Imelda May

Imelda May actually opened for Joe Bonamassa at NEC in Birmingham, although I’ve gotta say I enjoyed her and her band every bit as much as I did Joe.  She has a style jazzy blues, and has many Rock n Roll & Rockabilly tunes in her bag of tricks.  If you like the Lazy Jumpers or other Jump Blues style music, you’ll love Imelda, she’s well worth a listen and I saw her new CD (Love Tattoo) in Zavvi the other day and this link will take to the CD at Amazon UK.

As always, a link a to her gallery in my portfolio can be found here….

Imelda May rocks the Birmingham NEC - November 2008

Joe Bonamassa

Not posted for ages, but have been doing stuff, so in no particular order here’s the first of a few I’ve shot in the last couple of months, rising international blues star Joe Bonamassa, I love his music, and the guy is a great performer.  Also meet a great guy there just starting (at least this was his first official photo pass gig) out in the world.  Pete, if you’re reading this, it was great to meet you and I wish you every success for the future.  An extra big thank you to Roy, Joe’s manager who is a true professional and a gentleman! As always a set of shots can be found on my portfolio here

Here’s Joe:

Joe Bonamassa @ NEC Birmingham

Contracts, Photo Releases and other Nonsense!!

I shot a concert the the other night, unfortunately I was ambushed with a contract at the door, “no signature, no entry mate!” I was told.  Having already travelled 90 minutes to get there I figured I’d sign it, and decide what to do with the images at a later date.  The contract is less ominoous than others that I’ve seen but this had unusual seemingly random clauses that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.  There was no questioning of copyright for once, but other really odd stuff like “images may only appear on a website for a maximum of thirty consecutive days“… why??  who knows, but obviously not very portfolio friendly.  Also the record company who’s contract it was, wanted a byline credit for the record company whenever any of the images were used, again, bizzarre.

I’ll not mention the artist or the record company because I’ve asked to get it recinded, luckily my magazine who commissioned the work is again standing behind me and has told the artists management that there will be no coverage of the artist or event until they drop the contract.

The really bizarre thing is that it hurts the artist and PR agency, because the contract is issued by the record company (not the artists management).  Sometimes I share some shots with the PR/Management comapny as a good will gesture, however the contract I was made to sign disallows this, oops!  I’ve asked at the very least that anyone applying for a photography pass for any of their future gigs should be sent the contract in advance to them to allow them to make the decision whether to attend or not before they travel, rather than getting ambushed on the door!

I’ll keep you updated, in the meantime, I’ve started a thread on Concert & Music Photographers Network to get the feedback from others experiences and thoughts about contracts and photo release forms.

Good shootin’ everyone!

Is the Pap Culture hurting (Music) Photography?

I recently read either read an article or watched something on TV where an old hand in the photography business (it might have been Dennis Stone the Heathrow celebrity photographer), wherever and whatever it was, they were remenising about the kind of access you used to be able to get to stars and how it’s all changed.  Another music photographer recently said that the difference between Paps and most other photographers is that Paps try to make their subject look as bad as possible, other ‘togs do their best to make their subject look as good as possible.  So where did the line become so blurred?  Even in the few short years I’ve been shooting at concerts there seems to be this general anti-photographer feeling, unless you’re hired by the studio/label/PR, at which point you’re introduced by one of the inner circle.  I could have it all wrong, but that’s my feeling about the whole thing.

So my question is, how do we (the music photographer niche) go about winning that trust back and perhaps even going back to the times when proper access was easier to come-by, and when they didn’t have a constant contingent of bodyguards and lawyers automatically assuming everyone is out there to rip them off?

Apologies for the rant.

Getting Back on the Horse!

It’s been a bunch of time since I was out there shooting music, but I’ve accepted a bunch of gigs and feature artist portrait shoots for the coming months, including some really interesting stuff that I’m really looking forwards to.  Some new up and coming bands and some well established artists.  So watch this space, I’ll have some new images up soon.

On a separate note, the Concert Photography Community over at Ning, is growing much faaster than expected and I’ve been quite surprised by the amount of new members every month.  If you’ve not checked it out yet, go ahead and take a look.

Concert Photographer’s Network @ Ning

I’ve had great feedback from everyone so far regarding my articles on concert photography, and it turns out that there are way more people shooting at concerts than I’d realised, to everyone that’s given feedback so far, thanks for the encouragement!! To this end I’ve created a Concert Photographers Network of at Ning. If you don’t know what Ning is, here’s a short description…

Ning is a platform for creating your own social networks. Our passion is putting new social networks in the hands of anyone with a good idea. With Ning, your social network can be anything and for anyone.

If you’re familar with MySpace, it’s similar to that, but in a more niche, content specific, kind of way. Ning allows you (and allowed me) to create a social network of like minded individuals, around any subject or topic…. love woodworking and making wooden toys, go and create a community to allow others to share their woodworking skills and ideas and knowledge.

So, if you’re into Concert and Gig Photography, and want to meet, talk, chat, blog, get critique, get feedback post images, and learn from others that are also into shooting live music, musicians, artists, bands and other musical shenannigans, go and take a look, sign up, and join the group!!

You can find it at http://concertphotos.ning.com

Don’t expect to be overwhelmed with members right away, I only created it today, and there’s only a couple of us there right now, but Professionals and Amateurs are warmly welcomed. I look forwards to seeing you on there!

Concert Photography Part 2b – Technique

So you’re going to be working with limited light, and probably gonna have your lens wide open, you want to avoid camera shake, but still want some creative control over the way you shoot, and for me (and many others this means using shutter priority on the camera, with a shutter speed set to 1/160 and 1/125 second depending on the over all effect, amount of light present and type of shot you’re going for. 1/125 and lower, means you’ll either be using an IS/VR (image stabilization or vibration reduction) lens or you have a steady hand and you’re looking to get some motion blur from the artist (that’s motion blur from the guitarist moving his hand etc, the background or surrounding should not be blurred otherwise it’s camera shake ).

You should always, always, ALWAYS, spend the time before you go into the auditorium, or before the bands come on stage checking your settings. You may only have 10 minutes to work, so to find out 6 minutes into the gig that you’ve been working at ISO 400, or lower (because you didn’t check it after the last studio shoot) is not fun. So, physically check everything, what’s my ISO?, Shutter priority selected? Spot or Partial Metering selected?? Spare (EMPTY!!) Memory Cards in your pocket?? These are the same things you’ll be checking every time before you go into a gig, so with that in mind, print your list out, laminate it, and keep it in your kit bag, it gives you a consistent list of checks every time, and if you have a small pen or marker in your bag (you do carry a pen with you right??) you can add anything else you think of at the gig, and make it a part of your list when you get back to the studio.

Lens hoods are another subject which causes contention amongst people. I think it’s essential unless you’re trying for a creative effect with flare. When the artist/band is on stage and the lights are changing and flashing, you’ll almost certainly be taking light from the side of you and chances are there will be some light pointing right at you. Some shots look great with lens flare, but personally, (like any effect) the overall impact is reduced if it’s present in absolutely every shot, but each to their own, personally I always use a lens hood to reduce flare unless I specifically want effects.

Memory cards are fiddly things, have a system for swapping them out, and have plenty with you, they’re cheap enough. Don’t wait until you have only a few shots left, try to plan for the change, between tunes or something. Again if the management only allows you a couple of tunes to shoot, then keep your largest card to hand for this, better to have lots of space left than have to change out cards in those few precious minutes you have. Have a system for changing out cards, I keep empty cards in my left pockets, and used or full in my right, so a card that comes out of the camera goes immediately into the right hand pocket, ensuring it doesn’t get reused. If you don’t have a time limit, then try and plan the change outs for between songs, or when you think things are going to be uninteresting (you already have shots of 3 guitar solos, maybe now is a good time to swap the card out??). Ony you know how many shots you take, so if you get to a gap between tunes and you have 25 frames left on your card, only you know if that’s enough to take you through the next number or if you need to change out now?

Feel free to move around for a different feel, and to help try and give the shoot some context around the band, are the band playing a famous auditorium or venue, like The Royal Albert Hall in London, think, is there anything you can work into any of the shots to tie that in?? As I’ve mentioned before get your bread and butter shots out of the way, and assuming you’re not going to get ousted after a couple of tunes, you’ll find that as the gig goes on, there will be a lot that you’ve already covered, leaving you time to experiment, artistic, special effects silhouettes, etc, this is a great time for being creative with stuff and learning on the job.

Just remember, one of the most important things is to have fun, and if you’ve prepared and thought about exactly what you want to do ahead of time, understand which shots you need to achieve your brief, checked your check card that you keep with you, once this is all taken care of, the technical side can take a back seat to your creative side, and you can let your creativity flow, and get lost in the event.

If you found these articles useful, please tell me, but more importantly tell others The next article is going to be on the very important subject of etiquette. Stay tuned!!

Concert Photography Part 2a – Creative Interpretation

Welcome back, apologies for the long delay, sometimes life just gets in the way, and things get pushed back a bit. So without further ado, here’s part 2a!!. After spending some time writing this part of the article I realised that it was going to be another tome. So I’ve split it into two parts. The first part is know your audience, who are you selling to, what style are you shooting? The second part is, what methods and technical settings am I using to get my shots.

I believe it was Ansel Adams that was attributed to have said “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” and you should regard this article in a very similar way, the techniques that I talk about here are not by any means the definitive way, or perhaps even a good way to achieve concert shots, they’re simply the way I do it.

Some folk in the business of concert photography my look upon my work as cliche, or passe, but the way I shoot is very much in accordance with my target market (the publications that commission the work I do). You should always bear this in mind when shooting. Typically publications like NME don’t want the normal “up-the-nose-shots” of bands and prefer something more off the wall, more cutting edge, which is fine if you can pull The Raconteurs to one side after a gig and take an hour of their time composing some bang up shots, but for the other 99.99% of photographers that don’t have that kind of access, it might not be a possibility. But always remember, as a general rule of thumb, when you’re starting out you should shoot the type of music that you love. If you hate classical and go to a classical music gig, your photo’s are likely to reflect that (unless you’ve been hooting stuff you don’t like for a long time and know how to get the shot the editor wants). As long as you’re shooting gigs of bands that you’d normally pay money to go and see, it’ll never get old, or dull, or boring. What’s more, you’re pictures will reflect your love and enthusiasm, it’s inevitable.

So bearing this in mind, quite often (the larger the gig the more this is likely to hold true, festivals often being an exception) you’ll be out front with the other photographers, for two or maybe three numbers, so first thing is to get the bread and butter shots, if you go out with artistic intentions and come away with nothing of use to the magazine you’re submitting to, then you have to ask why were you there?. Know the picture editor of the publication (this goes for anyone wanting to get work from a magazine, as well as those already doing so) know what they like, know the magazine, know the subject matter. Ask yourself; What style of publication is it? What’s the overall feel of the magazine? What type of stuff do they regularly publish? Do I cover bands that are appropriate fodder for them? To take an extreme example; you want NME to take a look at your portfolio, you need shots of new or cutting edge bands, and contemporary music shots, with an edgy feel to them. Mojo on the other hand, might love some “up-the-nose” shots of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, if it’s currently topical and a great image. But I digress, get the main shot, so you have something to go back with; for me perhaps this means a couple of close-ups of the individual bands members (that’s all the band members), a couple of wide shots of the group on stage, a couple of real close crops of the main artist. Ok, you’re happy that you got those, now you can start getting a little creative, some of the crowd perhaps, some with some lens flare?, some silhouettes? some blurred? BZZZZZZZZ times up, security is escorting you out of the auditorium. Two numbers have played, and assuming it’s not Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the songs are going to be probably 3 or 4 minutes each, there should be no surprises, the stage management/security will tell you in advance how many songs you’ll be allowed to shoot for. If you’re good with security, they’ll be good with you. Don’t start shooting, before or after you’re allowed, or they’ll get angry, listen closely to their instructions, and you’ll do just fine, don’t listen and ignore them and be prepared for a very short career, because you’re likely to bump in to the same security guys more than once!

So you’re back in the studio, looking at the images, post processing, if you’re working to a commission, don’t hang around prep the images for transfer (ftp, email, CD, DVD) and get them off at the earliest possible opportunity, editors have a job to do, they have to produce a magazine, if they don’t ever have to chase you for images, and they’re always sent to them in a timely fashion, then they’ll be much happier than if they have to chase for the images or worse have to redo a layout because your images simply weren’t there in a timely fashion.

I hope you enjoyed this article and found it useful or insightful. Next time, I’ll be talking a little about f-stops, shutter speeds and other stuff.

Concert Photography Part 1b – Bodies

The Body

So, what about the camera body?? Use the one you have until you can buy the one you want. Ideally the body you use will be relatively modern (if it’s a DSLR) because the newer the technology, and the higher the quality body, generally the less noise your sensor will give. Your camera should be able to manage working at 1600 ISO or higher (3200 ISO ideally), which is why I said the technology should be as new as possible, older technology sensors have significantly more noise than those of newer bodies. The important thing to remember is it’s not always about price and cost, after long deliberation, I eventually opted for the EOS5D over the more expensive professional models simply because the 5D generated less digital noise than any of the other models available at the time, an you’ll probably find yourself wanting to lift the exposure on a shot quite frequently in post processing, which is where digital noise really shows. The noise generated by my EOS 20D at ISO 3200, is far worse than when the same settings are used on my EOS 5D, and less noise makes for a cleaner image. Ideally, the body should have spot metering, and at the very least partial metering (sometimes I prefer partial over spot, I’ll discuss more in the piece on technique). The frames per second isn’t an issue for me, because I often know what shot I’m looking for based on the mood of the gig at that point in time and fire off 2 or 3 shots to get the shot. Others I’ve worked with, use high frames per second, and blow through a memory card every 5 minutes. It’s down to personal style. In camera metering systems that you’ll be working with are all quite different from brand to brand and even in some cases from camera to camera, the more you live with it, the better you’ll come to know it, I’d like to say you can use your light meter, but as you know the reality is that the pre-gig lighting is normally quite low and the lights are enormously changeable and most of the time you’ll be working too intensly to have the luxury of time to even think about pulling out a light meter, best to leave it at home… less to carry .

What about the quantity of bodies?? Well I work with two sometimes, and other times that’s just overkill. As an example, when working Wembley or another large venue, you almost certainly want two bodies, you want the close-ups and you want the wides, and because you may only have 2 songs in which you can get your shots, time is of the essence. This means no time to change lenses, two bodies, one with a 16-35mm or 24-70mm another body with 70-200mm or similar, and swap around as you need. For smaller more intimate venues, or places where perhaps the stage isn’t quite so elevated, or you have plenty of time to change lenses, one body would suffice. Again more discussion of this in my piece on technique. The bodies I use are a Canon EOS20D and an EOS 5D. That’s where I’ll leave it for the moment, the next article up will be part 2 – Technique. Hopefully this has been useful to people, I’ll probably add to this article based on peoples feedback and if I remember anything I forgot to add in when I wrote it originally.

Concert Photography – Part 1a – Lenses

Welcome to the first part of my concert photography articles. As explained previously, I don’t claim to be an expert or more knowledgeable than anyone else particularly, I’m simply passing on some of my experiences. This first article is going to deal with equipment as I see it, what works what doesn’t work, and everything in between. This article is going to assume you have a DSLR, although you can use a film SLR, and people did for years, there are reasons, which I’ll cover in this article and the article on technique, why DSLR is potentially a better tool for this particular job.

Lenses

The first thing to remember about shooting live gigs is that the lighting is different at every gig you go to, it’s never the same amount of light twice, but one thing you can be sure of, and that is that there is never ever enough light. With that in mind if you’re looking to cover this stuff, I recommend as fast a lens as you can afford, ideally f2.8 or faster. OK , so fast lenses aren’t cheap, I get that, but really, other than gaining access to gigs, which I’ll cover in a later article, a fast lens is your biggest obstacle to making a good go of shooting gigs. That doesn’t mean that you have to buy the most expensive lens you can find (although if you can afford to without breaking the bank you’ll be glad you did), Canon and Nikon make a fine range of fast lenses but they come at a premium price, Sigma and other third party manufacturers are likely to make some great lenses for your camera too!! I have friends who use the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 with great success and the retail price on it is almost 50% less than those of the aforementioned brands. The reason they’re so expensive is because the more light a lens has to gather, the larger the elements and the more scope for something causing a defect with the final image. The good news is that most lenses engineered to be this fast also tend to be engineered to professional (or near professional standards) which means that they can take a lickin and keep on tickin!! As you start to shoot more popular gigs you’ll find this really important (15 or 20 photographers in a 6ft wide space across the width of the stage all running around for the shot and trying not to get in each others way) as you’re bound to bang the camera occasionally.

Keeping all of the above in mind, the next question is; Prime or Zoom? This really is a matter of personal choice and technique. On one side prime lenses are lighter, generally cheaper, and almost always faster pound for pound. As an example, if you always get great access to a venue and often find yourself quite close to the stage, then you might be able to work with something like the Canon 135mm f2 (assuming you have a Canon) or similar, a very fast lens, certainly lighter than a fast zoom. The downside is that you trade weight for the flexibility that you get with a zoom lens. My personal preference is to work with fast zooms, always, since there’s very little planning that can be done as to where you get to shoot from at a gig, I find it best to have the zoom and be able to cover most situations. My personal choice (I’m a Canon user) is to use two lenses for my gigs, a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L-IS and a Canon 16-35mm f2.8L, these aren’t necessarily the best tools for the job, they’re just what happens to work for me and my style of photography. One last thing to know is if you get a lense with image stabilization (IS for Canon, VR for Nikon) it has a gyroscopic style mechanism that helps to prevent motion blur caused by not being able to hold the camera still enough. I know people that can hold hand hold a camera using 1/60 shutter speed, but not everyone can. Image Stabilization will help to make lower hand holding speeds without camera shake a possibility, Nikon claim up to 4 stops on some of their literature, but either way it helps (as always with a price premium!). I’ll cover shutter speeds, etc in my technique article.

So, I hear you asking, if there’s not much light, why not make your own light and bring along a good flash? Good question, well most larger venues and even mid-sized theaters have a strictly no flash policy, which is either in place at the request of the artist/bands management or a standard policy of the venue, wither way, get used to not using a flash, I can guarantee as you start out at the smaller venues, 80% of places won’t allow it, and as you start working the bigger venues, you’ll find the flash simply acting as dead weight that you carry around (unless you’re shooting something else while you’re there), but I’ll probably cover this more under etiquette.

That’s all for this article, I originally started to write about bodies in this post, but the post was becoming too long and unwieldy for a blog post. I’ll finish writing the rest of this and post it in thenext day or two. I hope someone finds this article useful, if you do, leave a comment. If you don’t, then let me know why, leave a comment. Something I could of done better? Something I got wrong or is inaccurate? Let me know, leave a comment. Cheers for now.