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Event - R.E.M. in concert in Tallinn. In fact my attendance was very much in question since I had been ill for about a week with no signs of recovery in sight, but I decided to go regardless. And I would have been a fool not to. Most (professional!) photographers have to work for YEARS before they actually get a chance to officially take pictures of stars like REM in concert right in front of the stage. Since the photographers only had 3 songs worth of shooting time, which is not enough to get a full gallery's worth of "good pictures", you'll also see a lot of pictures here that I would normally have deleted - just to have any sort of gallery of the concert at all:)

Photography - Although the kit lens (19-55mm, f/3,5-5,6) is a superb lens for the money, I was afraid it just may not have cut it at an REM concert (flash by the way was not allowed). In fact it was surprisingly good for the few wide angle shots I took, but zooming would probably have produced unusable pictures (I've tried that before in concert settings and it never worked). Luckily I was able to buy the legendary Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime lens just a few hours before the concert. Taking pictures of the opening act, a popular Latvian band called "Brainstorm", was the first time I used my new lens and it shows. I failed to meter off the faces like I should have and therefore most pictures resulted in blown highlights. The band also used a lot of flashing lights, which resulted in underexposure if metered during the flash or overexposure if metered between two flashes. Not to mention focus, which I don't think I was able to nail in any of the pictures.

Then we (the 19 officially accredited photographers) had our three songs worth of time to take pictures of R.E.M. This was like a 100 m sprint race - you go as fast as you can, rely on instinct rather than reason and probably won't remember much after it's over. Luckily this was nothing like the brutal massacre in front of the stage and the fight of the fittest to get the best picture that I was warned about. Instead the pro's turned out to be a very friendly and cheerful bunch and everyone did their best to stay out of everyone else's view and lenses. I left some of the pictures unfiltered since Michael Stipe's thin-striped suit just looked better without the filter (fine patterns always confuse noise filters).