Montreal In Pictures

June 14 2012

I’m a tad late posting yesterday’s pictures due to getting back late from an evening down at the Francofolies festival. The beautiful warm evening and some great bands resulted in me shooting way too many pictures over 5 hours, but at least I managed not to fill up both memory cards.

Most of the shots I took were of the bands – I’m still trying to perfect my concert shooting skills, but the photo of the day was of a boy a shot on the shoulders of his dad silhouetted against the evening sky, although I would have liked him to be a little more in focus.

Silhouette of boy enjoying the music

The first show I checked out was Jali from Belgium performing on the main Espace Loto-Québec stage.

Jali at 2012 Francofolies festival

The next show was over on the smaller Monde Émergent SiriusXM stage where French group Les Vendeurs d’enclume were performing.

Les Vendeurs d’enclume at the Francofolies

Also performing at the same time, but over on the Zone Ford stage were 1995, a rap/hip-hop group from France.

1995 at the 2012 Francofolies festival

The headline show of the night was Plume Latraverse, the prolific singer,musician, songwriter and author from Quebec. The Esplanade des Festivals in front of the Loto-Québec stage was packed and I spent more time battling my way through the crowd than taking pictures.

Plume Latraverse at the 2012 Francofolies festival

I had thought of calling it a night, but glad I didn’t after making it over to the Espace Vert Desjardins stage at the rear of the new Maison Symphonique. Le Vent du Nord a traditional band from Québec were just starting their set and by the end had won at least one new fan 😉

Le Vent du Nord at Francofolies 2012

With many in the audience dancing, I took a couple of handheld long exposure shots with a wide angle lens to try and get the sense of movement. Didn’t quite come off as well as I had hoped, but I quite like the red swirls in the first 2 images.

Le Vent du Nord at Francofolies 2012

Last up, rock band Dissonant Nation from France performing on the Ford stage

Dissonant Nation at the 2012 Francofolies

In case you are wondering what the black object at the bottom left in the above picture is – the singer had just removed and thrown his jacket across the stage…He was either getting warm or wanted to show off his T shirt !

Dissonant Nation at the 2012 Francofolies

Just to finish, a couple of random shots around the festival site. The new Place des Festivals is really shaping up to be a great summer venue for festivals.

Espace Vert Desjardins

Rue Sainte Catherine

One of the busy beer stands at Francofolies

The festival raps up on Saturday with closing act being Québec band Malajube. I might try to get down to see them, but my girlfriend isn’t so keen on their music, so we’ll have to see how the coin flip works out 😉

If anyone has some tips for shooting shows, do feel free to share in the comments 🙂

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.