Owel

Until recently I never heard of Owel.  Boy I wish I had earlier.

The band reminds me of a mix between Penfold and Sigur Ros.  Go figure, since Penfold happened to be playing with them and they’re not on the same record label, In The Clouds Records.

This show was the first live band event that I photographed in a long time.  I originally went to see Penfold, a band I grew up listening to, was at most of their shows, their final show and their first reunion show.  Since then, I didn’t have any opportunities to see their reunion shows.  Then, Penfold signed with In The Clouds Records to re-release one of their albums on vinyl.  With that, they did a reunion tour but in Japan.

When Owel first started playing, I was immediately in a awe of their music.  It was as if I was hit with a water balloon filled with memories of going to shows when I was younger.  Now, when I mentioned that they reminded me of Sigur Ros, it was not only because of their sound but also because the singer (Jay pictured here) used a violin bow at one point.

When photographing a live band, photographers are faced with the challenge of managing stage lighting.  However, both Owel and the band who played before them (Gates) had their own lighting.  Gates only had backlighting which made it very difficult to photograph them.  Owel had a lot of backlighting and a little front lighting, so it was also difficult to photograph them.  With that, I have about 5 photographs from their set that are worth processing.  However each of them have something I dislike about them.  For example, in this photograph I do not like the guitar head on Jay’s elbow and his own guitar head cut off on the right. I was also debating whether or not to remove the state lights at the top which were left on the entire set. I decided to remove them as they were too distracting from Jay. Overll I am happy with this result based on the lighting challenge.

EXIF: Nikon D800, 70mm, f/3.5, 1/60
Processing: Adobe Lightroom

I hope to share more from the show at a later date.

Thanks for reading and happy shooting,

Scott

Bonus 1

Want to listen to some Owel music?

Bonus 2

One of the things I learned from watching the blind critiques on Kelby TV’s The Grid is to put away a photograph and return to it for further processing at a later date.

I didn’t just learn this from the hosts and guest hosts on the show. In fact, a lot of what I learn is from the chat room where people like Alan Hess hang out and share feedback on photographs.

I didn’t just learn this from the hosts and guest hosts on the show. In fact, a lot of what I learn is from the chat room where people like Alan Hess hang out and share feedback on photographs.