Karmatica Photography

ooooops ^__^

2009-09-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

i totally stopped posting on this... my photography has been continuing and new albums have been posted since KL5... haha. I am going to decide soon if i should delete this account or pick it back up... stay tuned!

~karma

Kandieland 5

2009-05-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

Event: Kandieland 5

Date: Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Promoter: Cheddarcore & Best Of Times

Venue: Marquee Theatre

Album Link: Click here!

First of all: thank you thank you thank you RIZE for getting me on crew to take pictures on stage at the marquee!!! it was a great experience. I remember going to concerts there in my high school years, noticing photographers scuttle around near and on the stage, taking pictures of the performers. It is quite epic i had the opportunity to do this.

After this i really plan to more often contact promoters before events of this scale to be able to do this again. Most of the time contacting them ahead of time does not change anything at events where anyone can get onstage, but when events are held at venues like this, where security is strict on who gets on stage, having press passes will help.

i definitely enjoy this album. The wide crowd shots are quite epic. I enjoy quite a few of my DJ shots, but the lighting in the place was not used as effectively as i wish it was, and things could have been lit better at times. my flash died during the eProxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

nt (i REALLY need to start carrying extra double A batteries) but i left the venue to buy some down the road, then came back as quickly as possible.

Amazing job to all the talent that performed! Happy Hardcore is not much of my thing, but being able to watch and appreciate some of the top people in their genre is always a treat.

Amazing job to Darren Styles! It was great hearing him sing "Come Running" and "Save Me".

The wonderful thing about Kandieland events, is they keep on getting better, the venues keep getting larger and adequate for the growing crowd, the line-up's keep getting more epic. This series is the epitome of growth, bridge building, expansion, and the direction to positive growth for our scene. Keep on keeping on. Great job Cheddarcore & Best of Times.

i have not been to Marquee Theatre in years... It was interesting being in there again. Has not changed at all.

~Karma

Glamour

2009-05-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

Event: Glamour

Date: Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Promoter: Carsons Crew

Venue: A West Valley Event Building, virgin venue

Album Link: Click here!

This event was pretty good, despite the club kid theme is definitely not my thing.

The pictures were pretty successful, i got a few good shots of some performers. I got some really cute shots of some friends. With this album i did not stray outside my circle of friends in my attendee images, but some of the images of them i think are pretty cute.

Since Forest was tired from his event the night before, being Out of the Ashes... we left fairly early. Which made me happy, i was kinda exhausted too.

This new venue seems ok, as long as it only used for one stage events. This event had both stages nearly pointing at each other. It is a one room venue, with a decent parkinglot. It probably will be used again, hopefully sparingly.

~karma

Out of The Ashes

2009-04-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

Event: Out of the Ashes

Date: Friday April 24th, 2009

Promoter: Task:Fire Pro, Get Wacky

Venue: 4 Peaks Desert location

Album Link: Click here

Good job TASK!! and good job to my baby, Forest. <3

it was a great experience, many great memories were created that night.

took me a bit to get up my review, sorry.

i arrived to the original spot on the 4 peaks road at apprx 5pm. the spot was very clean, due to the crew and some friends arriving the day before and making the spot pretty for the event. I took a few pictures of the sunset and environment, and helped made some preparations for set-up. When the sun was setting Matt Dunn & Harmony arrived with their equipment. Since they have thrown events on this road before they suggested we throw this on annother spot nearby, since they did not feel that this spot was a good place for the event. TASK took their advice and moved the location at 7pm, a little late but they felt that this move is necessary to make this event successful. Me and Matt Dunn drove to the new spot first. We saw a small group of campers on the location to a far side, but we decided to go through with it, since it was 7pm and it was a little late to try to find annother spot or move everyone back to the original.

Yardz had accidentally blew his generator during set-up, so we had someone go to town to rent annother one. I am glad they went through with this, or we would not have had it a 2 stager. I was willing to put money down on that if necessary, but they had it handled.

There was a bit of confusion durring the rushed set-up but everything worked out. The stages were set-up. the DJ's started performing, the door was up and opperating, fire performers started lighting up, and attendees started arriving and having a good time.

the original spot was right on the inital desert road in, no turn-offs about 3 miles in. the new spot was closer to the beginning on the road, and was a right hand turn at about 2 miles and about 4 miles down that. durring the quick switch we tried to visibly mark where the right turn is, but somehow during the night our caution tape and markers went missing. We are not sure if was other campers or event sabatogers, but with little evidence comes little blame.

Basicly, we realized at about 11 that the door got slow, and we better check for lost people. Alex and I left the event and parked my car at the right turn. Not long later we started finding multiple groups of cars come from farther down the road towards the original spot. Some people said they went from a few minutes to an hour down that road. Some people yelled, some people did not believe us, and a friend of ours apparently got tazed by some random people down that road. We tried to assure everyone that we knew where the event was, and directed everyone down the right turn as quickly and orderly as possible. We think we found everyone we could, then left the door at about 1pm.

We went back down to the event. It was certianly going well and TASK ended up just a little over breaking even. I got to spin fire once too, and Zulu took some new pictures of me spinning staff. I got a few shots of firespinners and a few shots of DJ Louder....

...Then the helicopter started flying overhead and several cop SUV's decended into the area at apprx 2:30. They were a quite forceful group of cops, started yelling, overdooing the "GTFO" announcement. Alex, Jackie and I organized ourselves together. We had my car, gabes car keys, and no knowledge of where Gabe and Forest were. The cops were quite allowing of the event attendees to get out of the desert and back home. They did not create a checkpoint on the road or anything of the sort, and i have only heard of one pull over on the way home. Gabe, Forest, Harmony and few others got in trouble for tresspassing, but recieved no charges & no equipment got confenscated.

Alex, Jackie and I left the spot with Gabe & I's vehicles, and reconviened at Gabes house. At the time we did not know where they had gone or if they had been arrested. Jackie had to get home and we did not want to leave Gabes car out at that spot where it could either be shot at, stolen, or destroyed. Forest and Gabe arrived at their house in the next day at about Noon. A few VERY nice cali attendees stayed after to help Gabe & Forest clean up the location and give them a ride home. I thank them to no end.

Quite some interesting memories were had. I wish i had more time for photo-taking, but working and making sure this event was successful in any way i could came first. The reviews went great and people seemed to really have enjoyed themselves.

~karma

Revelation

2009-04-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

Event: Revelation

Date: Saturday April 17th, 2009

Promoter: Lighthouse Pro, Get Wacky

Venue: New Warehouse

Album Link: click here

Revelation was held at a new venue on the northeast side of downtown phoenix. cute little warehouse, i expect us to be back there sometime soon. The place wont hold more than a two stage event... so it probably wont be used constantly. It is good for wacky weinies vending. They have their own little room to sell from, avoid possible theft, and a place to chill where the music is less earsplitting.

My album for the night was mostly about the DJ's.. since this event WAS mostly about the talent, being an all headliners event. Kitch, Crackerjack, Milo, Jimmini, Dougal, Gammer, Brisk and Ham. all of those mentioned names are featured in the album.

Near the end of the night i had accidentally hit a button on my external flash turning down my flash to only fire at half the power. Since i am still fairly new at using the thing i did not really realize how i did that until near the end of the event. There were a few images i deleted due to being too underexposed, and i turned up the exposure to those that were still usable. most of the album is there, so the deletes were not too drastic compared to usual deletion counts on albums, it was just a majority of deletes were near the end.

Forest & Gabe were VERY busy during the event working, so i took upon myself to parking lot flyer & exit flyer for Out of the Ashes. I would have ended the album less abruptly if i did not decide to work. The event needed flyering since Forest's party IS this friday. Good luck boys! This friday will go great.

Everyone go check out Out of the ASHES!!!!

~karma

Easter Moon

2009-04-15T01:16:00.000-07:00

Event: Easter Moon

Date: Saturday April 11th, 2009

Promoter: Fresh Culture, Neurobias, Relentless Beats, AZHC and Team Rave

Venue: Firebird Raceway

album link: Click here

Easter moon was quite an "interesting" event to say the least.

First of all, thank you to Josh of Wacky Weenies for purchasing me, Dustin, Gabe and others those 5 dollar presales! Thank you so much for that. It saved me some time & cash.

We got there about 8-ish i think. Walked in, was disappointed in the attendance, but at 8pm there usually is not as many people as prime time. But i was expecting maybe an excited large crowd... but this is Arizona, not a Cali massive. though they tried to promote it like one...

I enjoyed watching and photographing the b-boy competition. I've never tried photographing something like that, so it was an experience. I was trying to get the coolest moves they had. Hopefully some of them were effective. There are a few in my album that are a bit blurry due to they were dancing and moving a lot, but i think some of the movement in certain images is part of the appeal of them.

Since i did not have a press pass or anything of that sort i was unable to photograph on the main stage. luckily, i was able to on the two other. Unfortunately for many arizona people, Fresh Culture had major restrictions on who was aloud on stage and such. Even people who were part of the event, like Team Rave members, were not aloud and even had to fight to receive their badges to at least get back stage. there were many squabbles, but that is not MY issue or concern. I just hope if and when another collaboration with Fresh Culture occurs, that better contracts are written up to allow Arizona promoters more control and access to their own events. Nothing ever ends up positively for you if you disrespect someone on their own turf.

I think that this album was quite an effective album:

1. I took a few good shots of the headliner Rabbit in the Moon in a "central crowd concert-like images" of them. theyre decent. i wish i had images from the stage :(

2. I have a few individual images that i might consider filing under my event portfolio.

3. I continued doing what i have been trying so hard to do lately; take pictures of new people and give them my business card to retrieve their images. I am hoping this will help me expand my image views and business.

4. I took a few images of people that i think they will enjoy their image and post.

Now to the music review:

Rabbit in the Moon did really well!

It was the second time i have seen them. This time i was a lot closer to the stage in the crowd this time so i got to see their live performance even better. They did not go on until 2am so i was pretty exhausted and cold by the time they got on.

Tech-itch was pretty cool.

Z-trip was interesting. HE is an amazing DJ, the only complaint i have is, well, i enjoyed his track selection, but every time i started getting down to a track, since he was speed mixing, he would switch away pretty quickly. I would get into a groove and get thrown into another one too quickly.

Turner & Hiet was not that interesting this time. They did better before Gabriel & Dresden @ Crush.

And good job to louder, pac-d, nexone & cyntheria, and several of my other locals. good job guys...

Oh, and i forgot, a big thumbs down to that MC from Neurobias.

Please do not ever get on the microphone when you are drunk ever again.

~Karma

Have You Ever Danced with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?

2009-04-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Event: Dance With the Devil

Date: Friday, April 10th 2009

Promoter: Sesso & Clix bag of Trix

Venue: Chandler Cinema's

Link to Album: Click Here

I rather like chandler cinemas most of the time. its been around for years, and has grown on me. it has been used more often lately due present venue issues, but i can tell you we still wont be using it like we did Boos.

I arrived about 9-ish i'd have to say. Sesso had asked me to photograph his event, so i got my badge after some unnecessary dispute with a venue security personnel... note it was venue security, not Brent's security.

I had gone up to the stairwell where the main stage was to photograph Mindbender, and this security guy in a hatchetman shirt talked to me quite sternly that i was not aloud up there. I had to go find Sesso and have him get me my badge due to this. after all that i was aloud back up there. I hate it when i have to go through that.

the attendance was a bit lower at this event, but i kinda prefer it that way at the Cinema's. that place can get so crowded because of its shape and size, for example the last Lingereve party.

I really like the pictures i took of the second stage this time, in that small, triangular room to the left of the venue. I think i finally figured out how to really use my camera in that room effectively. Most of that venue is not that great for photographing in because of its ambient lighting throughout that remains on during the events. especially around the concession stands. But i have learned over time to work with it.

I gotta say that i am glad i took some good albums this weekend after such an off weekend this last one. I still do not know why i only took 8 pictures at Superbad and 9 at Hardcore Mother Flockers.

Overall i had a decent night that friday. Good job, Sesso. you got good help through Clix for your first event. Good luck to you with future events!

~Karma

Welcome to my new blog!

2009-04-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hello, i am Renee, aka "Karma" of Karmatica Photography.

my Photography website is Karmatica.com

I will be using this new blog to review events as well as give a little commentary on the photographs i took at each event. I will link to the album as well. for non-event shoots, i will discuss about those as well on here.

I have been using LiveJournal for years, and this is my first use of blogger. I wanted to use a new format for this purpose, and leave my personal journal over there.

i hope you enjoy reading this Photography blog! enjoy!