The Unplugged Blog is One Year Old!

September 22, 2015 by Julian Baird in Uncategorized

A year ago today I started The Unplugged Blog as a quick way to talk about and share the images I had recently captured. My first blog post shared some images from the Lewis Watson gig at the Exeter Phoenix - you can read it here.

One year and 24 blog posts later I've shared images from The South, The Boomtown Rats, Europe, Grandmaster Flash and UB40! It's been a blast.

For those who read my blog on a regular basis you'll know that I like to share my images as soon as I can. And while I will post images direct and live from a gig on my Twitter feed, you can't beat the quality of a fully processed image from the computer. So when I get back from a gig the first thing I do is catalog and select my best images. I will then normally select one or two of my best images from the shoot to share on my blog. It's important to share some images while the gig is still fresh in everyone's mind!

So to celebrate The Unplugged Blog's first birthday I've collated a selection of some of my favorite images. Not only are there images from previous blog posts but I've included some images from gigs before I'd even started the blog. So have a good look through and you might see some images previously unshared!

I hope you enjoyed this selection of images, I certainly enjoyed taking them. Remember to keep checking my Twitter feed and The Unplugged Blog for all the latest images!

See you next time!

Favourite Images of 2014

January 07, 2015 by Julian Baird in Uncategorized

As we are now firmly in 2015 I thought I'd look back at my catalogue of images from 2014 to see what my favourites have been. It was a really busy year, so there were a lot of images to look at!

The images in this post are my personal favourites, and not necessarily my best technically. I strive for technical excellence but I also like images that tell a story or have some emotional content. So these are just 5 of my personal favourites and in no particular order!

First up is this image from The South gig from October 1st. Here we have Damon Butcher working his magic on the keyboards. While I'm very pleased on how this image turned out, it's the memory of watching Damon play that makes this image special for me.

You can read my blog post about the gig here.

Next up is the lead singer of Save Your Breath from October 7th. I love this image because you can really see the passion of the singer and the energy of the performance.

You can read my blog post about the gig here.

The next two images are both from the Boomtown Rats gig of November 10th. This was probably one of the best gigs (from a photography point of view) that I shot in 2014. They were a band with so much energy that it was almost easy to photograph them.

I love this image in particular because the guitarist played up to the camera giving me a great shot. This is where the skill comes in though as if you don't have your camera set up correctly, you'll miss the shot!

I have so many images of Bob Geldof that it is was almost impossible to select a favourite. I chose this image because it shows the energy of Bob's performance.

You can read my blog post about the gig here.

And finally, but certainly not least, is an image from the Grandmaster Flash gig from December 20th. Shooting this gig was really challenging because of the very low light conditions (mostly of which was red), but this image for me really brings back the happy memories of watching a legend on the decks. It was great way to finish the year!

You can read my blog post about the gighere.

These images, and a few others from my back catalogue now appear on the reverse side of my business cards. I'm using a new supplier for my business cards and I'm really pleased with the quality of the results. If you want to check them out, head over to Moo.

I'm now busy sorting out my 2015 schedule and it's looking like a monster year. I'll be posting my gig schedule up here really soon. Hope to see you at a gig in the near future!

On a technical note...

This blog post comes out a little later than I had originally planned. Sure, some of those reasons were that I was taking some time out over the festive period, but the main reason was that I was migrating to a new PC. My trusty old Dell PC was really starting to creak. The size of the files that my D750 produces was really starting to make my workflow creak so I decided to get an upgrade.

So what spare time I had over the Xmas period was spent moving data and installing applications. However, it has proved a worthwhile investment in time and money. My new system is uber fast and I can really see how much technology has moved on in the last 5 years since my last PC purchase.

The speed of my workflow is really important as time is always tight. I'm really looking forward to my first shoot of 2015 to put the system to the test!

Steel Threads and The South

October 01, 2014 by Julian Baird in Uncategorized

Well it was another very busy night at the Exeter Phoenix last Saturday. Together with Steve from MusicMuso we covered two most excellent bands. As always on the Unplugged blog, here are a couple of sneaky peak shots before they appear on MusicMuso.

First up we have the rather awesome Steel Threads...

And the for the main act we have The South. This picture is of long term keyboard player Damon Butcher. It was a real pleasure watching him work his magic.

You can read a full review of the gig and see more photos over on MusicMuso.

On a technical note...

This was my first gig shooting with the brand new Nikon D750. This camera replaced my Nikon D610 mainly because of D750's improved autofocus system and low light shooting capabilities. It also has built in wireless so that I can pull (JPG) files straight onto my tablet and send them live to my Twitter feed during the gig. A huge improvement over the shots I used to send to Twitter from my Nexus 5 phone.

While I'm very impressed with the image quality, I couldn't use my normal Adobe workflow to process the images as Adobe Camera RAW doesn't yet support the D750. I had a little less control over the images than I normally have and it took me longer to process them, but that is the price you pay for being a day one adopter! I'm sure Adobe will have an update out soon.

It's been another late night of editing, so time for bed. See you next time on the Unplugged blog!