Monomad: Photographs from a Russian concert in Tbilisi, Georgia

I've never really been to concerts, it's just something that never really came up as an option back in England. Primarily due to mostly living in a village but then also just not having that much of an interest in music to begin with. Even today I still feel I don't care too much for it, I rarely ever listen to anything and that just comes from a preference of wanting to hear and observe what's around me as I walk, or work on something at home. Usually I'll just put on a film or television show instead. But that doesn't mean I'm not open to going to concerts, nor will I not find any enjoyment in them. I think this may have been the first actual concert that I've ever been to, and funnily enough I understood next to nothing from it. This was a Russian singer that was touring around this region, working alongside some group that helps get them access into certain countries like the UK. Though this was a performance in Tbilisi, Georgia. A hub in which many Russians have been flocking to in efforts of disconnecting themselves in various ways from the recent events back at home. I went with my girlfriend that is of this part of the world and knew about the musician beforehand. She knows the language; I don't. But this was a really fun experience, I thoroughly enjoyed it both for the performances and the photography side of things.

It was located in a small bar that was buried into the side of an embakement in central Tbilisi, a really old industrial looking place that I assume would've once been a small shop or something for the drivers passing by the river in the city during the USSR. I had made the mistake of bringing my Sony FE 85mm 1.8 lens, assuming that this place would be a little bit bigger and that having the tighter focal length would help me get some good up close shots of the musicians from afar, under the assumption of larger crowds and more space. Last minute swapping out the 35mm F1.8 lens that I think would've been more appealing for this environment. Though I think the outcome was really nice in the end anyway. With some nice personal and close shots of the performers despite being a bit too close. I really love photographing these sorts of things due to the emotion and story that can be captured in real time. I'm not someone that uses the continuous shutter option with digital cameras, I think that came from starting with 35mm film stock when I picked up photography, limited to one frame at a time. So my photography is more focused on capturing a moment right as I see it, not so much slapping down on the shutter and choosing the one good image that came out of 15 of the same subject.

While I had a few too many Lagers at the bar, I really enjoyed the music anyway. I couldn't possibly tell you the genre of it, but there was a very enthusiastic trumpet player that really sold the music. His performance being the real highlight that pushed the music into some really emotional territory, punching in at the perfect time and fading off without overstaying. The performer was always dancing, always with the largest grin on his face. He really loved performing, and watching him definitely made the event that extra bit better. The room was quite dark though, and I had to push up the ISO on the Sony A6000 quite a bit. This is a camera that doesn't quite handle the low light conditions that well. It gets noisy very quickly, and that was met with a wide open 1.8 aperture. The shutter speed varied based on the movement, but I shot everything in manual just to get the best out of what I could. I don't mind it though, I think these came out really well in the end, and the noise added a nice element of grain that gives the images a more cinematic look to them. I think that ISO was around 640 for much of these. And the main image in which it's evident is when I tried to capture a shot of the drummer at the back, covered in a dense mist from the machine and with little light on him for much of the show.

Regarding that drummer though: there was a moment of preparation in which the musicians had to stop and retune their instruments for another set of songs. The singer asking the audience to choose a genre for him and to let him go crazy with it. Someone chose African. He burst into an energy and threw out an African beat to which he dived off a bit and went into his own style. It really reminded me of the film Whiplash in which the drummer sort of goes off the rails a bit and just does his own thing against the order of his higher-ups and peers. That was really cool to watch and hear, he was really good at it too. The way the genre just shifted and the emotion changed, completely different to everything we had been hearing before, especially with all other instruments silent at the time. But that was a hard capture to get, behind all the others, with light constantly shifting from him, and the machine throwing out that haze which made the images even more darker.

This is probably my favourite image of the singer, mid strum on his acoustic guitar, eyes closed and throwing out a few lines. I like shots like these that capture an event and emotion to them, you can feel the lines even without hearing the music, you can tell there's some passion there, almost capable of hearing the instrument and that acoustic strumming of the nylon strings. With that 85mm focal length, this was about as far back as I could get without getting many people in the way, there wasn't a massive audience but certainly enough people in that tighter hall to get a few too many silhouettes. The last image showing what that was like with a shot a bit more afar. For a first concert, I really liked it. And I know that I'd love to go again, of course with a camera in hand to capture it all in various ways. I do think I would've liked to have been able to move around a bit more and capture different angles, but that wasn't really an option again due to the space I was in. I didn't want to be moving around and getting in people's way. For the event itself that had their own photographers, and they would stay in their own corners as to not move around too much and interfere.

And here's that last shot, you can't even tell there's a drummer there, can you?