my camera in and overall, probably the best and the most friendly crowd I have ever experienced on a hard music festival (and believe me, I have seen and documented quite a few festivals before) and I did my best to use the opportunity of not being divided and cordoned into a small “press“ space in front of the stage so as you can see a handful of photographs are a beautiful mess of crowd, bands and their mutual interaction.

New lens day!

I took a month long pause since the last blog post. I know, not the best way in these fast times (I must sound like a real old school dude now :D), but I decided to keep doing things at my own pace and also focus on some other hobbies of mine, one of which is cycling, which will eventually most likely trickle into this blog as well…and last, but not least, I got down to acquire a few more theoretical works about photography and slowly read through them as well. More on that later tho.

This spring was extraordinarily hot and dry and with almost two weeks with temperatures hitting almost 23°C, forests were probably the most sought out destination for many many Osloers. Luckily, few days of rain and dip in temperatures brought much needed respite both to nature and us, solitude seeking nature lovers and as it happened, this came together alongside first loosening of restrictions related to COVID-19, allowing people traveling beyond their commune borders, visiting their cabins and 1st of May holiday, which meant prolonged weekend this year…and so the result was obviously almost empty streets and local forests, yay!

I really liked the surrounding of Store Gryta lake (BTW: it serves also as a local drinking water reservoir) so we opted for just a short hike again, other reason for opting being me unable not wait to see the results of my newest addition to Leica M mount lens family - Voigtlander 75mm 1.8 Heliar Classic, which I acquired to cover a longer part of lens spectrum as my previously longest lens was Nokton 50mm 1.1, which despite its unique character, lacked close range focus needed for close up portraiture.

Note: Heliar does not focus much closer, but its focal length helps getting the subject seemingly closer and filling the space without the need to crop the resulting image.

Voigtlander 75mm 1.8 Heliar Classic - old design and simple, but with character

Voigtlander 75mm 1.8 Heliar Classic - old design and simple, but with character

I’m definitely convinced, that this lens will stay in my collection regardless of potentially better options out there as I came to like its character (one could say a collection of specific flaws haha).