Photographing The Tragically Hip was one of those assignments that felt significant at the time, but became even more meaningful in hindsight. While covering one of the band’s tour stops in Canada, I spent most of the evening creating digital images for the assignment, but I also carried a Widelux panoramic film camera loaded with Cinestill 800T film. Between songs and moments on stage, I exposed a handful of panoramic frames that captured the energy of the performance in a way that felt very different from my digital work.
The Widelux is a unique 35mm panoramic camera that uses a rotating swing lens to create an exceptionally wide image. For concert photography, the format allows the entire stage, lighting design, and atmosphere of a performance to exist within a single frame. Combined with Cinestill 800T, a tungsten-balanced film known for its rich saturation and distinctive rendering of artificial light, the resulting photographs captured the vivid stage colors and mood of the show in a way that immediately stood apart from the digital images.
What makes these photographs especially meaningful to me today is that this would be my first and last opportunity to photograph The Tragically Hip. At the time, none of us knew that Gord Downie would later announce his diagnosis and that his passing would mark the end of an era for one of Canada’s most beloved bands. Looking back, these panoramic film photographs have become more than concert images—they are a record of a moment that can never be repeated.
Photographed on a Widelux panoramic camera with Cinestill 800T film, these images remain some of my favorite examples of film concert photography, combining the unique perspective of a swing-lens camera with the unforgettable atmosphere of a live performance by The Tragically Hip.
