T.I.

February 19, 2009 – Headlining the Swagger Like Us Tour, Atlanta’s T.I. capped off the night with his own brand of braggadocio, the kind of do-or-die strutting that had the rapper offering to take haters off the hands of his fans one song while ripping off his shirt and throwing it to the fans during another.

Shooting Notes:

The lighting for this set was really quite simple: one spotlight on T.I., light and infrequent backgroung from rafter-mounted lights, and occasional blasts from some programmable spots mounted near the DJ deck at the back of the stage. The most interesting lighting came when the house backlighting came on, which was comprised mostly of red and yellow lights that produced some nice accents to the harder white spot light from the front.

As is often the case with rappers, getting clean shots of T.I. was a persistent challenge during this set. Between his mouth-blocking grip on the mic and the high contrast lighting, T.I. was a tough subject – and a quickly moving one at that. Timing was of critical importance during this shoot to capture not only the big gestures, but doing so in such a manner that the subject was rendered as identifiable as possible.

Like all the performances of this event, the general issues for shooting were a high angle to the performers and little to no room to move around.

Still, a full-set shooting allotment went a long way toward making up for any difficulty in shooting. If anything, this extensive shooting time made for one exhausting event, with eight individual performances in the night; by the time T.I. came on shortly after 11pm, I was definitely feeling the burn. The unlimited shooting time was really a nice contrast to Lil Wayne’s recent tour, which required a three-song limit from the soundboard.

I shot this set almost entirely with the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 on the Nikon D3. The Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 on the D700 was used for supplementary shots, while the 14-24mm f/2.8 came on for just a few one-off wide shots. I shot between ISO 2500 and ISO 3200 during T.I.’s performance, wide open, with shutter speeds falling around 1/320 to 1/500.

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 Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with hip hop, images, live, music photography, photographer, rap, t.i.p., ti. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

←

→

12 Responses to “T.I.”

1. Todd Owyoung says:

   March 1, 2009 at 4:12 pm

   Concert shooting notes: Rapper T.I. on the Swagger Like Us Tour: http://is.gd/lmaT

   Reply
2. Ash says:

   March 1, 2009 at 7:28 pm

   You’ve done a great job at capturing T.I.’s “swagga” and cockiness, despite the bad angles you were forced to shoot from. And, speaking of the low angles, I don’t think it’s too much of a distraction for rap concerts. Rappers tend to exude this larger than life persona anyway (or, at least try to) so having them seem 5 feet taller than everyone else makes sense, in a way.

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 1, 2009 at 9:37 pm

     Hey Ash,

     Thanks for the kind words. I think you may have a point about the “larger than life” stage persona some performers take on. Either way, it was certainly an close perspective for some shots! The 70-200mm was very nice for shooting down-stage and getting a little more of a flat view.

     Reply
3. Michelle McClary says:

   March 1, 2009 at 9:07 pm

   did you get to shoot the whole set?
   if not, thats alot of changes in three songs!
   lol
   lovely pictures as always!

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 1, 2009 at 9:41 pm

     Hi Michelle,

     The shooting time is above in the notes! ;)

     But yes, we did get to shoot the whole time. Thanks for the comment.

     Reply
4. Jason says:

   March 1, 2009 at 10:53 pm

   Todd, great shots. I can imagine having a full show to shoot would go a long way towards working around the difficult space. In any case, you can’t see any struggling in your set.

   Also, I like the field of view you were able to get with the 24-70mm: I mean, your wild wides are always awesome, but these look great too.

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 1, 2009 at 11:04 pm

     Hey Jason,

     Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the full-set shooting certainly made up for the otherwise limiting conditions, so I honestly can’t complain too much. The 24-70mm definitely was a winner for this set – it provided a nice closeness at 70mm, but 24mm was great for when T.I. was right in front of me.

     Reply
5. Todd Owyoung says:

   March 2, 2009 at 12:12 am

   Concert shooting notes: Rapper T.I. on the Swagger Like Us Tour: http://is.gd/lmaT

   Reply
6. Ryan says:

   March 3, 2009 at 12:16 am

   Hey Todd,

   These look stellar, as always! I’m glad to know I was at least close to your settings…I was at 1/400, ISO 3200 for almost all of the T.I. set. I was wondering…is there any easy way to obtain the names of all the artists who performed that night? I want to put some of my favorites online but have no idea who the other performers are.

   Regards,
   Ryan

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 3, 2009 at 9:32 am

     Hi Ryan, thanks for the feedback. The names for all of the artists were flashing on the big screens on either side of the stage during the show. Aside from that, I’d check reviews of the show for the listings or inquire with the venue.

     With more conventional shows, the full listing is made by the venue ahead of time, but when there are 8-9 performers in a night, that doesn’t always happen.

     Reply
7. Chris Cantrell says:

   March 3, 2009 at 2:42 am

   I had the same obstacles while shooting TI PaperTrail in New Mexico 0n 02.12.09. Mostly used the 24-70 2.8 and got some nice full body shots, but the angle was rough and sometimes you couldnt make out a facial expression. The pit was packed and security kept bumping into me while pulling the claustraphobic people out of the front row. ;)

   Ti has a lot of energy and puts on a good show.

   To see a different perspective on TI’s stage show you can check my myspace albums.

   Canon 5d with 24-70 2.8 iso 1600 ap 3.2 – 3.5 shutter 150 – 400

   -Chris

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 3, 2009 at 9:34 am

     Hey Chris, thanks for sharing your experience shooting T.I. I always find rappers very challenging subjects; for this set, I would have liked to be about 5-feet more back from the stage. But I agree, T.I. puts an incredible amount of energy into his show – we weren’t left with many dull moments!

     Reply