[RH Photos] Riot Fest 2014: Day 1 (9/12/2014)
Photos by Geoff Henao.
After a long year, Riot Fest finally returned to Humboldt Park last Friday, and with it was an unseasonal chill and rain that attempted to damper the good mood that spread across the crowd. The move to the Northern end of the park was necessary for the festival to grow, adding a couple more stages to the festival grounds. Unfortunately, this also meant trampling through muddier grounds that weren't covered by baseball field dirt. Nevertheless, the fatigue and callouses that formed on Riot Fest attendees' feet were more than justified by the amount of talent that performed at the three day event. Here is my recap of Riot Fest 2014: Day 1.
I started Day 1 off by checking out one of my favorite surprise performances from Riot Fest 2013, GWAR. As I mentioned in our "Bands to See" list, GWAR added a new vocalist following Dave Brockie/Oderus Urungus' death earlier this year. In his place was a platoon of vocalists, including ex-GWAR bassist Mike Bishop. GWAR has quickly become one of my favorite bands to photograph thanks to their elaborate costumes and stage theatrics that include beheading politicians and pop culture icons (Barack Obama was this weekend's victim) and spraying endless amounts of "blood" on the audience.
Following GWAR's set, I headed out to the Root Stage to catch Stiff Little Fingers' set. With my luck, they opened their set with their most popular song, "Suspect Device," following that up immediately with "Wasted Life." The crowd mostly consisted of older people, which made sense given the band's longevity. However, that's not to say their set was lacking energy; far from it. On a cold September afternoon, Stiff Little Fingers delivered a performance worth braving the mild drizzle for.
Afterwards, I soon made my way out to see NOFX. I'm not the biggest NOFX fan (or of pop-punk, for that matter), but my curiosity and cursory knowledge of the band led me to check them out. The band's singer and bassist (as well as Fat Wreck Chords founder/owner) Fat Mike is known for his sense of humor and open-mindedness. Sure enough, just as the band was preparing to take the stage, he began to berate and insult Failure, the band playing just before them on the stage directly across the field from them. If you're a fan of NOFX, especially Punk in Drublic, their Riot Fest set must have been magical for you. For myself, they were just a band to take photos of. Meh.
Unfortunately, I called it a night just after I shot NOFX due to the impending rain and not wanting to risk being sick for the rest of the festival. You can check out my photos of GWAR, Stiff Little Fingers, and NOFX below. We'll have more from Days 2 and 3 throughout the week!
You can find more of my photos from Riot Fest 2014: Day 1 here.
The Weekly Swarm: 9/8 - 9/14
As I write this, it's only a few hours before gates for Riot Fest Day 3 open. The weekend has been wet, cold, and all types of amazing all at once. Of course, we'll have our full Riot Fest recap this week, but I'll say this: for the second year in a row, Riot Fest has proven to be Chicago's best annual music festival. On a more personal level, I got to see Descendents perform Milo Goes to College in full last night. That alone was enough to make Riot Fest so great.
Nevertheless, we had a solid week last week at Ruby Hornet. We covered the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch announcements, shared our Riot Fest band recommendations with a full video playlist, I wrote about five actresses who would be amazing Ghostbusters, brought news of Kevin Smith's new film Tusk having a medical marijuana tie-in, and shared photos from Ukraine from photographer Kieran Kesner. Check out all this and more below!
iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus Ship on September 19
Apple Officially Announces Apple Watch
[Riot Fest] 20 Bands to See at Riot Fest Chicago
[Riot Fest] Riot Fest 2014 Video Playlist
Bill Murray Supports an All-Female Ghostbusters Reboot
[Trailer 2] Fury
Kevin Smith's Tusk Has a Medical Marijuana Promotional Tie-In
New Batmobile Fully Revealed for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
[Dream Cast] Five Actresses Who Should Be Considered for Ghostbusters
Venom Writer/Director Wants to Make a Darker Film Than The Amazing Spider-Man
[Weekly Netflix Fix] Bill & Ted Are Back... Kinda
[Trailer] Print the Legend
[Review] The Skeleton Twins
Photographer Kieran Kesner's Photos of Ukraine
SanDisk is Making a 512GB SD Card
SanDisk is Making a 512GB SD Card
While I'm usually on top of clearing my SD card after every time I shoot, there have been a few times where I'll just upload photos to my computer, but then forget to clear them out before the next event. Of course, I'll be a few photos in before I realize that I'm near capacity. Sure, I bring back-up SD cards, but they're all of different sizes and speeds and not very practical ways of shooting photos... but I digress. The fact of the matter at hand is this: SD cards can get ridiculously pricey for storage options that aren't even all that much when taking into account shooting RAW photos and videos. Especially with the growth and ease of creating video content, the typical 256GB card isn't gonna cut a full day of photo and video.
SanDisk understands the struggle and will be releasing a 512GB SD card very shortly. The new cards also boast a faster upload speed, topping out at 95 MB/s, making file transfer just that much faster when you're on the go. With SD cards having a theoretical capacity of 2TB, 512GB brings us a quarter of the way to that limit. Unfortunately, the new cards will retail for roughly $800.
[via PetaPixel]
Photographer Kieran Kesner's Photos of Ukraine
While the tumultuous tension across Ukraine has died down a bit over the summer, we all remember the unease that splintered the country during the first half of 2014. New York-based photographer Kieran Kesner was on location to capture some of the tension and unease across Ukraine, capturing photos from both protests and personal portraits of various Ukrainian citizens. I've selected a few from his series for the gallery below, but you can find the complete series and an exclusive interview with Dazed here.
[via Dazed]
The Weekly Swarm: 9/1 - 9/8
Now that we're deep into September, I hope everybody is prepared for the onslaught of fall weather that'll befall upon us in the coming weeks. Then again, Chicagoans have already experienced a cool summer, so it won't be that much of a temperature difference. With that said, expect things to heat up next week when we share our coverage from this year's Riot Fest! However, that's not to say you should forget some of the content we've posted recently, including our photos from both the WKQX Piqniq and North Coast 2014, our review of the new Jason Bateman and Olivia Wilde film, The Longest Week, and more!
[RH Photos] AFI and Linkin Park at the WKQX Piqniq (8/29/2014)
[RH Photos] North Coast Music Festival 2014 Recap
Riot Fest Chicago 2014 Set Times Available
[Weekend Box Office] Guardians of the Galaxy is Top-Grossing Film of the Year
[Red Band Trailer] ABCs of Death 2 (NSFW)
[Trailer] Cub
The Hateful Eight to Open in 70mm, Scheduled for Fall 2015 Release
[Weekly Netflix Fix] Huge September Update
[Trailer] Starring Adam West
Shadow of the Colossus Replaces Josh Trank with Mama Director
[Review] The Longest Week
[RH Photos] AFI and Linkin Park at the WKQX Piqniq (8/29/2014)
Alienation Photo Set Turns Foreheads into Alien Faces
[RH Photos] North Coast Music Festival 2014 Recap
FILMography Photo Project Juxtaposes Film Scenes with Real-Life Locations
FILMography Photo Project Juxtaposes Film Scenes with Real-Life Locations
Christopher Moloney's on-going project, FILMography, finds the photographer and film buff traveling across the world to photograph the real-life locations of various film scenes. That's fun and all, right? But what Moloney does to go the extra mile is print out stills from various films and juxtaposes them with a photo of the site he shoots. Moloney's journey so far has found him traveling to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and even across the pond in Rome, Naples, and other locations. Check out some of my personal favorite shots from FILMography below, and follow along with the project on Moloney's FILMography Tumblr.
[via Demilked]
[RH Photos] North Coast Music Festival 2014 Recap
This post was originally published by our affiliates at Chicago Music. Photos by Alex Lapenia and Jesse Pizano of Three Card Photography. Recap by Kevin Baker.
North Coast Music Festival 2014 took over Chicago Union Park last weekend as thousands of people came to see some of the world’s best EDM and hip hop acts perform their greatest hits. Labor Day weekend set the perfect stage for festival goers as the 5th Annual North Coast was looking to be a big success. Friday was a beautiful day as the sun came out from the cloudy skies to drench the stages waiting for the likes of Keys N Krates, ProbCause, Showtek, Alesso, Bassnectar, and many more to perform. Saturday and Sunday continued the party with performances from Adventure Club, Nicky Romero, STS9, Talib Kweli, Little Dragon and Kid Cudi on Saturday, and Porn and Chicken, Riff Raff, Ookay, Zeds Dead, and Snoop Dogg closing on Sunday.
North Coast Music Festival 2014 was a huge success, and we look forward to seeing what 2015 has in store. If you missed out this year, make sure you get your tickets early for next year’s festival, as North Coast Music Festival will only get bigger and bigger. Read on as we share our recap from North Coast Music Festival 2014.
Alienation Photo Set Turns Foreheads into Alien Faces
I love black and white photos more than anything in the world. The focus on sharp contrasts between deep blacks, bright whites, and every spectrum of gray in between is so much more fulfilling than full color photos. Lighting plays a more important role in black and white photography as shadows can transform subjects into something entirely different. Take, for instance, South Africa-based photographer Anelia Loubser's Alienation.
The concept behind the project involves close-up portraits of her subjects' foreheads, then flipping them upside down to create what look like alien faces. As Loubser quotes in her series description, "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change," which is clearly made with the series. Check out some of Loubser's Alienation photos below and her Behance page for more from the Alienation set (and other projects as well!).
[via PetaPixel]
