The Gig Photographer

The stage is set. The rock band are waiting in the wings. The lights come up and the band come on. Now its the job of the photographer to catch the ambience of the scene, the mood of the crowd, and the excitement of the moment.

And so I did my first gig shoot. It was not quite as described above!

The location was a small village hall. Stage lighting was either almost black or lit like a stadium in mid play. The band didn't have any lighting of their own and so opted for the almost black look. The base player opted for it even more with black hair, dark grey shirt, blue jeans and standing in the shadows.

So I set my camera to 1600ISO, lens at f2.8, shutter at 1/60 and prayed that it would work.

Two hours and 209 shots later I was done. The next day I loaded the images into Bridge and took a look. Not too bad at all. A bit dark though. So I opened them up in Camera Raw and increased the exposure and contrast a bit and the results are pretty good I think. It made me very glad to be shooting with a 5D as even at 1600ISO the noise was very low (apart from the Bass players shots that had to be pushed to the limit).

So here is a selection of the shots, any comments on what to do better next time would be greatly appreciated.

other 984

The Venue with stage lights ON

other 988

Lead Guitar

other 986

Vocal

other 987

Drums

other 985

Bass - Pulled from the dark