Eagles of Death Metal

December 17, 2008 – Led by the ever crowd-pleasing Jesse “The Devil” Hughes, the Eagles of Death Metal threw down for a rowdy rock show of sweat, mustaches, and Flying Vs.

Photographer’s Notes:

The Eagles of Death Metal always put on a fun show, and this performance was no exception in their opening set for Scott Weiland.

The main shooting considerations for this show were relatively low lights and a large line of speaker monitors as the front of the stage (seen most readily in the last shot above). With a 5-foot stage, the wedges added another foot and a half to shoot over. Not a huge problem, but another element to consider during the shoot nonetheless.

The lighting was what I’d call a heavy treatment, with deep color washes from behind that mixed with plenty of smoke rolling out over the stage for a dim but still lush look.

For many schemes in the first three songs, the sole light on the band came from the back of the stage. Exposing for the performers produced some very dramatic renditions due to the dynamic range of the D3 and D700‘s sensors, which, while very good, is still limited, especially at high ISO.

As always, Jesse Hughes was a great subject, but was generally at his mic for the first three songs due to his vocal duties. By contrast, Dave Catching had a little more freedom to make use of the Pageant’s large stage, playing back near the amp stacks, which made for some nice photo ops. Brian “Big Hands” O’Connor, like Hughes, mostly stayed put, rocked out, and generally made his bass look like Cracker Jack toy in the grip of his man-paws.

For this performance the Nikon 24-70mm and 70-200mm. Due to the speaker monitors, the 14-24mm stayed in the bag. ISO 3200 to 12800 were used for the Eagles of Death Metal’s set, while I tried to keep the shutter speed around 1/160.

About the author: Todd Owyoung is an internationally published music photographer specializing in concert photography and band portraits. He also grills a mean steak.

Contact Todd for image licensing and assignments wherever the rock show lives. You can also get in touch with Todd via Twitter.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with big hands, brian o'connor, dave catching, eagles of death metal, eodm, jesse hughes, Music Photography, nikon, photographer, tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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9 Responses to “Eagles of Death Metal”

1. Alain G says:

   February 8, 2009 at 6:12 pm

   Hi Todd,
   I make pictures of them one week ago in Paris, they like weird colors for the lights :)
   Eagles of Death Metal (Paris, France)

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     February 8, 2009 at 6:25 pm

     Hey Alain,

     Nice to hear from you, thanks for stopping by. Great shots, it’s nice to see them in a more intimate venue (and on what looks like a lower stage, too). And yes, it seems as though they do like the “thick” atmosphere and lighting.

     Reply
2. Todd Owyoung says:

   February 9, 2009 at 12:04 am

   Eagles of Death Metal, shooting notes and images: http://is.gd/iR9v

   Reply
3. Matthew Miller says:

   February 9, 2009 at 6:42 am

   Great shots Todd,

   I especially like the shots of Dave Catching, especially where he’s in full power stance with the V in the orange wash. Brilliant.

   I’m amazed with the lack of noise if you shot at 12800, are any of the above shots that high?
   I had trouble above 6400 for TV On The Radio whenever solely Blue was used and nothing else. Could’ve been the horrible sigma lens I used, (24-70mm 2.8, it’s now returned).

   It does seem a lot more interesting than the Pumpkins lighting though.

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     February 9, 2009 at 9:16 am

     Thanks for the comment. Yes, Dave makes quite the subject, what with his hair, glasses, and guitar.

     A few shots were made at ISO 6400 and pushed a stop, not exactly sure which ones from the above, though. I can take a look and follow up. The lighting for this set was certainly more atmospheric in feel than that of the Pumpkins, that’s for sure.

     Reply
4. Dennis Stempher says:

   February 9, 2009 at 11:16 am

   I’ve found that my EOS 30D nearly always suffers from horizontal banding at higher ISO values (this gets even worse when I push shots in post) and even the new 5D MKII seems to have the same problem… I’m amazed that the Nikon D3 and D700 do not seem to have that problem… Am I right or do you deal with this problem in post?

   Reply
5. Michael says:

   February 13, 2009 at 7:27 am

   Cool pics! I’m planning to see them in Gothenburg, Sweden so this is a good input for me. They don’t use a lot of red light from what I can tell. But ISO 3200… don’t know if my D200 is up for that…

   Reply
6. Valerio says:

   February 13, 2009 at 8:29 am

   Oh, he got long hair now!
   Great fun to photograph and to listen.
   Didn’t they let you stay for the entire set?
   When I did them I was left photographing the whole gig.

   No Josh Homme on drums, though.

   ciao
   Vale

   Reply
7. Neetu says:

   February 17, 2009 at 5:58 pm

   Amazing.

   Reply