Come on and twist a little closer now
Originally posted 24 March 2018
One Friday after work we went out for drinks to watch local sensations Without The Beatles perform. They played fantastically well and kept everyone engaged and entertained from the very first song to the end of the evening. They were kind enough to let me take some photos for practice and it definitely was such a learning experience!
As I haven't done this kind of event before, I was already in the deep end from the beginning. The main challenges I found were lighting, space, and dynamicness (is that a word? dynamicity? dynamicism?). And I think each challenge played off the other which made it quite difficult for me to get some good shots. I took some okay ones which are at the end of this post.
Light 'em up, up, up
The band were stationed at the front corner of the bar, with a massive window to their left facing out to the street, and another window behind. In the late afternoon the sun was in full force. This had almost like a floodlight effect on the band with bright light on one side and dark shadows on the other. I don't use flash or have other lights that I could even out the scene with, so it was a matter of tuning the exposure just enough for the photos to be reasonable.
Even at night the massive window still made it challenging sometimes - rogue car headlights shining in, for example.
Later in the evening it did get dark enough so the indoor lighting was more even. On the other hand, the lighting wasn't particularly bright so I had to shoot with the aperture wide open to minimise ISO. By the end though I was averaging between 2000 and 3200 ISO, so not ideal. But I preferred not having movement blur more than having clear, grain-less images.
It's getting cramped in here
As I mentioned in a previous post I don't have a zoom lens. Well, I have the kit lens but with an aperture that starts at 3.5 it would have been practically useless. Anyway, I was basically stuck with going between the 25mm and the 15mm. I did use the 60mm but only sparingly as it was too close to use most of the time, and it was too slow in the late evening. I couldn't really step back to have a wider view as it wasn't a huge place. With the wide open aperture and the tight space I couldn't get all of the band in focus.
Wide open aperture means less movement blur and grain but also more blur with stuff not in focus.
So I had to improvise a bit to try and get all the band in the photo. Eventually I got a good enough picture with all the bandmates mostly sharp and included.
One of the very few I managed to take where all the band can be seen. This is as wide and as far back as I can go with my 15mm lens.
All shout but no twist?
The other challenge I had was capturing the livelihood of the band and the crowd. I wasn't sure how to convey the fun that people were having in the audience. I figured I also needed to include part of the band as it might have lost even more context without the music aspect. As in the shot below, you can imagine that the couple were dancing, but they could also be having an argument! I had other shots that show some kind of movement but they didn't really look dance-like enough.
Not sure what I could do better though apart from trying different angles and having some better luck with timing. I do like the picture below though as, to me at least, I captured the gentleman having a great time and singing along with the band.
As I am still getting used to taking photos in 'social' settings, I found that I inhibited myself a lot because I didn't want to be in the audience's way or be a distraction to the band. Although, I must say, the main reason I didn't take photos all that often is because I was just engrossed in enjoying the performance — all in all it was a great night!
