Live: Gabrielle Aplin aka my first concert photopass at the iconic Whelans
In April, luck smiled on me and at the beginning of May I officially photographed my first concert at the iconic Dublin venue Whelans for British artist Gabrielle Aplin.
That Instagram is sometimes useful. I’m scrolling through my feed in April and a recommended post pops up where the label is offering photo accreditation for Gabrielle Aplin’s tour. I saw Dublin in the caption and it was on the weekend, so I left a comment as instructed and about two or three weeks later I got a message that I had been selected yay
I didn’t know Gabrielle Aplin or her label, but of course I listened to a few songs before the concert. Gabrielle has a great voice that she accompanies on the guitar. She has almost 200 thousand followers on Instagram, so people must like it.
The concert took place on Saturday, May 2nd at Whelan’s in Dublin, where I’ve been to concerts a few times before (you might remember Sarah Kinsley being the last one). With my photo accreditation, I was entitled to free entry, support acts and the first three songs of Gabrielle. After that, I didn’t have any more photo time, but I was allowed to stay until the end of the concert.
I’m not going to lie, it was cool to come to the entrance and say that my name was on the list. I was hoping they would give me a lanyard, but I got a big sticker. I stuck it on my chest so that no one would say anything and I set off to find the best spots to take photos.
Whelan’s is nice, but there are no barricades between the stage and the audience, and since I didn’t want to stay until the end of the concert (nothing against Gabrielle, I was just listening to more house and techno at the time), I decided not to cram myself into the front row. Apparently, that’s how they normally take photos at Whelan’s.
The venue also has a balcony, which initially had a great view, but since the concert was sold out, the top ended up being full. I took photos of the opening acts from the stairs next to the sound engineer and from the balcony. And then I moved to one side of the stage to the merch, which had a great view, and that’s where my favorite photo of Gabrielle was taken from.
There were two opening acts – Lewis Watson and Alfie Hudson Taylor (he and his brother used to have a band called Hudson Taylor and I used to listen to them). They both played acoustic guitar. That really messed up my plans, because I’m used to taking photos of events and especially people on continuous (those lots of photos when you press the shutter), but my camera keeps clicking and I can’t turn it off. So I had to time it when they raised their voices more and hit the strings more. It was fun. Alfie also played an older song by Hudson Taylor and I was pleased with that. A sample in the video below.
Then it was Gabrielle’s turn and I started with the merch spot, after the first song I moved to the stairs and after the second slowly to the exit. I have three different views and I am quite satisfied. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a new lens at the time, so the 50mm and my Sony camera did everything. Another “problem” was that everyone was playing the guitar, so they had to stand still at the microphone and such photos are not very fun. Gabrielle was the most expressive of them, and in the end I managed to come up with something for all three. As for Gabrielle, even though I wasn’t ideally tuned to her music, I was drawn to her voice and sheer charisma. She has an amazing sense of humor and I immediately understood why people like her so much (besides her music). Plus she had a keffiyeh on the microphone stand.
After the concert I found out that the label is not random, but belongs to Gabrielle, which means even more to me. I am really happy for this experience and hopefully it will happen again someday, because getting official photo accreditation for proper concerts is really hard. That’s why I really appreciate this and it’s great that Gabrielle’s team gave a chance to smaller photographers throughout the tour.
