Lately I've been getting my feet wet with music photography. I have wanted to shoot music shows for a long time. I want to visually document the bands I see, many of them local and not well known. I also would like to share some of these bands with the outside world!

It's a very challenging genre of photography, and with film and older digital cameras I wasn't able to ever get good results. It was a primary consideration in choosing a new camera recently: I put high-ISO performance high on my priorities. I took some photos at a show recently that I feel are worth sharing. In between the bands I comment on taking photos in clubs and what I'm learning and hope to get better at. At the end are links for each band where you can hear them. Without further ado...

Catbath

I've heard a Catbath song or two on the local college station, but this was the first time seeing them live. They're good performers and their music sounds good too. I'd describe it as grunge-pop.

The color of the lighting and the shadow from the mic stand made the drummer look a bit like Bowie from the cover of Aladdin Sane.

She screams good.

Ambiance, Being There

It's been my goal to shoot shows with ambient lighting. This is why I prioritized a good sensor and good low-light autofocus when selecting my camera. I got a Nikon D750, which I cranked up to ISO 6400 for all of these photos. The camera can go higher but at the cost of more noise, which is already very present at 6400. I also had to push the exposure on many of these shots, meaning maybe I should set the ISO higher to begin with. I brought a 50mm f/1.4 lens and shot it wide open.

Ambient lighting gives you the sense that you're there. Though one challenge I have with this is how to process photos. I'm not used to low-key photography enough to be confident in leaving darkness. This is something I'll need to learn over time.

Flash photography can work great if you know what you're doing. But in addition to amateur efforts leading to harsh-looking pictures, flash photography is annoying for the crowd. Since I am part the crowd enjoying the music, even if I'm taking pictures, I don't want to detract from anyone else's experience by being there. I think that some bands and performers would also be bothered by a flash going off regularly too. There was another photographer that night who set up a remote triggered flash and brought a big lens (I think it was the 24-70 f/2.8). For a small show, it was a bit much, but maybe he was there for The Shondes.

The Shondes

I had not heard of The Shondes before but they are a New York City band on tour. They have their own Wikipedia page so I guess they're fairly well established. Very cool to see a touring band alongside local acts in a low key show like this. They seemed to have a good time.

I got a lot of photos of the violinist because he was very animated and happened to be standing in the good light!

Fast Prime, Little Lens

Shooting with a 50mm prime means more light comes into your camera but at f/1.4 brings more challenges. The biggest is shallow depth of field. Very few shots were focused properly. Too often the autofocus will hit the performer's microphone and unless you have eagle vision, you can't tell while looking through the SLR viewfinder.

This club in particular has very low stage lighting, and only on certain parts of it. Other parts of the stage are dark and performers standing there are very difficult to get a focus on with such shallow depth of field. Another challenge with a prime is framing, especially when you are in a crowd. Again, my philosophy is not to detract from others' experience when taking photos, so I don't want to get in front of anyone (or worse, push people out of the way). Thankfully for this show the crowd wasn't too dense and in Minnesota fashion don't crowd the stage, allowing for a lot of leeway. Cropping often makes up the difference, at the slight loss of resolution and bigger noise bits.

Another benefit of a prime lens is it's small and not intimidating. In my head a small show shouldn't be messed with by carrying around a camera/lens setup that looks "too pro." I try to stay conscious of the observer effect.

Strange Relations

Strange Relations is the band I showed up to see. I've seen them before and heard them played on the college station, and I like their music a lot. They've got a dreamy shoegaze and rock sound. They didn't play my favorite song of theirs but that's ok because they still played great.

Drummer in motion

I hope you liked reading and/or looking at the photos. This is an experiment in writing and posting photographs for me, and something of a progress journal. Band/music/show photography is a long-time interest and only recently have I had the means to get into it. I hope to keep learning and getting better at it.