Jan 4, 2016

New book: Reverb, Twang & Fuzz

5 Years ago, I celebrated 25th anniversary of the first photo that I ever sold and the publication of that photo was also the first time I saw a photo of my hand in a magazine. 
It was a photo I took at a punk concert and it is a photographical genre I kept exploring since. To celebrate the anniversary, I put together my best shots of these 25 years in a book with the title 'Loud'. 

At that time, I never thought I would do a lot of music photo in the future. I was to busy shooting for travel magazines, doing reportage work and just tried to have fun with photography. It wasn't my first source of income. 

But two years ago everything changed. I picked up my guitar again and even started a new band. I refound my love for music, as a musician but also as a photographer. I think I shot more concerts the past two years than I did the 10 years before. 

So maybe it is time for a new book, a selection of the best concert shots of the past 5 years. And to make the selection easier, I narrowed it down to three musical genres: surf, rockabilly & garage punk. 

This book is a visual celebration of these three musical genres that stayed mostly in the underground for fifty years: surf, rockabilly & garagepunk. 
Each genre had it's hits and legendary artist (Dick Dale, Link Wray, Sonics, Elvis, Stray Cats to name a few) but most of the bands are popular in a select, small scene. A scene that keeps growing as the subculture keeps surfacing more and more in popular culture. 

Since I was a teenager, this was the music I listend to, and still do. I played in surf and garage punk bands and shot several bands for music magazines. I can't live without crashing spring reverbs, screeching fuzz guitars and loud drums!

Last year I visited the Surfer Joe Summer Festival in Livorno, Italy, where I shook hands with some of the nicest people in the international surf scene. With some of them I kept in touch. Others commented on my photo's on forums like SG101 or on Facebook. Some even ordered a couple of my photo's through my website. One of them was John Blair. Mr. Blair is a music historian that wrote several books, some of them are considered standards. But he is mostly known for being the force behind the first revival of surfmusic in the late 70's with his band Jon & the Nightriders. I was truly honored that he liked my photo's and I got goosebumps what I got a mail from Brian of SG101. He visited John at home and mailed me that John had my pictures framed on his wall. But blushed like a little girl, when I got a mail from John on my birthday last december. He sent me the nicest birthdaypresent; a foreword for my new book!

You can order it here: http://nl.blurb.com/b/6956925-reverb-twang-fuzz in paperback, hard cover or e-book. 

Nov 11, 2015

Phantom Four - shooting photo's for live album

Dutch instrumental band The Phantom Four is one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the surf genre. But they don't play 'regular' surf music, Dick Dale style, no they combine oriental rhythms, exotic scales and more to an eclectic danceble mix. I shot the Phantom Four recently at the North Sea Surf Festival and after that the band asked me to come to the recording of their new live album at the Pacific Parc in Amsterdam. Great cosy hall / restaurant in the Wester Parc area. Only problem, it is not really a music venue. So no big stage and no bright lights. Halfway the show, the only light on the band was dark blue, not the ideal circumstances for concert photography.

Thank got I brought a flash and a coupe of Phottix wireless flash triggers. That allowed me to place the flash anywere on stage and walk around with my camera looking for different angles. It gives a much more natural look than on camera flash (which I never use anyway). Using the flash with longer shutter times like 1/10 of even longer gives a more dynamic feeling to the photo's. You can see the movement on stage and the audience dancing, especially if you use wide angle lenses or even a fisheye.

One of the masters of this technique is Charles Peterson, his photo's of the Seattle grunge scene late 80's were as iconic as the music from the bands (Mudhoney, Tad and a unknown band like Nirvana to name a few).
I used this technique a lot in the past, even before I got my first digital camera. And I still like the look of it, although it isn't so unpredictable as it used to be, since you can see the result on your LCD-screen nowadays...
Below is a slide show, you can see the whole galery on my website: 

Nov 4, 2015

The Sonics @ Doornroosje, Nijmegen

Last year a dream came true when one of my all time favorites The Sonics played at the Sjock Festival. The Sonics are one of the godfathers of punk and released a couple of classic garagepunk albums in the 60's.
This year they released a comeback album and it 10 times better than all the neo-garage hypes like Ty Segal and numerous others. This is the real deal. But don't expect Iggy Pop (of the same generation) scenes on stage, these gentlemen are like the granddad you wished you had. Cosy, funny and always in a good mood. No Iggy raunchyness needed here, it is the music that does the talking!
So when I got the chance to see these legends play a second time and this time in a medium size concert hall, I got my tickets before you could shout 'PSYCHO!!!!' (one of their 'hits').
So no Iggy Pop clownesque on stage, just cudly grandpa's. Why bring a camera? Hmmm, how about shooting the atmosphere. The reaction between the musicians and audience is what makes shows like this work in a photo. 
No telelens needed (hate them anyway) and a wide angle is prefered. Only one camera and two lenses needed (X-Pro, 14mm and fisheye). Fine, these fit in my coat, so no camera bag needed either ;-)





Sep 30, 2015

North Sea Surf Festival 2015

Last saturday in the Milky Way (Melkweg) in Amsterdam: the fifth edition of the North Sea Surf Festival. It is the biggest surf-festival in Northern Europe and the line up was one of the best ever. Messerchups (Ru), Els A-Phonics (Esp), Watang (It), Phantom Four (NL) and Barbwires (Se) were some of the highlights. The afterparty in Amsterdam's notorious blues juke joint Meloe Maloe was also legendary. Els A-Phonics even played harder than at the mainstage and ripped the place apart. 

Here are is a selection of photo's. More can be found on my website: http://www.arnyzona.com/northseasurffestival 







Jul 25, 2015

Antwerp & Surfer Joe Combo

Lorenzo 'Surfer Joe' Valdambrini is on tour with his Surfer Joe Combo and last thursday he played in a small bar in Antwerp, called Moby Dick. A nice opportunity to combine a short city trip with a concert. We found a really good deal on a studio for one night and of we went...
Antwerp has changed a lot since we were there last time. Especially 't Eilandje and Noord are two neighbourhoods that used to be very seady, but know are brownsing with activities. It reminded us a lot of Williamsburg in Brooklyn! Good food, nice little bars and shops everywhere!

We certainly are coming back for a longer visit! 

More photo's of the Surfer Joe gig can be found on my website: http://www.arnyzona.com/surferjoe







Jul 20, 2015

Sjock - 40th anniversary edition

Yes, we've survived another Sjock Festival. A very special edition since it was the 40th time the festival was held. And the line up was truly amazing; Southern Culture of the Skids, Batmobile, Reverend Horton Heat, Rhythm Shakers, Heavy Trash, Bloodshot Bill, OFF!, just to name a few...

Here are a couple of shots. You can find more on my website: http://www.arnyzona.com/sjock2015 


Keith Morris - OFF!


Rhythm Shakers

Batmobil

Heavy Thrash

Southern Culture of the Skids

Spacecadets

John Coffey

Jul 8, 2015

Italy roadtrip!

No Viva Las Vegas this year for us, so we got some time and a little money to visit another favorite country of us; Italy.
Starting of with the excellent Surfer Joe Festival Italy (the 10th edition and it was one of the best festivals we've ever visited). After that it was 4 days in Cinque Terre and another 3 driving around Tuscany....

Full travel blog can be found here: http://arnyzona-italy2015.blogspot.nl/ (Sorry Dutch only)
For more Surfer Joe photo's: http://www.arnyzona.com/surferjoefestival2015 









Jun 1, 2015

Time off....

Is my last post really been in october 2014? Damn, time flies when you are having fun! 
Like I mentioned before, I took some time of from photography and focused on playing music. The band (Aloha Sluts) is going really well, but it also was the start for a new look on photography. 

Photo taken with Gorilla-pod and timer during a Aloha Sluts gig
Since it is impossible (really?) to shoot photo's and play guitar at the same time, I handed my camera over to my wife, who's learning to be a photographer herself. But she has no interest in Photoshop or digital processing the photo's, so I needed to start working on a workflow using Photoshop and Lightroom CC. The workflow needed to be time-saving and even inspirational. So I got interested in LR-presets, even writing some myself.

After a while I even found out that it is possible to play a gig and shoot photo's at the same time! Using a small Gorilla-tripod and a timelaps timer!

So what am I gonna do with this blog. I tried doing a more technical blog on my own website, but somehow that's not for me.
Well, just wait and see... maybe I come up with something. For starters I try to update the blog once a month, or sooner if something happens...



Oct 21, 2014

New blog for aspiring USA travellers!

Together with my wife Caro, I've started a new USA travelblog with travel advise. You can find tips, tricks and recommendations on this new blog. Sorry it is in Dutch only, but you can use google translate.

In the last couple of years we get an increasing amount of emails asking for travel advise from people that are planning a visit to the USA. So why not gather all these answers and put it in a blog for everyone to read and use?

So, here it is: http://usareisadvies.blogspot.nl/ 


Oct 18, 2014

Sorry...

Wow, it's been 2 months since my last blogpost! Sorry, but I've been really busy. Unfortunately not with photography and that is one of the reasons of the big silence.
Sadly, my dad past away in august and that put everything life related in perspective. I cut down on stuff that hadn't a big priority and yes photography was one of them. Photography became more and more like real work. And more work means less fun! And I was desperately needing some fun! 
Due to all things happening in our life, we choose not to go on another big fall trip. So no new travel photo opportunities and no need to look for potential customers for this trip.

Suddenly I had a little time to reflect on things and to pick up my guitar(s) again. Oh boy, did I miss that! Last april at the Viva Festival in Las Vegas, I had made plans with two Dutch friends to start a surfband. One of them had allready a rockabilly festival in the making and we promised to stay in touch and do a gig together at the festival. A new version of the Aloha Sluts was born. I don't know if it is version 2.0 of 3.0, but it is the best one yet! Our debut show at the festival was the first time we played together, we never had a rehearsal! Ofcourse it wasn't as tight as most bands and yes a lot of mistakes were made, but never the less, we had a great time and the crowd went wild!
It sure isn't gonna be the last show we do together and we promise a little more time rehearsing next time... 

But now it is time to pick up my camera again and get back to work... eh? back to fun things!

Aloha Sluts live in Middelburg