Bambir(s), Puppet Theatre
Bambir, Puppet Theatre, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007
Well, last night’s gig by the two Bambirs was a real killer of a show. Quite fantastic and only the second time I’ve seen them perform together since 2001 so it was also quite a unique event. Hopefully they’ll do more joint gigs, but until then, some photographs from last night to follow up pics of their rehearsal the previous day, and an excerpt on the history of the two bands, which cross two generations and which are both known as Bambir, from an article I wrote in 2005.
The name Bambir is derived from a little known traditional Armenian instrument similar to a cello piccolo, but just to confuse matters, it’s also the name of another folk-rock band that comes from Gyumri. Before Armenia declared its independence in 1991, it was this Bambir that was considered the best folk-rock band in the former Soviet Union, fusing Armenian and Celtic influences to seamless perfection.
No surprise then, that Barseghyan and Kocharyan are the 22-year-old sons of two members of the other Bambir, and that now, the name has been passed down to them to take to a new generation of rock fans in Armenia and beyond. […]
Bambir, Puppet Theatre, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007
I forgot to say. Anush from The Armenian Patchwork has an exhibition of photographs of both Bambirs in the cafe area of the Puppet Theatre. Although I don’t think the public has access to them unless attending a performance, if anyone is going there in the next week, make sure you check it out. It’s really excellent and worth a look.
Comment by Onnik — June 29, 2007 @ 5:02 pm
nice stuff. have you gone back shooting digital again? i just got meself a canon digital slr d350. what lens are you using for these shots?
Comment by artyom — June 30, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
Hi there, Artyom, and yeah. I finally did it and bought myself a Nikon d200 when I was in the U.K a few weeks ago. Kept my F5 and lenses, but added a Nikon 18-70 and 70-300 VR as well. Wanted the Nikon 17-55, but they hadn’t any bundled with the camera which meant I would have had to pay an extra 200 quid (i.e. 900 quid for the lens on its own).
Got the 70-300 because although I prefer wideangles, I could have really done with a telephoto for the 12 may parliamentary election and campaign meetings/rallies etc. Main thing, however, was that shooting the election on film and having to meet constant deadlines was a real killer. Don’t want to go through that again although now I need to get my head around processing and storing RAW images in an effective and secure way.
Comment by Onnik — June 30, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
have you tried the adobe lightroom? terrific program. i shoot it in raw as well and the lightroom is just phenomenal in processing it. a friend who does photography uses bibble, which btw processes raw faster than lightroom but after i tried my shots a couple of times came away disappointed a bit, but still is a great program and way cheaper than lightroom.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
http://www.bibblelabs.com/
Comment by artyom — July 1, 2007 @ 4:01 am
Actually, I just downloaded the Lightroom trial earlier today to give it a spin, but it won’t run. I keep on getting the following error:
I’ve tried launching the trial version with the control key held down to create a new catalog but when I do that the computer freezes about a second after part of the Lightroom interface appears.
Oh well, I’ll look at Bibble instead.
Comment by Onnik — July 1, 2007 @ 4:18 am