Dave Hodgkinson Music Photography

It’s not raining.

Anyone who knows me, know that I pretend to be a Nikon bigot: “Nikon make microscopes and Canon make photocopiers”. It’s a bit of a front, since I started on Canon.

So, since coming to Taipei, I’ve been itching to have a camera to hand to capture the day to day, and indeed night by night, oddness all around but I’ve not been carrying the D300 and the iPhone just hasn’t quite cut it.

Luckily, Canon to the rescue! I’d always had a sneaky hankering after the G9/G10/G11 series but for P&S boxes they are hellishly chunky. From passing through Hong Kong to arrival in Taipei there has been wall to wall advertising for the S90. Good timing.

So, I checked the price on the interwebs, walk into a store, pay a little more but pay on Amex but still less than the best price on Amazon UK, and walk out with a shiny little toy.

As far as I can tell, it has *everything* I want in a walkabout camera:

• Up to ISO3200. Sure it’s going to be as noisy as hell, but if it catches a decent histogram, it won’t be too bad (and from pics I’ve seen, this is true).
• RAW. Not entirely sure if the bit-depth is more than 8 bits per colour per pixel (it’s 12 or 14 on the D300). But it’s still RAW and all that entails.
• 28mm-105mm equivalent zoom range.
• f/2.0 lens. Depth of field baby, oh yeah.
• Image stabilisation – not something I’ve ever fretted about before being able to get sharp pics at 1/15s at up to 70mm on the big camera but on a small camera it’s a nice to have.
• Lots of scene modes. I know lots of pros and keen amateurs sniff at these but they’re a fast short-cut to what you’d choose for a given environment anyway so learn them and use them. I said so.
• Some fun in-camera processing like antiquing images
• Live histogram display! That was a surprise!

Everything seems to be in the right place and there are some nice ergo features like a ring round the lens for zooming.

All in all a very nice little package.

That didn’t go according to plan. We did our best and anticipated outcomes but the best laid plans and all that. So far, we’ve had:

• The serviced apartment was a bit shit. Paper thin walls and a snoring neighbour.
• I had the lurgi for four days.
• Left my good suit in the serviced apartment. They tossed it. It was worth more than the rent we paid them.
• The new apartment had dangerous electrics so we couldn’t move in.
• When we had electrics and tried the washing machine it flooded the floor.
• I had somewhat of a personal crisis which wound me up tight, but that was resolved happily.
• It’s been COLD. This doesn’t happen in Taipei. Saw blue sky once though but it’s predicted six days rain from now on.
• Jetlag. I’ve had 10 hours sleep in 3 days.
• The last Larsson “The Girl Who…” book was complete tripe. OK, not a showstopper, but disappointing.
• And I appear to have lost my headphones for no good reason. I haven’t taken them out since London.

I’m sure there was more. It’s felt like one thing after another. Still, we’re in the place and have internet so we’ll survive.

On the upside, we thought “fuck it” and booked into a decently priced 5* hotel last night and got a 100 square metre room with freebies which was awesome even if I did only get 4 hours sleep and we had to check out at 9 to meet the electrician.

Going forward (fnar) we have 4 festivals and Deep Purple to look forward to in Taipei, and a UK tour with Arch Enemy. So that should be fun.

Funny how things go. There I was, primed to make a commitment to property, and in the course of a few hours at Heathrow waiting for Louise to be unfucked by immigration, I decided to head off in a completely different direction: to the land of typhoons, earthquakes and cockroaches the size of your fist.

This time, I lasted a whole 18 months in Camden which is probably some kind of record. And a great time it was too. It was a time of lots of gigs and amazing life changes for me and having something I never thought I’d have again.

So, I’m off to Taipei for at least 4 months, although I could well be back on business or even tour managing again. I will continue to work of course, my awesome team doing their amazing stuff too.

Exciting times!

Taiwan has possibly the cheesiest slogan ever: “Touch my heart”. It certainly touched mine.

I cocked up the outward booking slightly by forgetting that an Eastward flight would be an overnight one so I was due to arrive on the day of the “Free Tibet” Chthonic gig. After a typically horrible sleeper and a ninety minute transfer in Hong Kong which was only just enough, I arrived to a hot, steamy, soupy Taiwan summer afternoon. The taxi dropped me near the plaza where the concert was happening and Doris guided me to the artist tents and somewhere to drop my bags.

First mission was to get washed! Louise guided me to the department store that was unknowingly being used as the crew and artist restrooms. I improvised half a shower there and felt significantly refreshed after, getting rid of all the travel crap.

Next stop was FOOD. I’d been reliably informed that Taiwanese street food was the best thing in the world and this proved true with an oyster omlette and some fried dumplings with assorted sauces. Awesome.

I’ve reviewed the concert, but it’s sufficient to say it was great: amazing crowd with full “Free Tibet!” participation. The other bands weren’t too shabby either.

My day rounded off zipping through the streets of Taipei on the back of Louise’s scooter. Let me explain about Taipei and scooters: they’re everywhere. They’ve passed a tipping point, where unlike London where cars don’t give a shit, in Taipei, they’ve reached a critical mass so drivers have to be aware of this fragile little things zipping in and out like mad flies. Power to the people! Oh, they swarm.

My final experience that night was to sleep on a thin mat on the floor like a real Asian. It wasn’t SO bad, I guess.

Our mission the following day was to hit Tainan and Taichung for listening parties for Chthonic’s new album. This was a mildly insane drive from one lenghth of the island to another, setting out at a sensible time in the morning and finishing in the wee small hours of the next day. I didn’t get to see much of the country except for highway and rest stops but even there, the cornucopia of weird foods and drinks in the shops were amazing.

For those who don’t know, the Taiwanese have a very inclusive attitude to food. Being very Chinese in culture, having been occupied by the Japanese for over 50 years and with American and European influences, the choice of munchies ranges wide. Familiar brands like Lays, with some very unfamiliar flavours in the exotic and spicy end of the spectrum just ache to be washed down with an ice cold Taiwan brand beer. And that’s just the snacks. More of the real food later.

Oh, in Tainan, lunch was a nice soup noodle with very good stock clearly made from real bones.

Back to the listening parties. The Tainan one was held in the upstairs room of a lovely bar with around fifty fans in attendance. They played the whole album through track by track with accompanying video presentation followed by a Q+A.

A drive up to Taichung, where we dined on dumplings and had another listening party.

Then a week of not doing very much outside as it was SO hot and I had a major distraction, I did manage to get in an interview with Freddy and lots more great food.

On my penultimate day, Chthonic played a home gig at The Wall, Taipei’s spiritual home of metal.

And then I had to come home. Pretty good flight considering. Sad to be back.

Interview with Freddy
Free Tibet on Demotix
Review of Free Tibet Concert
A bunch of pictures
Another set of pics
Pictures (to buy!) on Musicpictures.com