Despite the often demanding time constraints of concert photography, sometimes it pays to slow down and observe before going in with shutter blazing. With shooting gigs, like so many things, timing is everything.
Learning to see and anticipate the subtle rhythms of a performance is one skill employed by experienced concert photographers and which can help set your work apart.
A Study In Three Songs
I often think of concert photography as a very quick portrait study of one or more musicians under highly demanding conditions. Just like a portrait shoot, the charge is to deliver compelling images of a subject; the dim lighting, limited access, and unpredictable conditions are secondary.
The same demands of portraiture for observing the subjects to determine their best treatment still factor into concert photography. However, instead of the ability to built a rapport with one’s subject and instruct pose, live music shooters must rely more on a different skill-set to best capture the action on stage.
The Visual Rhythm
While a large portion of concert photography may come down to instinct and reaction, with a little patience and proper timing, gaining an awareness of the subtle rhythms of a set can translate into more dynamic images.
Just as their own music relies on choruses, refrains and other structures, musicians will fall into patterns in their own movements, gestures, and expressions.
Whether these repetitions take the form of a singer gesturing to the audience during the chorus, a jump kick from the bassist going into the breakdown, or the guitarist coming to the edge of the stage with every solo, these small moments can come to define a performance.
Moreover, attention to these subtle and essential physical rhythms that may mean the difference between making a solid but unremarkable set of images and bringing home a truly epic, portfolio-quality shot.
Lighting & Timing
Beyond the performers themselves, the lighting effects will often follow similar patterns that can be identified and utilized.
Attention to the timing of lighting is especially important for shows that use very short-duration effects, like pyrotechnics, strobes, or high-intensity flare-ups. These treatments are often synchronized with elements of the song structure, and may coordinate with interesting parts of the band’s physical performance as well.
For some shooters, it may be useful to think of the lighting effects as additional members of the band, each with their own coordinated contributions to the production.
At best, the savvy photographer can catch both the essential gesture and lighting in a single shot. Keen attention to the natural structure and flow of a performance can allow one to transition from the “lucky shot” to careful calculation.
End Notes
While luck and hail-mary shots will always their place in concert photography, the virtues of timing and keen observation go a long way in supplementing those rare moments of a concert with insight and action.
In essence, attention to the flow of the show for the concert photographer takes a pro-active approach to seek serendipity, calculating for great things to happen and being ready on the shutter release for when they do.
Happy shooting.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Photography Tutorials and tagged with advice, article, concert photography, Music Photography, photography, timing, tips, tutorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Great post Todd. When shooting my friends at their shows lately, I have been trying to pull my camera away from my eye to get visual cues from them and also get a sense how the lighting guy is working the lights for the song before taking some shots. When I was starting out I would go for my composition and snap away hoping for the best. Since the switch in shooting tactic, I have definitely seen an improvement in my captured shots.
Hi Scott, thanks for weighing in on this topic and sharing your technique for catching cues from the band. That’s a great example of shooting smarter instead of simply more.
Seeking serendipity; an article on timing and concert photography: http://snurl.com/ej47v
RT @toddowyoung: Seeking serendipity; an article on timing and concert photography: http://snurl.com/ej47v
I recently shot a couple shows where we were allowed to shoot songs 2, 3 and 4. It actually was nice because we were allowed into the pit for the first song and were able to just sit back and watch/study lighting, movements, etc. I’m actually hoping I see more of this because it was definitely nice and helped give me a “plan of attack” as far as who to cover and from where in the pit.
Hi Will,
I’ve had a few gigs like that as well, where press were not allowed to shoot the first song, but rather only later on. I agree, it’s nice to see the energy and flow of a performance before jumping right in. Even YouTube videos shot from the crowd can be a good way of doing “homework” for a gig, as they’ll also give you a good idea about the live show.
Good knowledge about artist’s music genre and manners on the stage is very helpfull. I often check for photos of the artist in the net before shooting the show and this helps me not to be unpleasantly surprised.
Good points, Stan. I always do a brief search on Flickr and wire agency sites to get an idea of what has already been done for a tour.
The time frame is never an issue for me. It would be nice of course to be able to shoot alter in a set when things are in full swing, or the last three songs where it all comes to a crescendo. But it’s just not the way.
It’s nice to hear you say that this is portraiture as this is how I feel about it too, reportage and portraiture and the interesting mix.
The only thing that still bugs me is the spray and pray approach many people take of just holding out the arm and hoping for the best.
You got 3 songs – that’s roughly 15 minutes. You can frame up and get some really good stuff in that time.
Time frame is always an issue for me, because I always want more. ;)
One thing is for sure when I see bands multiple times I find that I begin to learn the personalities of the band and can often see the shot coming . This is mainly because I shoot as a fan who attends mostly shows of bands I enjoy and know a little about.This would obviously be harder for me seeing bands I’ve never see before.
For the real photographers do you feel a little more comfort when shooting a band you have shot before a few times.
Mind you as a fan we can fire away most of the show these days.
Being familiar with a band’s performance and music is definitely a huge help in knowing what to look out for.
There are several bands I’ve shot multiple times, and it’s always fun to know what to expect and to anticipate the images I want to make.
Todd if I’m going to shoot a band, first I like to look up some shots from the tour on Getty just to get a sense of what it’s going to be like.
Then I’ll see if I can find out if they are doing the same set list everynight and if they are check out youtube to see what the band does in the first 3 song. That way I’m prepared for stuff like pyro and jumps and what not. This is how I was able to catch Joe Jonas in a mid air jump, I knew it was coming.
Hi Rachel,
All good points, I do the same “homework” for big tours. Video of live shows can be especially nice for arena tours, where the lighting is much more set than it is for acts that use the house lighting of smaller venues.
RT @toddowyoung: Seeking serendipity; an article on timing and concert photography: http://snurl.com/ej47v
I agree with the process of studying the most recent live videos on youtube etc before you shoot a band, you can anticipate the shot before it happens…giving you much more time to compose the shot & it helps your reflexes 10x when you know exactly whats going to happen!
Yes, if you know something is going to happen due to research, it certainly helps. Though this is really on a separate topic of research and less on the notion of internalizing the flow of an event.
I took a post you wrote a while back about timing, and just wanted to share this photo with you:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesgrant2009/3289472280/
I waited for this photo, my only regrets about it are that the guitarist is in the right and he isn’t completely in focus. I manual focus, so I had locked into focus on him while he was on top of the bass cabinet, and didn’t want to try to change it, to avoid losing even more focus… Oh well, but tonight I am photographing silverstein, and I will keep timing in mind even more so than usual… Thanks Todd!
PS someday I want to photograph a show with you!
haha
Best,
James
Hi Todd,
I couldn’t agree more.
having chosen to work on film, what makes me concentrate on timing is the limited number of frames I can shoot and I can tell you that even with 2 or 3 cameras (that means 2 or 3 rolls of film) I sometime decide to concentrate on simply 36 shots in 3 songs.
Quite often there are more good images out of those 36 than out of 108 taken in the same lapse of time
ciao
Vale
[...] back of the stage, an awareness to the flow of the performance translates into being able to better anticipate the most compelling moments of a [...]
Hey Todd, in message above you mentioned, “I always do a brief search on Flickr and wire agency sites to get an idea of what has already been done for a tour”.
Could you list or give links to these agencies(for searching)? And do you put your stuff up on a particular agency that you favor (or recomend), or are you totally on your own? Any tips on getting “in” with an agency?
Thanks, Brian
I forgot to click “notify by email–follow up.
thnx brian
[...] of the evenings lighting. You can read more about my approach to this sort of shooting in my “Concert Photography: Timing” [...]
I wouldn’t recommend only youtube and wires, but also to google for photographers who shot the same tour, and send an e-mail their way, or look at the blog for some clues about the way that concert goes on. (… which is what I was doing when I arrived, thanks for the help about upcoming lady gaga concert, btw :D )
What I actually wanted to comment on when I started writing this is that light is set on arena tours in comparison to smaller venues, but if you aren’t a big time photographer, chances are you’re going to be shooting in the same smaller venues many times. That is why it also helps to keep some notes about venues and to look trough you shots from the last time you shot there, and not only the shots that were good, but specially the shots that failed, so you can recognize why they failed and avoid making mistakes. three songs is not a lot of time to waste on things you did wrong last time…
cheers,
Borna
[...] lot of the most important aspects of covering this show involved timing and anticipating the peak moments. Timing for the band members’ movements, but especially for the lighting. Many of the [...]
Thanks for this post, Todd! It’s ALWAYS a good idea to do research for any type of project, but in all honesty I never thought of watching videos on youtube like the other readers have suggested. Thanks for always keeping up posted with the things you’ve learned along the way.
-Vanessa M.
That’s awesome that you’re not always machine gunning to get the shot you want. Do you ever do scouting before you do a concert? I’ve got this mental picture of you running footage from a previous show like a football coach before the big game. Do you ever get video from the band’s last performance and watch it before you go to the concert?