Rolo Tomassi & my anxiety

I'm just about getting back on my feet and getting on top of all my photography work. I managed to get a load of stuff I shot at the start of the month finished today. It means I can relax a little as it's not nagging me in the back of my mind.

I've been shooting a lot of shows over the last few months for Photo Pit and I've been pushing myself into situations I would never have gotten myself into because I want it to work and I want to be a better photographer. For the most part, it's been good and I'm glad to be pushing myself but it has backfired on me.

I was on Twitter a while back saying how much I wanted to shoot Rolo Tomassi playing at the Relentless Garage and they tweeted me back saying to email them and they'll see what they can do. I emailed and asked if it would be possible to go down and photograph their day (load in, sound check, backstage etc...) and they said that if I wanted to, to just come down and find them around this time.

So on the day I got all my stuff together and went to the venue but the band were running late so I just waited out the back. When Rolo Tomassi arrived they turned up at the same time as the two other support bands. There was probably 15ish people around who were all unloading vans and bringing the stuff into the venue. It suddenly dawned on me that I didn't know which one of the band I had been emailing (as it was a generic band email address). I assumed it was James but I couldn't really see him around to approach and when I did he was with a group of people. I thought about introducing myself to someone else in RT but I was overcome with anxiety and a feeling of dread.

All I could think about was the fact that if I spoke to someone else they wouldn't have a clue who I was and why I was there. The longer I stood there and the more I felt like a massive dick and a weirdo and the worse the feeling of dread got. It's the worst sinking feeling you could ever get.

I struggle really badly in social situations with introducing myself to people in general but if I think they aren't going to have a clue who I am then it becomes almost impossible. Once I get that sinking feeling and anxiety I start thinking:

"How the fuck am I going to achieve anything if I can't do something as simple as say hello? How can I expect Photo Pit to be a success if I can't grasp basic human contact?"

"Why would they know or want to know who I am? I'm not a good photographer, I am a nobody and won't ever amount to anything. I had an opportunity that I consider to be a big one and I've fucked it. I doubt I'll be able to work with them."

I go over all the other times I've been in this kind of situation and think of them all as failures, which brings out every other form of failure in my life. I start self loathing really badly and start getting really depressive. It all becomes one big downward spiral and I just feel so low. At that point, the biggest thing that runs through my head is the fact that I have to get out of this situation as fast as possible.

I started to have a panic attack and had to leave. Thankfully Ben Gibson was in Central London and was shooting the show in the evening so I bailed and went to meet him. I was even lame enough to have a little cry on the tube on the way into town. Ben did an amazing job of cheering me up and calming me down without even realising he was doing it.

It was after this that I realised that most people don't realise how hard some things can be for people or that someone can struggle with stuff that is just natural like social interaction. I'm sure most of this just reads like "BOO HOO" but it is what it is.

The show itself was amazing, Rolo Tomassi absolutely blew my mind and I am incredibly grateful for them sorting me out with a pass and for the opportunity I kinda screwed up.

The show itself was pretty hard to shoot which you can read about on the Photo Pit blog as well as see more photos from it.

Hevy Fest 2010

Recently I've been very behind on photo editing. I've moved house and between that and work I've just really struggled to find time to get down to photos. This has stressed me out quite a lot. Thankfully I'm all up to date and I've got about four blogs lined up which I need to get through and get up.

A couple of weeks ago now I had a photopass for Hevy Fest. Firstly I'd like to say that the line up was fantastic and I saw some great bands over the weekend but I thought the organisation was pretty poor.

Transport to and from the festival was a joke, there were barely any buses and the festival didn't put on any shuttle buses or extra services like pretty much all festivals that aren't close to anything. They hadn't made the campsite big enough so there wasn't enough room for everyone when I turned up on the Saturday.

The most unorganised part of the festival was the security. The festival organisers had stated that the photo pit rules were three songs with no flash. This is pretty standard and I think everyone expects to have those rules but the security changed the rules for every band and just made it up as they were going on. We were allowed three songs for the first band but every photographer was told that we 'didn't have the right type of photopass' to shoot the second band. This resulted in at least 25 photographers going to the box office and complaining. They restated the three song rule and sorted it with the security. During the third band of the they kicked us out after half of the first song.

The security were saying they were kicking us out because of safety but virtually every time they did there were no crowd surfers and no rowdy fans or anything like that. They just seemed to ignore everything they were told and did what ever they were felt like. I know we were 'press' and 'in the way' but I just think if you are going to make rules then stick to them. Don't mess us about as it just makes everyone elses life hard.

There were two smaller tents with stages and because of the high number of photographers they were limiting how many photographers could be in the pit at one time which meant I had to make sure I got to the stages early to avoid being turned away.

I managed to shoot Glassjaw, The Subways, Lower Than Atlantis, Throats, Devil Sold His Soul, Young Guns, Bury Tomorrow, Gallows, Comeback Kid, The Computers, Rolo Tomassi, Hearts Under Fire, Trash Talk, Santa Karla, Dead Swans, TRC and Feed The Rhino.

The lighting for Gallows was terrible and once again we were kicked out after one song and this resulted in me taking the worst photos of Gallows I've shot. Was so disapointed. Getting to shoot Glassjaw was a dream come true and I'm thankful for that experience.

Another band I loved that weekend was The Subways. Having seen them before there were several things I was hoping and waiting for. The first was Billy has a habbit of doing massive jumps off the drum kit and the second is he tends to get in amongst the crowd or stage dive during their last song which is normally 'Rock & Roll Queen'. I manage to get a good spot in the middle of the stage and I managed to nail the jump and I made sure I had my camera all set up and ready for the last song and the minute I saw him getting ready to jump in I made a quick dash straight into the middle of the crowd and got some nice shots of him crowd surfing. I was also reminded of how much I love photographing Rolo Tomassi. They have this really nice swagger and stage presence and are just so easy to shoot.

I had a good time despite the trouble with security (I'm very thankful to Hevy for giving me a pass) and I got to hang about with some good people including some fellow photographers Ben and Penny.

I feel a little disapointed in some of the sets of photos as I've stressed over these photos for at least two weeks and once I got them sorted I felt a bit like 'is that it?'.

All the photos from the weekend can be seen here.

Rolo Tomassi & Hearts Under Fire

So somehow this week I've ended up at four shows. It's been good a I've had pretty different experiences at all of them.

I found out pretty last minute that Rolo Tomassi were playing at Rough Trade on Thursday night, I raced over there from work to make sure I could get a wristband and it was totally worth it.

Rolo Tomassi really are great live and are like a whirlwind when they play. The thing I loved about seeing them at Rough Trade was the fact that because the stage is quite small it meant that James and Joseph had to play on the floor which just gave them more space to throw themselves about. Before they came on the lighting was quite decent but as they started RT dropped the lights a bit which was a shame. It was a lot different to a normal show as they were taking request for songs to play.

Pretty happy with the photos as a set and I managed to get a kinda cool jump shot as well.

The other Rolo Tomassi photos are here.

Yesterday I went to see Hearts Under Fire at The Garage. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love this band. They were on first but on quite late time-wise for a support. I got to hang with them for a chunk of time before they went on and had a long chat with Lexi when they were done. It really is impossible not to be smiling and laughing when I'm around those girls. They are probably the band I'd love to tour with the most, I reckon it would be so much fun. A dream would be to tour with them on Warped.

The photos themselves aren't brilliant. There was pretty much no lighting for them other than a faint hint of red and green and the stage it pretty small. The one good thing about the small stage is you can get down the sides.

Needless to say another superb performance.

The photos from the Hearts Under Fire show are here.