Matariki celebrations at the Aotea Centre

Stan Walker at the Aotea Centre, Auckland.

What a treat!  The Tiramarama Concert at the Aotea Centre in Auckland with performances by, amongst others, Ardijah, Adeaze, Stan Walker, Hinewehi Mohi, Tama Waipara and the Auckland Chamber Orchestra.  This was a truely wonderful event, a real delight.  You may recall I took some photographs of Rico Tali at a local bar the other day.  I wasn't impressed with the lighting at the bar, so the concert in the Aotea Centre was a chance to get some better shots.

Stan Walker with members of the kapa haka Te Waka Huia.

Rico Tali

The lighting was good, but not as intense as I would have liked.  ISO was still up high at 3200 and my minimum aperture was f5.6.  Nevertheless I managed a few reasonable shots.  

First image in this post is of Stan Walker.  Stan won the Australian Idol Competition back in 2009 and his careeer has gone from strength to strength since then.  Hugely popular with the crowd, especially when he performed the Kapa Haka Group (second image).

You can see Rico in the third shot in this post.  Much better light than at the local bar and I must admit to being quite pleased with the results.  ISO3200, f5.6 and 1/15sec.  Focal length was 250mm, in 35mm speak, so I think you'll agree that the VR on the Nikkor lens is pretty good.  Well, either that or I have a very steady hand!  The image has been sharpened slightly and then I've used the "black clipping", clarity and vibrance to get a bit more contrast into the image.

Betty-Anne from Ardijah

The fourth shot in this post is of Betty-Anne Monga, lead singer of Ardijah.  I first met Betty-Anne last year at a free concert in Mangere.  I must admit to being enthralled by her performance.  She played an electric ukelele as well as sang and I was totally smitten.  She was wonderful.  Same again this evening.  Wonderful performance.

The fifth shot in this post is of Hinewehi Mohi.  You may recall Hinewehi for her Oceania CDs.  More recently she is perhaps better known for her work with the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre.  A recent article gives a bit more insight into her involvment with the Centre.  As always, a beautiful voice and a wonderful performance by Hinewehi.

Hinewehi Mohi

The last few shots are of Adeaze (Nainz and Viiz Tupai) and Grace Ikenasio.  These guys can sing ... whoa they can sing.  They came on stage and I was quite stunned by their vocal talents.  Wonderful.  Haha, and then to top it off they get Grace to sing with them as well.  What a treat.

So, as I said at the start, this was a VERY special evening.  Great performances by some of New Zealand's best musical talent.  Hopefully the few shots you see in this post will give you a small taste of what we enjoyed.  Please follow the links in the post to the different artists websites and check out their music.  I suspect you won't be disappointed.

Grace Ikenasio.

Logovi'i Tupa'i, Adeaze.

Feagaigafou Tupa'i, Adeaze.

Rico at the Bellbird

Earlier this evening I went down to see Rico Tali playing with Oceania Storm at the Bellbird in Manurewa.  It's a really good band and the folks there were having a great time dancing along to the music.  The light was probably the best on Rico ... hence the shots in this post are all of Rico!  Unfortunately the lights were quite low down which tends to give a somewhat ghoulish appearance to the performers and presents some unpleasant shadows from the stands and microphones.  Ah well, the sound was good even though it was hard to get some shots.  Perhaps next time?  I'll close this post with a couple more shots of Rico.

Rico Tali and Oceania Storm

It must be just over a year ago that I first met Rico playing with Allegro at the Osborne Street Bar in Newmarket, Auckland.  There he was, switching between saxophone, flute and bongo drums.  Very talented gent, and I must admit to being very impressed with his skills on the sax and flute.  Here's an old shot of Rico on flute you might like.

More recently I saw Rico at the Stage of Origin event.  There he was playing the guitar!  Haha ... saxophone, flute, guitar, drums and, as it happens, vocals also.  Hugely talented gent.

So, when I caught up with Rico down at Manurewa's RSA it wasn't a surprise to see him on the guitar.  Playing with Oceania Storm Rico switched between sax and guitar as well helping out with the vocals.  It was good, but I wasn't impressed with the lights.

Oceania Storm has more members (12) than any of the other groups with which I'd seen Rico perform previously and the music was predominately of the Reggae style.  The folks at the RSA loved it!  Many folks, young and old, were on the dance floor  having a fine time.

I'll close this post with a couple more shots from the evening.  Exposures were at about 1/50sec, aperture f1.8 and ISO up at 6400.  As I said ... the light wasn't the best.

Allegro in monochrome at Osborne Street

Another pleasant Sunday afternoon at Osborne Street in Newmarket.  Allegro were playing again to their usual high standard and I managed to get a few more shots for the album :-)

For this post I thought I'd just post monochrome images.  There's a few people recently who have commented on monochrome images saying how they often prefer them over colour.  The images in this post were all taken as colour images and then converted to monochrome with Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro ... a Lightroom plug-in.  Check out Nik software's website as you can run their software for free for a 30 day period as you evaluate it.

The shots have a slight vignette added which I think adds a bit of atmosphere.  Let me know what you think.

For the shots taken at the Cock 'n Bull on Friday I used a wide angle lens, but tonight at Osborne Street I reverted to my trusty nifty fifty.  This lens is a gem.  I think it's Nikon's cheapest lens and must be one of their sharpest.  At f1.8 it's quite quick and ideal for the low light levels at Osborne Street.

There's more photos on my Facebook page should you want to see more as well as some colour images.

Osbourne Street Bar ... Again

Wow!  What a display of musical talent at the Osbourne Street Bar.  Starting at 4.30pm and playing for close on three hours Allegro and friends put on a show not to be missed.

The format works well.  There's the Allegro band that is supplemented for various numbers by musician friends from the audience.  Some of these people were outstanding.  One minute sitting down having a beer, the next, performing with style on the stage.  Great fun for those playing and judging by the dancers just as much fun for those in the audience.

Light levels were a tad low so the back beat boys on the bass guitar and drums (Semi Leo and Patrick Tanielu) are very difficult to photograph.  Besides some quite dim lights over the stage there were just two spots (green and orange) focussed centre stage.  This wasn't bad for the lead singer, but, sadly, most other folk were in shadow.

Mista Lakatani was there playing lead guitar in the spotlights, so he was reasonably easy to locate!  There was a lovely combination later on in the evening when a jazz guitarist (Lee?) borrowed Malcolm's guitar and Malcolm played Semi's bass.  This was sweet.  They played REALLY well together and this is something I'd like to hear again; not noise but lovely melodies and riffs from two talented musicians.  Very, very nice.  George Benson eat your heart out!

I'll close this post now and head off into the garden.  Heaps of chores to do out there whilst the weather is good.  Whilst I'm gone though you can take a squiz at some of the other performers.  As always, please leave a comment or email me if you like the images, have suggestions on how to improve them or would like copies.  More images are available on Facebook.