Best of 2020

Dana Zuk December 31, 2020

Well… This is awkward. Totally kidding, but you know… not really. 2020 was looking to be rather promising, but thanks to COVID-19, it was completely turned upside down, and has absolutely annihilated the world we once knew it, along with the music and entertainment industry to the point where it’s repair is questionable. Now, I’m not about to flip this into a big controversial sob story; Instead, I’m wanting to take a positive approach to reflecting on the year. Let’s get into the nitty gritty of 2020, and shine some light on the positives that, now looking back, I’m extremely grateful for:

In 2020, I photographed a total of 7 shows, 10 press photo shoots, and a whopping 0 festivals; a steep fall from last year’s numbers, for obvious reasons. But luckily, I was happy to have photographed a portion of those few events for my ride or die outlets: Concertworks and the Starlite Room, Station on Jasper, Exclaim! & Pure Grain Audio. Along with providing photographic services to a handful of local artists.

I also had the great pleasure of being a guest on my friend Daymien Bourrie’s podcast, No Bad Ideas. We talked about all kinds of stuff involving my career, the highlights, and what I was most looking forward to in the year. Looking back on it now, it’s a little strange hearing myself express my hopes for 2020. If only I had the gift of foresight (lol). You can check out my episode on Daymien’s podcast right HERE and don’t forget to smash that subscribe button. I also began dabbling in the world of video. I’m no pro, but it’s hella fun. I’ve filmed 3 videos so far, one for my dear darling Gord, another for his band Tessitura, and one for the drummer, and my great friend Jesse of Juliet Ruin. Gord and I have actually been tag-teaming these videos, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it so far. If you want to check them out for yourself, you can peep Gord’s video HERE, Tessitura’s video HERE and Juliet Ruin’s video HERE.

Keeping up with my tradition of having bands jump for me during press photoshoots, I wasn’t about to let 2020 ruin that. Not for a second. So once again, I am bringing you yet another very special gallery of jumping bands. It’s a fun concept and it’s even more fun to be a part of! Check it below:

Striker

A Modern Prometheus

Arcane Tyrant

Illyrian

Juliet Ruin

Mutual Friends

Teacup Romance

I wasn’t able to take part in a whole bunch of shows this year (obvi) but the ones I was able to be a part of were total bangers. I like to keep all of my sticky pass photo-credentials, and usually, I have a nice collection of them hanging on my wall by this time of year. But, as I’m sure you can assume thanks to the cover photo of this blog, I only scored one in 2020. Luckily, it was my 2020 kick off gig, courtesy of Alexisonfire. That show kicked some serious ass, and I’m glad I was able to catch it. I also did a handful of interesting press photoshoots this year, and I specifically want to note photographing Arcane Tyrant on the snowiest day of the year. In Edmonton, I think we got like, two feet of snow that day? I don’t know for sure, but it was a lot. Despite the shit weather conditions, they totally rocked their shoot like pros.

Sifting through my photos from this year and compiling a "favorites” gallery was bringing up all kinds of weird feelings. I’m sitting here remembering what it’s like to feel that rush before a band hits the stage, and wondering if the possibility of being in a packed venue will ever be a thing again. It’s hard to not get cynical and sad when thinking about that sort of thing. 2020 may have been a total asshole of a year, but it’s taught me that resilience is key when it comes to survival, and how important it is to stay positive and surround yourself with the things that make you happy. Despite my longing for the photo pit, I was fortunate enough to find solace in other things this year. My garden was off the chain and more lush than it’s ever been before, I rekindled my love for reading, and put more time into giving a damn about myself.

But, I digress. Summarizing the year as a whole is difficult to say the least, but thankfully, the first quarter was lit. To everyone who has supported me throughout 2020; Whether it was sharing my posts, referring me to your friends or hiring me for whatever your photo needs may have been, from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU! Thank you for letting me be a small part of your lives as musicians, music fans and lovers of photography. You know the drill, I’m bringing another year end blog to a close, the best way I know. I've sorted through the hundreds of photos that I've snapped over the course of the year and have compiled some of my personal favorites into a little gallery (in no particular order) for you to feast your eyes upon. I want to wish everyone (especially you ride or die kats who stuck through this blog and made it this far) all the love, happiness and well wishes of health and success in 2021, let's make it better than this nightmare that is 2020! From my heart to yours, HAPPY NEW YEAR! <3

Soulfly @ Starlite Room

Tides of Kharon

Illyrian

Evil Tongues

Teacup Romance

Juliet Ruin

Vertex Quartet

Gord Alexander

A Modern Prometheus

Hazzerd @ Temple

Alexisonfire @ Rogers Place

Mutual Friends

Hyperia @ Rendezvous

Arcane Tyrant

Ravage Red @ Starlite Room

Striker

Riot City @ Shakers Roadhouse

Benevolent Like Quietus @ Temple

Tessitura @ Starlite Room

Traveler @ Shakers Roadhouse

Toxic Holocaust @ Starlite Room

Breaking The Silent @ Temple

Coleman Hell @ Station on Jasper

Tides of Kharon (Behind the Scenes)

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February Recap - Soulfly, Bedouin Soundclash and More

Dana Zuk March 1, 2020

Starting February off on the right foot, I spent a day in studio photographing Gord Alexander. He is one of Edmonton’s elite drummers in the heavy metal community, an active member in the local music scene, and my significant other. So naturally, my mission for this shoot was to make him look extra good. Shooting portraits of musicians in this way is always exciting for me. It’s one thing to work with a whole band, and it’s another to work with an individual. You get to peel away that “collective band-brain” exterior, where everyone needs to be cohesive with details in unison, and instead, focus on the one, single human in front of your lens. It’s an opportunity to really make that one person shine, and I’m always glad to take that opportunity. We spent the day shooting Gord and his drum kit in Edmonton’s gorgeous Studio A on their super cool cyclorama wall. This shoot was intended to be really simple, and was done with an easy 3 light set up, with soft boxes on the strobes.

Following my shoot with Gord, I was invited to hang out and shoot some behind the scenes photos with my pals in Striker. After recently being nominated for a Juno Award, the guys were busy filming some studio footage in the gorgeous Audio Department, running through their set of select songs, and getting key footage for new releases and announcements to come over the course of 2020. Working with the guys in this setting is a favorite for me, because their personalities really shine through when in this type of setting and it always makes for great candid shots. It’s always a pleasure working with the kats of Striker, not only are they an elite band coming out of Edmonton, but they’re some of the hardest working people I’ve been blessed with working with, and I always leave shoots with them feeling energized and motivated to kick ass and get shit done.

Fellow Canadians in Bedouin Soundclash visited The Starlite Room early on in the month, bringing their ska-funkiness to a reasonably full room, despite there being a total blizzard happening outside earlier that day. With their hip-hop opener Odario of Grand Analog getting things warmed up, the night was set off on the right foot for good tunes and good memories. I love shooting in the Starlite Room. This place not only has TONS of music history, but it’s considered a historic building in the city of Edmonton as well, and it has some of the nicest venue staff that I’ve had the privilege of working with. It’s a very special thing to play the Starlite stage, reasonably so. For this show, the audience was pretty relaxed and laid-back, so I didn’t have to work too hard making my way through the crowd, so I opted to shoot a little wider than usual, with intentions of catching the full scope of the show while getting those key ‘tight’ shots.

I spent Valentine’s Day back at the Starlite Room, this time totally in my element, photographing a PACKED metal show. The iconic group, Soulfly was in town with thrashers in Toxic Holocaust as support. Throwing a bone to the local metal community, the likes of local heavy weights in Tessitura and Ravage Red we’re invited onto the bill to open up the night and get the ball rolling for what ended up being a wicked sold out show. This being a sold out event came with its fair share of challenges; minimal space to move around and compose shots, and the crowd was damn rowdy, so I remedied these expected and unavoidable issues by using a long lens in a few notably “safe” spots in the venue, and having my head on a swivel. The lighting gods smiled upon me this night, because the stage was lit up exceptionally well, making my life and job so much easier. Needless to say, I walked away from this one feeling good and excited to work on the photos.

Soulfly

Toxic Holocaust

Tessitura

Ravage Red

Later on in the month, I got together with my pals Karli and Colton to photograph their pop punk project called Mutual Friends, as well as some branding photos for Karli’s vocal coaching business called The Inner Voice. We cracked out both shoots in one evening, and I think we managed to get some pretty cool stuff that embodied the vibe that Mutual Friend’s is all about, as well as capturing portraits of Karli in a way that best represents the vision she had with this shoot. I used a couple different methods for both shoots that I did that evening.
For Mutual Friends, we did a few photos out on the street of Whyte Ave. Anybody who’s shot portraits on any street after the sun has gone down knows how atrocious street lamp light can be, so to remedy this, I slapped a speedlite on my camera, adjusted the power output, and went to town with shooting. After a few shots on the street, we went inside and shot off a few more snaps in the audio studio space we borrowed for the evening. I had Karli and Colton sitting centered on the couch in the room, and I placed an LED ring light in front of them as my key light, with 2 Philips Hue Play lights on either side, both set to red. I was able to make the red’s in that shot SCREAM without over powering skin tones, while adding a little depth with some grainy textures to the shot.
With Karli’s portrait session, we had the same lighting set up with the couch, we just changed the color of the side lights to magenta and blue, and added a painted sound treatment canvas that was already in the studio behind the couch for some extra depth and color. We then went into the vocal booth in the studio, being a singer, we both agreed that having some shots in the booth with a fancy microphone was necessary, and for this portion, I used the ring light as my key light once again, the ceiling lights as extra fill and a boomed hue lamp over head, in purple for that added pop of color.

Bringing the month to a close with the likes of my Calgary pals in Traveler and Riot City was the cherry on top of a reasonably busy month. Both Traveler and Riot City crushed their sets at Shakers Roadhouse before teaming up to hop across the pond for their European Tour. Thankfully, Edmonton gave them both a warm send off. Both of these bands were a total pleasure to shoot for a couple reasons… One: They absolutely SHRED the stage-presence department. Two: Hair, hair and more hair! And as for an added bonus: Shakers is an awesome place to shoot.;The stage is a nice height to really get those intimate shots, and despite the minimal lighting set up, it’s well lit. It was quite easy to make all of these kats look like rock stars, and it’s all thanks to them knowing what’s up when being photographed on stage. In post, I wanted to really make the colors from this gig shine, both Riot City and Traveler are such musically vibrant bands, so I purposely neglected to dampen the majority of the primary colors that were present in these shots. I find that doing this properly can really make the scene in the photos pop, as well as directing the viewer’s (that’s you!) eye to the key details in the finished shot.

Thank YOU for taking a hot minute (or two) to read my February recap blog! Got questions regarding what I shot throughout the month of Feburary? Send me an email HERE with your concert photo questions, let’s nerd-out! But until then, stick around to get the scoop on March’s recap!

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January Recap - ALEXISONFIRE, Coleman Hell and More

Dana Zuk February 4, 2020

It’s 2020, a new decade! We’re feeling good, we’re trying new things! This blog series being one of them. I’m going to be sharing recap’s of my work each month for YOU the viewer, because I feel like I owe it to ya, and to help you get a little insight on what I’m up to behind the scenes. So, two things moving forward. One: Be prepared to read a little bit, or don’t. Two: Be prepared to see a bunch of my personal favorite shots that I’ll be taking of all kinds of events and artists each month. So, without further ado, I give you my take on January 2020:

Getting a kick start on the new year is always a hit or miss in the industry of concert photography. You either hit the ground running from the previous year, or you simply just… hit the ground. What I mean by that is, your year starts off at light speed or it’s slow as hell, and it differs for everybody. For me, personally, January started off so painfully slow, but I can’t tell you how happy I am to have finished the month off on the right track.

The first gig of the year took place at Rogers Place, with the likes of fellow Canadian’s in ALEXISONFIRE in front of the lens. This wasn’t the first time I’ve photographed these kats, so my 6D’s and I knew what to expect walking into the pit for this one; dark, strobey lights with a TON of movement on stage. Because of this, ALEXISONFIRE can a bit of a challenge to capture, but I always walk away with something that I’m satisfied with whenever I have the chance to shoot them.

Following ALEXISONFIRE, I was able to get together for a brief photo session with Illyrian, my pals from Calgary, just hours before shooting Hyperia, another group of Calgary pals, during their Edmonton CD release show at the Rendezvous Pub. Hyperia just released their debut full length album entitled “Insanitorium” and it’s everything the thrash-metal enthusiast needs. You can check it out and grip your copy of that record HERE. Shooting a band like them in a venue like the Rendezvous is bittersweet. I mean no disrespect when I say that, after all, the Rendezvous is one of the many places where I cut my teeth when I first started photographing bands when I was a young pup. By bittersweet, I simply mean that the venue itself is cool, and is a friendly, comfortable and great place to catch local talent, but the lighting on stage is… Dark. Not super ideal for photos, but hey. I’m always up for a challenge. With a fast lens on my camera, I was able to catch some key moments of Hyperia ripping apart the room. Luckily, I walked away from the gig feeling satisfied with my shots, and Hyperia loves the gallery I turned over, so it turned out to be a win-win for everyone

With Illyrian, we were pretty crunched for time, and didn’t have much of a plan in place for our photo shoot, so we decided to kick it old-school, and shoot in the back alley behind the venue. Living in Canada, there’s really no way to avoid having some amount of snow to work in and/or around for about 9 months of the year, so making an urban, snowy environment look cool can be a real pain in the ass. So in order to get that moody, don’t-fuck-with-us vibe, I approached this shoot with the most simple light set up; One light and an umbrella on a light stand, and I’m quite happy with the results. The shoot for Illyrian was a little over due; Since our last shoot, they’ve welcomed a new guitarist into the band, and have announced some pretty wicked shows, one of which is coming up in April. But I digress, I’m glad we were able to make the time to kick it while they played Edmonton, and get some sweet photos in the process. The event page for their next show in Edmonton is linked HERE. The band fucking rips, so I recommend checking them out.

Switching gears to my first show of the year working at my house gig at Station on Jasper, pop artist Coleman Hell took to the stage for an afternoon performance during Edmonton’s newest multi-venue music festival Winterruption YEG. Hitting the stage at 4pm to a relatively full house, the show went off without a hitch. This was the first time I’ve had Coleman Hell in front of my lens, but I can assure you, that it will not be the last. Being a house photographer at Station, I’ve got the place mapped out for just about any performance to ensure that I can get optimal shots of the artists that I’m called in to shoot. This place has some of the best lighting in the city, and it’s truly a pleasure to take in so many wicked artists who hit the stage, Coleman Hell being one of them. Between his funky dance moves and the vibrant lighting colors on stage, it was a treat to shoot this fellow Canadian for an afternoon.

Lastly, but certainly not least, I closed January with yet ANOTHER Calgary band. My pals in Hazzerd graced the stage in Edmonton at Temple (Starlite Room) for their CD release show, celebrating their second full length album “Delirium” with their Edmonton fans. Hazzerd always brings the heat and exactly what you would expect out of a balls-to-the-wall thrash metal band whenever they play Edmonton, and going on stage to a hot and rowdy Friday night crowd was truly fitting for this band’s set. Their new record is absolutely killer, you can check it out and buy your copy of it HERE. Despite having to dodge the rowdies from time to time, I absolutely love shooting at Temple. The stage is a nice height for that band-audience intimacy, it’s spacious enough for lots of action, there are a bunch of great vantage points to get optimal shots of the band, and it’s generally always lit evenly; Pair this with a fast, wide angle lens, and you’ve got yourself a recipe fit for stellar shots. The guys were stoked to see the gallery I turned over, and I know this is so cliche, but that was the most rewarding part of the whole show.

Thank YOU for making it this far with this first recap blog. It’s refreshing for me to be able to connect with you, the reader and viewer, on the behind-the-scenes aspects an perspectives of what I shoot. Got questions regarding what I shot throughout the month of January? Send me an email with your concert photo questions, let’s nerd-out! But until then, stick around to get the scoop on February’s recap!

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