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Music Recording Session – Maybe Refuge | Indies Music | April 1, 2010

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

I’ve been involved in the Toronto Indies Band scene as a documentary/music photographer for quite a while now, it’s very interesting to see how many bands come and go. One of the newest band in the scene is Maybe Refuge, although the the members all played and are still playing in different bands, I’m hoping this band will last. With the dedication they have put forth, I’m sure they will grow together and make some serious strides in their music career. Last thursday, April 1st, I was at their recording session and me, being a photographer, took some photos of this session.

Maybe Refuge

Bassist Hiu during recording

Guitarist/Producer John

Vocalist hiding from the lens - Ni

Here’s a short video clip of Maybe Refuge at their recording session.

Very excited to taking some promo photos for this band in the near future.

Tags: Bands, Music
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Textures for Photographers | Mar 26, 2010

Friday, March 26th, 2010

It has been a long winter season since my last wedding shoot. Instead of feeling uninspired and lazy, I’ve been keeping myself busy throughout the cold season with many different projects. Ever since the first day after the last wedding, I’ve already dedicated myself into taking family portraits, babies portraits, band promos and more events aside from the regular business routine I have to take care of. I have been shooting a lot of photos for myself, my own liking, but one of the things I’ve always wanted to do is give back to the photography community and I thought textures would be a pretty nice and usable thing for all photographers. Here are 10 different textures/patterns photos that I took last weekend while walking around in different parks. Hope you find them useful.

All the photos were intentionally shot 1 to 2 stops under exposed to give more of a edgy and dramatic feel to it.

texture of ground

texture of tree branches

texture of tree trunk

texture of grass

texture of rock

texture of branches

texture of ground

texture of tiles

texture of a bench

texture of cement ground

If you like it, you can download the textures here, they’re resized to 1200 pixels wide. I will delete the download link after 30 days.

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Publication | Sharhythm | Mar 23, 2010

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Recently, my friends’ band Violets and Viruses performed an interview with Sharhythm magazine and my work was show in their half page article seen below.

Sharhythm Magazine - article of Violets and Viruses, photos by Avant Documentary Photography

The photo in the article was taken back in November of 2009. Anyway, check them out! MySpace

Tags: Bands, Music
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Acoustic Session – Maybe Refuge | Indies Music | March 19, 2010

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Last night was a special night, a few of my closest friends were playing an acoustic gig at Aspetta Caffe, around Kensington Market. Interestingly enough, the four piece are from 2 different indies bands, Violets and Viruses (John and Hiu; check out photos of the bands here) and Shades of November (Joey and Eugene). And of course, this is the first time they performed live as Maybe Refuge.

An interesting fact is I know all four of them have very different musical styles, ranging from pop, rock, to heavy metal. What they have in common is their love of music. At the end of the night, what made it such a successful acoustic set was their unity and how they performed as a new band. Here I present to you a few photos from the first ever show from Maybe Refuge.

Maybe Refuge

Maybe Refuge Vocalist - Joey, Eugene in the background

Maybe Refuge Vocalist - Joey, with Hiu in the foreground

Maybe Refuge Guitarist - John

Maybe Refuge BassistGuitarist - Hiu

Maybe Refuge Drummer - Eugene

More photos here in my Facebook page.

If you are ever interested in last night’s videos, search up on Facebook. I’ve seen a couple of friends/fans posted some clips already.

Venue: Aspetta caffe

Tags: Bands, Event, Music
Posted in Events, Music | No Comments »

Rock show – The Ultimate Rock Show | Indies Event | Feb 3, 2010

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

As many of my friends and past clients might know, one of my passion aside from my wedding and portrait work is concert photography, or simply music photography. Thinking back, the first time I seriously took photos for an event was for a concert by a band named ZiON NOiZ, I wound up taking photos for them for the next few years for various gigs on 35mm Kodak film with a Nikon FE. For quite some time I lost connection with photography and bands, but 3 years ago, I had an opportunity to kick start my interest in indies rock shows, with SFC, Spider’s Kiss from the Toronto Asian Indies scene. Through these bands and shows, I met a lot of great musicians and friends.

It has been a while since I took any music photos (aside from the promo shoot for Violets & Viruses back in November, read here), last night, The Ultimate Rock Show was held in Rock n Roll Heaven, the following four bands played and I had the opportunity to have some fun shooting some photos.
-Sunday Music Class
-Protocol – MySpace
-Violets & Viruses – MySpace
-The Drama – MySpace