Edoardo Melchiori

Incognito live are always some of the greatest concerts experiences you can have. With a new cd coming out the blend of well known songs and brand new tunes is simply stunning.

Tony is capable of lighting up every audience with his power. I have an autographed picture of me and him together after a concert, this man has got soul!

What can I say about Sid at the trumpet… I love trumpets, so I love him! Always front line, giving extra emphasis on the music.

Completely different attitude for Francis, he plays the bass, he invisibly drives the hole team of musicians… and he always looks so relaxed and peaceful. He probably already reached the nirvana playing so beautiful songs around the world. In fact I can’t think of an Incognito’s concert without him. And, trust me, I’ve seen a lot!

Tony Momrelle (vocals), Sid Gauld (trumpet) and Francis Hylton (bass).

Matt Cooper was energetic in a way he only could be. Barefoot on the stage with the face of the happiest man on earth. That kind of musical ecstasy state I’ve seen before only in Pat Metheny’s percussionists.

How can I describe him… at a certain moment of the concert (theoretically at the end, in fact in the middle of it) all the musicians walked the center of the stage to say goodbye to the audience. When asked if we wanted some more we replied the only possible way shouting “YEEEAH!!!” So all musicians moved back to their instruments. Matt jumped at the keyboard and started straight playing the amazing’s Jacob’s Ladder piano start.

Tony had to shout “wait, wait, wait” and hit Matt’s arm to stop him. He had started playing long before the other musicians get beck to their instruments!

The energetic Matt Cooper at the keyboard

Joy Rose (right) has been awesome as usual. The name is really accurate in this case! Vanessa Haynes (left) with her feline singing really  blew stage!

Vanessa Haynes (left) & Joy Rose (right)

Another special thing happened during this concert. A cake appeared with Tony singing happy birthday to Joy.

The Incognito has just released a double DVD of their concert for the 30th anniversary of the band. In this years Bluey has played with more than 1.500 musicians… thank you for you passion!

Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick

A new section under my portfolio, all shots taken during concerts. This is the Music Photographic Portfolio by Edoardo Melchiori.

Featuring artists as Sting & The Police, Martino Roberts, Cheick Fall, Luca Biggio e Fabio Barovero (Mau Mau).

I think is definitely a contradiction photographing 1968 cars with a 2009 digital camera. So when the Historical Rally of Montecarlo settled down in Turin for the 2010 departure I decided to take a film camera with me: the 1959 Zeiss Ikon Contarex Bullseye.

These cars are analogical, no electronics at all. The drivers had to do all the job by themselfs. So the camera to picture those mechanical splendor has to be analogical as well I thought.

So I get from the bag my old Contarex, grabbed and an old expired film from my grandfather’s desk and went out. The camera was covered with a fine dust of the years of inactivity. Heavy as a little solid stone. The selenium-cell meter was nearly dead so I had to manual expose every shot with my Canon 7D to be sure of the right exposure before shooting with the Bullseye. No exposures to waste, back to film after so many years of compact flash memory cards!

Adjust the knob of the exposure, tuning the desired aperture and CLACK! The Ikon sets the aperture only when you press the shutter button and the sound is so mechanical. You can almost feel the over 1100 individual parts of this camera aligning together for the shot. Then you manually move the film for the next exposure. Sometimes you can get it wrong and you come up with something like a double exposure melting different point of view.

The results are a few shots of a Fiat 500 and the famous ORX Mini Cooper Works. Prints are soft and simply perfect in their analogical splendor.

To be honest most of the dust and noise from this shots is due to the scanner, direct prints from the negatives are simply perfect. The funny thing is that the 1.89 GB raw file from the scanner at 4800 dpi has more noise than the direct prints from the negatives.

A friend of mine once told me: “Do you drive a Volvo? You should have a long white beard!“. In fact I do have a beard, but it’s not white… at least not yet! My grown-up fashion style in the instruments I use to move myself into space is the same for two wheels…

I should admit I’m a BMW Motorrad fan. I love the bikes this German guys create. So when I first saw an article about this BMW R7 1934 prototype from the motorcycle engineer Alfred Böning I immediatly felt in love with it!

The bike was forgotten for over 70 years in a box. I like to think of it like Indiana Jones’s Raider’ of the lost ark ending, in an endless warehouse.

The bike was rediscovered back in 2005, it was complete only at 70 percent, many pieces were taken away in the past. The battery’s acid had corroded the frame and the rust did the rest of the job on all other parts.

A special team of highly specialized BMW guys started a very hard task: restoring from ground up the R7 prototype and taking it back to the road.

Original drawings of this one-of-a-kind masterpiece were founded in the BMW’s Archives. Missing parts were rebuilt, the frame restored and painted again and metal parts mirror like chromed.

Enjoy it in all its never faded beauty…

For more please vistit: BM Bikes or BMW Classic

Check out the new portfolio section: Ceremony.

Enjoy

Una splendida giornata di sole al Pian del Frais (Chiomonte, val di Susa) ha fatto da sfondo all’ultima gara CIS (Club Italiano Sleddog) di qualfica per il Campionato Europeo Sprint FISTC organizzata dal club Canadian Wolves.

Per la gallery completa (108 immagini) clicca qui.