All Shall Perish at Oakland Metro Operahouse

Hernan Hermida of All Shall Perish

Oakland Metro Operahouse is not my favorite place to shoot. They hardly ever set up a photo pit and on top of that the place is lit with what feels like two magenta colored candles. After a great deal of editing I managed to get something out of the shots though I'm not very happy with them.

Check more pictures at Examiner.com article

Another Awesomized gif

Welcome to San Francisco

Few words about the process;

1) Set your Camera Awesome to automatically process the pictures. There's plenty of effects to choose from
2) Shoot a set of photos with Slow Burst mode. It's good to prop the phone against something steady or use some nifty tripod-like apparatus for your phone
3) Import the set of images into Photoshop as layers
4) Align layers if you don't want the resulting gif to be shaky
5) Create frame animation using Timeline tool that is found under "Window" (CS6). Make the animation loop forever.
6) Crop the image to desired size
7) Save for Web & Devices and select GIF as filetype.

Camera Awesome fun

This is an idea I store from our awesome designer Keenan. Camera Awesomized gifs. Check out Camera Awesome for your iPhone.

Last shoot for 2011

I only now got around posting about it, but the last shoot for 2011 for me was in DNA lounge in San Francisco. I was shooting Korpiklaani with Arkona, Polkadot Cadaver and Forged in Fire. It was another night of weirdly wonderful metal.

Korpiklaani is a finnish folk metal group who's lyrics revolve around drinking (not much else to do when you are stuck in the snow most of the year). The last time I saw them was in Thee Parkside in SF over a year ago. This time around there was no violin as the long time violinist Hittavainen wasn't with the band.

Arkona played their heavy hitting Russian metal. I'm not so sure what the songs were about, but the group seemed very intense. But then again, which metal band doesn't. You should definitely check them out.

The evening was stated by two up and coming bands. Forged in Fire and Polkadot Cadaver. Both of which you will be hearing later on.

Cheap music from Amazon

Amazon $5 Album sale is back. They usually also have a pretty good selection of older, but very good Metal as well as other great music.

Here's couple of my favorites;

• Anthrax - Worship Music
• Dio - Holy Diver
• Anvil - Best of Anvil
• Hull - Beyond The Lightless Sky

Don't miss out!

Another outlet

As a music photographer and writer I'm always looking to increase my reach, trying new ways to get my photos and words to as many people as possible. Few days ago I signed up to be a contributor for examiner.com and more specifically I'm the San Francisco Metal Music Examiner. You can find me here. Stay tuned for more articles in the future.

Kittie at Avalon, Santa Clara

Down, I'm down with it

Last Friday I had the chance to see two of my musical heroes on same stage. Phil Anselmo from Pantera and Kirk Windstein from Crowbar. I was lucky enough to be shooting Down, another band where Phil and Kirk play, alongside with Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity) and Jim Bower (Eyehategod). Together these guys have founded and played in ~15 bands and played vital role in the birth of Sludge Metal. Thank you!

Down at Regency Ballroom, San Francisco