Metal and Beyond

I'm no expert on the subject of shooting concerts and live events, however having shot 5-6 metal/rock gigs in the last 18 months or so has taught me a lot about the nuances of stage photography in extreme conditions of lighting and space. Daytime and open-air concerts are a rarity and majority of these shows take place at extremely small venues with no space between the bands and the audience. To make matters worse, things like the 'Wall of death', moshpits and shoulder butting make life a complete nightmare for your regular photographer. It's definitely not for the weak-hearted. I've been hit in the back, on the shoulder, on my camera bag, etc. while shooting and it's a risk I'm willing to take because of my love for photography and music.

Coming to the technical part now. It's almost impossible to shoot these gigs without a fast prime and high ISO. Do not be afraid to use the highest ISO setting for 90% of the show because you'd rather have a noisy shot, than one which has a lot of motion blur. Also cheap primes like the 50 f/1.8 will not focus in such low light and APS-C cameras do not have a great viewfinder to nail the focus manually at f/1.8 each time you try. I prefer Live View shooting combined with manual focus. The drawback to this method is that you end up sacrificing a few stops on the shutter speed as holding the camera in the Live View mode as opposed to the traditional method induces a lot of camera shake. Also, do not be disheartened if you've shot 400 images and got only 30 usable ones. You've got to shoot at least 2 images of the same scene to make sure that you've nailed everything correctly. With practice, comes perfection.

Most of these gigs are not well-lit and the ones which are, have extreme colours on stage. These could end up spiking your RGB histograms making few areas of the photograph unrecoverable. So, you've got to keep on eye on both histograms after most shots. Oh and it is pretty obvious that you HAVE TO shoot in RAW if you want to have any sort of headroom whilst processing the pictures. Shoot in Manual mode at all times as the Av/A mode will give unusable shutter speeds for most of the time and every other mode is completely useless for indoor concert photography.




I feel that one must also know the music to shoot the music. A person who has no idea what the heavy metal subculture is all about, will have very little success in shooting a black metal gig and the same can be said about a person who's not fond of Indian Classical music and is shooting at Sawai Gandharva. One has to anticipate the emotions behind each riff, the mannerisms behind each beat and the showmanship of every individual to capture it at the right moment. Here are a few photographs from the various gigs that I've shot so far:

Leonhard Waltersdorfer began writing songs under the moniker of Araxas for the first demo Dunkelheit in the spring of 2009 when he was just 15. One of his basic goals was to combine Black Metal with orchestral music. I was very impressed with his demos when a friend recommended it to me last year and was eagerly looking forward to conducting an interview with him on his musical journey so far.



XD: Hello Leonhard, it's great having you here on Metal and Beyond. As a big fan of the Depressive Black Metal (DBM) sub-genre, I appreciate your great contribution towards this type of music. To start off things, how did you manage to churn out 5 demo tapes in the space of 2 years at such a young age?
LW: Well, when I started to play the guitar I also got educated at recording. So I tried some crappy melodic death metal stuff first. But I have always liked orchestral music (I’ve been playing in some orchestras) very much and thus I wanted to combine black metal with orchestral music. Later, the demo Dunkelheit was the result of my earlier recordings.


XD: Who are your greatest influences?
LW : I wouldn’t say that I have a lot of influences. During Dunkelheit, it was (of course) romantic orchestral pieces, and on the later demos I don’t really have any influences. I like the instrumental parts from the band, Shining very much, but I think that’s it. At the moment I’m writing some orchestral stuff again, but it's a lot more cinematic, so I would say my influences now are soundtrack composers like John Williams and Hans Zimmer.


XD: Apart from your own music, do you listen to a lot of other DBM artists?
LW: When I changed my music to depressive black metal I used to a lot of DBM bands. But now I hardly ever do. At the moment I like piano artists like Ludovico Einaudio or Yiruma. I also like soundtracks very much (John Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Howard Shore, etc.). And I also like Jazz and Funk a lot.


XD: A one-man band has its pros and cons. On one hand, you get the creative freedom to express yourself in the way you want to. But, it's also difficult to tour without any band members. How do you manage this?
LW: Araxas was never planned to be a live band. When I started Araxas, it was a pastime for me. But it turned out that people liked it, so I continued recording. Of course I like the freedom to write whatever I want and whenever I want to write it.



XD: Why did you shift from Symphonic black metal to the depressive stuff after Dunkelheit?
LW: I used to listen to a lot of DBM before I changed my music. But there are so many crappy bands and just a few who are listenable, but none of them really combine epic music with DBM. I mean, I love epic music (soundtracks, symphonic metal) and I thought it would be great to create something that combines DBM with that. Suicide of my Mind and Das Ende der Gezeiten were not as epic I wanted them to be, but with Umarmung des Nebels I really hit the point I wanted to get to. It has epic melodies, clean and quiet guitars and of course that strong distorted guitar sound that is needed in this genre.


XD: Do you plan on releasing a full length album or an EP anytime soon?
LW: Just a few days ago a label from Vienna asked me if I wanted to release a CD. At the moment there is nothing really planned, but I think it would be great to do a remake of Dunkelheit, which does not have the best sound quality and production on the original demo. I could make a 2 disk set, with some songs from Dunkelheit and perhaps some new songs in that style on the first CD, and on the second disk I could put the cinematic songs I write.


Q: Which is your favourite demo out of the five you've released so far? Mine is Suicide of My Mind.
A: I switch very often between Dunkelheit and Umarmung des Nebels as my favourite demo. But at the moment I would say it is Dunkelheit. But I got very positive responses on the song Suicide of my Mind from the same titled album, I also like this demo.


Thanks a lot for taking the time for this interview. It was great talking to you and knowing about your insight on orchestral and Depressive black metal. Here's wishing you the best in all of your future endeavours and hoping for a great debut album soon.


Araxas on Myspace
Araxas on Last.fm