27 Februari 2017 - 21:45
One of the most fun things to photograph during the week of Melodifestivalen is the rehearsals. I love to photograph loads of different kinds of photos but I'm firstly a concert photographer when things come around and that's what I'm best at taking photos of.
The press are allowed to enter the arena during the rehearsals to get their footage in still photo for their work. It's always tricky knowing which seats you want and what kind of angle you want to have in your photos. I always try to do what other people doesn't. For example, I don't want to sit or stand exactly the same spot as everyone else and try to make sure I get my own version of what is happening. It doesn't matter if it's on stage or another event that is happening.
Boris René was the act who open up the contest with his performance of "Her Kiss" which also was the first one to rehearse. - First round of the performance was a mess! The lighting was not doing what it should be, Boris didn't had any light on him when he was on specific spots on stage. The colours were everywhere and it didn't match as it was suppose to be and it was too much of them.
Luckily they fixed some of the issues for the seecond and third round. It was my first time hearing the songs during these rehearsals since I had to miss the listening session the day before when I was making sure we had a good locations for our interviews.
When I first heard Boris's song and saw his performance, I couldn't stop smiling. I really enjoyed the song and the vibe to it. Boris is very charming and his energy really comes through in his performance. I think the performance last year was better but I think I like the song "Her Kiss" better than "Put your love on me".
In the picture below, the studioman and stylist are showing the outfits Boris and his dancers are wearing during the performance. I like having these kind of shots as well because it gives another feeling to the post and you get to see more than just the performance.
One of the debuting artists was Adrijana who was the second one in the running order. I didn't knew what to expect from her since I barely knew anything about her music or what kind of style she was going for. But I must say I was positive surprised over how well she did with everything since she hasn't really been in the business for that long.
I love Adrijana's song "Amare" and I like the mix of rap and singing but also the edge in it. It's probably one of my most played songs from Melfest this year. I'm impressed over her performance and what she showed the Swedish people. I was also impressed over how good Adrijana and her team worked during Melfest. She had a great staging and came with something different. If she had been in a different semifinal, she might have qualified. I will definitely keep an eye out for upcoming music from her in the future.
Dinah Nah returned with another banger of her named "One More Night". I knew we would get a spectacular number from her and a song to dance to. I was happy to see her back and knew it would be a performance with a lot of girlpower.
She has a strong voice and I love the rap-breakdown she has in the song! I think many people were surprised to hear it but it was something that made an even more impact to the song.
In a photographer's view on photographing some of the performances, it was very difficult some times. Because of the fact that they used a lot of the colour magenta in the lighting which is probably the worst colour ever, in my opinion. It makes the editing harder since the colour often gets very bright and too much of it. So when you are trying to make less of it, it's tricky since it also affects the skin colour with in the red colour scheme. Some photos didn't turned out well at all, but I made it worked and I got some pretty decent photos in the end.
The last rehearsal of that day for us was De Vet Du because we had to leave for our interview with Ace Wilder. I must admit, De Vet Du's performance was probably the one I was looking foward the most to see. We all knew their performance would be something we haven't seen in Melodifestivalen before.
Jenevia and Majo as I've said before, had heard the song the previous day. Jenevia had said they would probably show up with a prop car and can you guess, she was totally right! I was sitting on the other side of the stage from where Jenevia and Majo sat, and when it was time for De Vet Du rehearsals and a car came up on stage, I heard Jenevia out of nowhere whisper-yelling: "LIZEL, WHAT DID I SAY? I SAID THERE WAS GOING TO BE A PROP CAR!". It was so funny!
I was giggling before they started performing because I knew this would be such fun performance to see.
If you have seen the performance, you know that there's a lot of things going on in it. It's a very tecnical number and each different camera shots are very important in the performance and they have to get it correct to make it more clear of what they want to show.
In the beginning of the performance you get to see a bit of introduction of each member of De Vet Du, which I think is a very good idea, just to introduce the members for the people that isn't familiar to their previous content. I like how you can kinda tell the different personalities Chris, Johan, DJ Hunk and Tor have from what they show in the performance.
One thing that I thought was a bit of shame was the fact that they didn't show Tor when he was doing his flying-arms-thing (?) in the beginning of the chorus. I thought it was a funny part and it showed very well how Tor is. :P
I really enjoyed their song and performance. De Vet Du delivered a funny number and a very catchy song. Also as soon as I saw that head-movement they are doing in the chorus, I knew that would be the next thing in Sweden.
There was so many things happening in the performance but it was so much fun photographing everything that was going on in it!
- Actually, let me tell you one thing. I heard from several photographers that was sitting nearby, that they didn't like De Vet Du, and photographing them was very hard because they couldn't get any good photos. It was a bit funny and interesting to hear that, I mean I got perfectly fine photos of De Vet Du despite having so much smaller, lower and less fancier equipment than most of the photographers have.
This might not be the very best photos I've taken but it was fun being back photographing in this kind of enviroment. I'm glad I get the opportunity to do this kind of work because I learn a lot from it, not only as a photographer but also as person.
We couldn't see more of the rehearsals that day so that's why I don't have any photos of Charlotte Perrelli, Ace Wilder and Nano in this blog post. Do not worry though because have photos of them as well from the Friday's rehearsals. ;)
There are a lot of you lurking around on my content, I know and I really appreciate that but please don't forget to give my blog posts/or pictures on Instagram a like or leave a comment as well. I'm really curious of what you think about our work OR/AND what you think about this year's acts in Melodifestivalen.
This was it for this time, more pictures and stories to come soon!
Until next time, ingat!
/Lizel
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