This is my second music photo post here. In my first I talked about my goals and challenges in shooting music shows. I shot these at the same club as before, with its tough low lighting. At least they book some good artists and bands! I came out because Nomenclatures was on the bill. He's an electronic producer that I had heard on the college radio station and liked enough to check him out on Bandcamp.

Drumbeat Red

On their bandcamp page they self describe as dreampop, shoegaze, and post-punk. They seem to draw from these genres in different songs, so they have a wide range. I'd never heard them before and they have a cool sound.

Feeling experimental, I tried some slower shutter speed shots while the band was jamming on their last song. This one was 1/2 second. I might try this again using a low-power flash fired just before the second shutter curtain closes. That would violate my avoidance of flash but for a couple shots I think I could try.

Nomenclatures

Hearing a song of his on the radio turned me on to Nomenclatures and went and listened to what he had on his Bandcamp page and liked him even more. Sadly he removed all but his latest song from Bandcamp. But it did make me more curious what he'd be playing live. His sound is experimental electronic.

I didn't know what to expect out of him playing live. He mixed some pre-made stuff from his laptop with some playing on his Ableton Push controller. Some of it seemed more "live" than other parts. He wasn't very animated but I'd rather have a subdued honest person than a performer overselling it and making unnecessary dial-turns with swinging arms. Good music overall.

Shooting him was an opportunity and a challenge. The light coming from his lit up midi pad and laptop screen put some nice light on his face. But he has medium length hair that often obscures it while looking down. It's also a challenge to capture interesting scenes when the performer isn't doing much on stage.

Extraterrestrials

Extraterrestrials are a relatively new band with a solid modern alt rock sound. I had never heard of them before but I liked their performance a lot.

Still shooting with a 50mm f/1.4 lens @f/1.4 for most shots, at ISO6400 and 9000, getting focus and enough light is still difficult for stage-right at this venue! Still, I have learned a trick or two. And the practice has reminded me of what it's like to shoot in manual to fix your exposure and also to count stops between changes in aperture and shutter speed to maintain equal exposure.