Last Saturday saw the biggest concert in Hamilton’s history - SIX60 (plus support) at Claudelands Oval. Man, what a gig. Great weather, great crowd and great music. It really was spectacular! I was fortunate to be asked to shoot the day which was no mean feat: 10 hours of non-stop walking around, fighting through crowds (“Hey, photographer dude - take our photo!” every 5 mins); climbing stairways and crawling through hatches to get shots from the arena roof (what a view!); and squeezing into the busy photographer’s pit to get a quick few shots before being guided out politely. It was fantastic.
Very difficult to not keep repeating images over that period of time, and trying to get interesting venue shots between bands when nothing interesting is happening was challenging, but I got what I could and am very happy with the results. Towards the end of the night when the sun had truly set and I was ushered back into the 25,000 strong crowd I soon realised that carrying two cameras, lenses and other equipment meant it took about 20 mins to move 20 meters - it was that dense. Everyone having the time of their lives, bouncing, jumping and singing along to the tunes coming from the stage - a rare sight around the world these days. And it was magic.
