November 3, 2008 – Bathed in dramatic lighting, the Kings of Leon delivered a thumping dose of Southern Rock to the sold-out house of the Pageant.
Photographer’s Notes:
The first song of the Kings of Leon’s set started off with a deep blue wash. It was one of those instances where I held back, thinking that it would change once the vocals hit. 30 seconds went by, then 60. Still blue.
As it happened, the lighting scheme remained locked in with the mono-color wash until the second song, which flashed to white light from the sides of the stage and the back. Out of the allotted three songs, the second was easily the most photo-friendly, and the vast majority of images in this set where made at that time.
The third song was entirely a deep red wash, with the exception of brief flashes of white on drummer Nathan Followill, which created some nice, albeit short, photo ops.
In addition to the challenge of the lighting, there was a somewhat unusual photo restriction in place for the Kings of Leon’s performance.
Two stripes of white tape marked off the outer quarters of the stage. As I stepped into the photo pit, security informed me that I was able to move along the length of the pit, but that I was not allowed to stop in the middle section as demarcated by the white stripes. Effectively, photo was limited to the outer edges of the stage.
The band’s monitors were set back about a meter from the edge of the stage, making singer Caleb Followill sufficiently distant that I used the Nikon 70-200mm for about 90% of the the allowed time. I made just a few shots with the 24-70mm for wider angles.
End Notes:
Despite the physical restrictions of the set and the limited options for “usable” lighting, it’s hard to argue too much with one full song of white light, however sporadic.
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2008 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with 2008, brothers, Caleb Followill, Jared Followill, kings of leon, live, Matthew Followill, Music Photography, Nathan Followill, photographer, tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Best Regards from Portugal,
Celso
Hi Celso, nice to hear from you, thanks for the kind words. Hope your studies are going well.
I reported a show of theirs in August in London and it had the same photo restrictions. I was told that that they were filming themselves so I had to pick a side…Jared or Matthew!
Yeah, very strange!
Great shots, really impressive. Just wondered if id be able to have larger versions of a couple , for my A- level photography class, we’re doin a presentation on music photography, this would be a welcome addition. If not , no worries, thanks anyway ;)
Hi Hari, thanks for the comment. How much large would the images need to be for the presentation?
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[...] You had to pick a side and stay there; no moving back and forth. These are the same rules I had the last time I shot Kings of Leon, though we could move back and forth for that show (we just couldn’t [...]