Here is my third post about the Dublin Irish Festival in the last three days. Clearly there was a lot of me invested in this event. There was a lot of my wife invested in it too. Our kids? Meh, just a bit.

The 2009 Dublin Irish Festival sparked in me a passion for shooting band performances. In the last year, I’ve shot over 40 performances, and posted over 400 hundred performance pics to Flickr. My goal was to get back stage some day at a DIF.

As I mentioned, there were a number of vectors that I think help get me back stage. But ultimately, I still felt a little bit dirty about it. I had an “all access” pass because one band wanted me to shoot their performance, which happened to be at the least attended time slot on the Celtic Rock Stage. So I felt like I would be a bit paparazzi to just hang out back stage all day, not to mention severely hurting my relationship with my wife. Although I obsessed about the photography, my concerns from 2009 were still valid: should I go as obsessed photog or as husband and friend? Last year was about a 50% balance. This year turned out to be about 75% photog, but that was OK, because Anne was shooting too.

In the week approaching the festival, I decided to keep my back stage time limited to just 9 Castle Close’s performance. I was really worried about someone seeing me back stage and asking “Who do you shoot for?” I was really worried about impacting my reputation if I said “A band that’s playing tomorrow morning”. This was a really difficult decision given that Gaelic Storm and Scythian would be playing (our two favorites), but I also wanted to experience their performances with my wife. I anticipated feeling like a total heel at the thought of her in the crush of crowd while I was stage side.

We arrived Friday evening, met with some friends, grabbed some beer and food, and caught the Tartan Terrors and Enter the Haggis (above) performances. About mid-way through the ETH performance, Anne and I had a miscommunication which led us to both leave our post three rows from the stage–the post we had taken up specifically to have killer position for Gaelic Storm. We ended up chilling with our friends behind the crushing crowds for Gaelic Storm, enjoying the music and time with them. But alas, neither of us took any pictures of the Gaelic Storm performance.

Saturday started with my shoot of 9 Castle Close. I got there about 20 minutes prior to their performance,  just enough time to capture some of their preparations, like the band fist-bump captured above. They had a fun performance, and had a decent amount of crowd considering they were playing in the 11:30AM time slot. Despite having “all access”, most of the best shots were from the front row of the crowd area. It was cool to be back stage, but photographically, it was pretty meh. The biggest problem was that the speaker stacks were in the way of all the compositions I wanted to capture from the stage.

9CC are fine musically, but they’re a bit reserved on stage. So I thought the above contrast was playful.

Next up was Roger Drawdy and the Firestarters. We caught their performance at Byrnes Pub a few months ago, chatted with a few of the guys, but didn’t take any pictures at the time (crazy, I know). While they played, I noticed the stage lights moving more than I had during the 9CC performance. Maybe the lights guy had just shown up. I decided to try to compose my shots with the back stage lights in mind, as hair lights or intentional lens flare.

Sometimes the flare was too strong, and blew the contrast out of the picture. Some times my timing was off and I missed the light altogether. The image above is just on that line. Some may think the lens flare is too strong, but I like it better than one that was taken half a second later. It says “These guys are on a real damn stage, not just at some pub” to me. It also happens to be at a “music moment” where the two performers are jamming together.

The fiddle player, Rick Smith, was full of those moments. He was a treat to shoot because he was working the stage and the performance so hard. The wild hair and the expression make the above shot one of my favorites of the festival.

We took a break for a while, wandered the grounds, looking at the merch tents and grabbed some more food, then returned to the Celtic Rock tent for Barleyjuice. We’d never heard them before, so we chilled in the third or fourth row, taking a few pictures, but not really working the performance. Then a blond in the row in front of us stood up, beer in hand, wiggling to and fro. The framing was too perfect to pass up. I’ve found my new niche–documentary band & fan photog. She (and we) stayed put for the next performance, Seven Nations, so I captured the image again, but with a different singer.

Seven Nations played a great set, but Paddleball Billy stole the show. He was on stage for one song whacking that ball the whole time, never missing a beat. After we got home I discovered after a bit of searching that he does this quite frequently with several different bands. Evidently he really likes Irish/Celtic festivals. The bands probably get him a free ticket, some beer tokens, and he has a blast. What a trip.

For the night-time performance, Anne and I were sorely torn. We could see either 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band or Scythian. We’ve loved a 78th CD for probably 15 years now, but had never seen them live. But to miss a Saturday night Scythian performance seemed like DIF sacrilege.

We chose to see the 78th because a) we’d never seen them before and b) Scythian was playing again Sunday. The 78th was a real treat. They are one of the worlds best pipe drum bands and it showed in their performance. The flourishing tenor, above, was Anne’s favorite part of the performance.

The pipers, were also amazing.

As it turned out, the 78th had started, and finished, just a bit early, so that left us about 30 minutes to speed walk across the festival to catch the last few songs of Scythian’s performance. The crowd was electric.

They had performers from Seven Nations and Enter the Haggis on the stage with them, which got everyone jamming. After the performance, I was ready to head home, but Anne was intent on capturing an image of the “destruction” left behind by the Scythian crowd. We stuck around for an extra 5 minutes to let people clear. Here’s my capture based on her idea. She hasn’t posted hers yet. UPDATE: Yes she has!

We started Sunday a bit slow, but decided to drag the kids along with us. They’ve liked the Scythian CD we have, so we coaxed them to come with us since Scythian were playing again. It was much hotter on Sunday, making all of us just a little crabbier than usual. We watched some sheep and duck herding (hysterical!), and wandered the merch some more.

My son and I caught another Barleyjuice performance. Unfortunately for me, the music all started to blend together. I don’t remember much of their performance other than the images I’ve got. But it was during this performance that I got the best drummer pic of the festival.

After Barleyjuice played, Enter the Haggis performed again, but I was focused on seeing what I could of the Scythian performers since they were up next. I had largely stuck to my “no back stage” decision except a little bit during the Barleyjuice performance Sunday. I started hanging about back stage to see what I might capture.

This is Leks’ violin.  He had pulled it out to get warmed up, but placed it on a crate and walked away. I remember when we saw them at Byrnes (much closer than at DIF) I was struck by the rosin dust on his violin. These dudes were working musicians, and they were busting their asses. I had to capture it.

But about this time, I also started to get nervous. I was worried I would get kicked out as a “poser” or not really allowed to be back there. I was really worried about the question “Who do you shoot for?” When it came from a TV news personality who was there to do introductions, I answered “I’m a band photographer.” Perfect! Truthful, but not evasive enough to provoke conflict! Woot! “Oh, that’s cool!” was her response.

I made idle chit chat with the Scythian guys as they were coming and going, being careful to not get in their way or their faces. I didn’t hide the fact that I was there to take pictures (it’s impossible to hide that 2.8 lens) but I didn’t want to be obnoxious either.

Mike was feeling a little bit rough after what I assume was a late night of partying. He asked a stage hand for “anything with caffeine”. The hand produce a pair of Red Bulls.

Dan, on the other hand, felt like a little “hair of the dog that bit him” was in order for the performance.

As they were warming up, I went between the stage and the crowd barrier, what seemed like the ideal place for pictures. I assured the videographer that I found there that I would stay out of his shots. He told me it would be easy today in comparison to Saturday night. “It was like they let the flood gates open and let in anyone with a camera”. He claimed (probably an exaggeration) that there were 50 people in the “all access” area. Considering how easy it was for me to get access, I don’t doubt it was crowded.

But none the less, there I was, up close and personal, with no other fans to obstruct my view or my composition.

The biggest challenge was composing anything other than close ups. At 70mm (on a crop sensor), I felt like I was about 2 feet too close to the action, and I couldn’t back up because of the barrier. I like the shot above, I just wish it was a bit wider. I spent about 1/3 of the performance in the space near the front of the stage, but then went back to the crowd to join my family. We danced and bopped and sweated and had a great time.

So, what about the concerns I had about the 2.8 lens? I used it almost exclusively the whole weekend. I changed to the kit lens (18-55mm) once or twice, but the 2.8 definitely got a work-out. Focusing errors? Yeah, a little bit. Most of the time I could tell in the view finder that it had mis-focused, so I tried again. Focus hunting? Yeah, a little bit. But I’m dealing with chaotic environments with crazy contrast (or none at all) and moving subjects. Did I ever feel frustrated with it? Nope. Did I ever consider changing lenses just to avoid the problems? Nope. Did I get hundreds of sharp pics at f/2.8? Yup. Does it feel like money well spent? You betcha.

OK, one last image. Quintessential Dublin Irish Festival.

Rock Hands and a Bag Piper. That’s the kind of love these bands get.