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My Final Image (a sarcastic rant)

2012-05-09

I often find that when I'm bored, I will crawl through old Lightroom catalogs, searching for images that I may have previously overlooked. This is one of those images. As time passes, one's perspective on the event photographed fades, and as that perspective fades, it is replaced with a clear head and a clear set of eyes. A photo from this very same concert appeared as the opening spread in a magazine, a different photo from this concert was also used as the final image in my limited-edition London Broil Book. And still a third image from this show appeared right here, as a post on TheLondonBroil. So why did I initially overlook this image? Perhaps it was because the other three overshadowed it? Perhaps because I was sorting the photos, having just shot the concert, with the vibe of the show still fresh in my head? Or perhaps this isn't really a very good photo to begin with (check back here in a week, there is a good chance this image and post will have disappeared completely). 

That said, there is something about rock and roll photos, in which the crowd, or a member of the crowd, is a focal point, that I really dig. I feel too often rock photographers concentrate on just the performers and overlook the crowd, when in reality, live music is a 50/50 split of energy between the two. Both obviously feed off one another. While I am on the subject of complaining, I also find that too often, the only crowd shot you ever see, is one taken from the very front of the stage, shot super wide-angle, encompassing the entire crowd, with hands waving in the air and mouths open screaming. I know, I am guilty of the very photo I speak of. Just thinking out loud here. After all, that's the whole point of this Website...or whatever. 

Anyway, the reason I post this here is because it literally makes me feel sick to my stomach to see this space, this internet billboard for my ego, go unaltered for more than a week and a half. For that reason, I decided to post a nice throw-back image. However, I should note, within the next week, I will be launching an epic photo project, of ginormous proportions....one that I've been working on for over a year. I should mention that I'm not even honestly sure the images are good, they may in fact be total crap. Nothing like hyping up a series of 100 photos that offer nothing more than bad exposures, poor compositions and boring subjects? Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself.  Anyway, as soon as that goes live, I'm jet-setting off to Egypt to document the presidential elections for two weeks, like a true photojournalist....finally putting that degree to some good use.

If I don't survive Egypt, I leave you with this, my final image, oh yeah, and that 100-photo-long-series filled with nothing but crap.

<3

Dan