Returning after a three-year absence, alt-rockers Switchfoot stormed the Pageant to deliver a passionate performance to a crowd of a thousand strong. Many of the fans rocking the barricade had braved freezing weather for their prime real estate – for this music photographer, any band with such dedicated fans is one worth photographing.
On top of that, any show that starts with the lead singer planted in the audience and giving the people some love is a great bonus.
Photography Notes:
This show was an interesting challenge and the three-song limit for this performance simply flew by.
Lighting was a mix of LED arrays at the sides of the stage, magenta uplighting on frontman Jon Foreman, and spastic strobes. By the third song, all this gave way to some relatively epic flareups of warm backlighting, a welcome punctuation to the dimmer treatments of the previous songs. All in all, frontlighting was in very short supply for this concert.
For me, the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 ruled this set and stayed glued to the Nikon D3, while the 14-24mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8 took turns on the D700. I mostly shot wide open with my zooms between ISO 2000 and ISO 3200.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 12:58 am and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with Chad Butler, Drew Shirley, Jerome Fontamillas, Jon Foreman, live, music photography, photos, switchfoot, Tim Foreman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Great set man … the WB adjustment worked out well for you man …. I wish I would have done a bit more of that myself….. anyway man good stuff and great shooting with you
Hey Corey,
Nice running into you at this show, thanks for the kind words. See you at Tegan & Sara?
indeed sir and maybe a few more before that …… just checked out the podcast you and your brother did man great stuff
Crazy lights, crazy fans, and energy exploding off the stage – photos of @Switchfoot at the Pageant: http://ow.ly/1oJgJy
Todd- Are you the house photographer for Pageant? Or do you just find yourself there more often on assignment? We have a similar venue here in Tempe (The Marquee Theater) where most of my assignments happen. Great set of Switchfoot shots.
Hi Greg,
I am not the house photographer for the Pageant, but the production guys have sometimes joked that I’m pretty much the house photog. No, the Pageant is simply a great venue that books a lot of the tours I cover on assignment and which I’m interested in shooting. Thanks for the comment.
Wow! These are great! Thanks for sharing.
Hey Joann,
Thanks for the kind words.
Hey Todd,
Love how crisp your images are AND how everyone has real skin tones not some funky vibrant staged lit face :D Thanks for sharing!
Hi Melly,
Thanks for the comment. There was some crazy magenta uplighting, so I did tame that in post-processing with a little white balance tweak. Otherwise, people just look like aliens, and I think the treatment still comes through with this WB adjustment. Thanks again.
Great shots Todd. I particularly like the second one. The fog on the left gives it this nice gritty feel. I also love how it shows all of the members of the band, and each looks like they are in-action, rockin’ out.
Hey Paul,
Thanks, that second shot is one of my favorites – there’s just a lot of weird stuff going on in regard to the subjects in relation to composition. I love when serendipitous things happen like that.
Exactly! There’s a lot of action going on, mostly chaotic, but that really makes the shot!
Hi Todd, great stuff and I have really enjoyed your site after following you on twitter. A question for you–in extreme low lighting (i.e.-concerts), do you use manual focusing exclusively? If you do use auto focusing, do you use the 51pt system via nikon, wrap around, etc? Thanks and I really appreciate all of the information from your website!
Jesse
Lexington, KY
Hey Jesse,
Thanks for the kind note. For live music photography, I generally use AF-C (Nikon) – AI-servo on Canon. I use the 21-point system on the D3, wrap-around off.
hay son los mejores !!!! switchfoot la mejor banda de el mundo
Thanks for the comment, Angelica. The band had a lot of fans at the show who shared your feelings exactly.
Hey Todd,
With a 3 song limit, how many pictures do you generally end up taking vs a no limit show?
Keep taking amazing shots! Your work is very inspiring and drives me to work harder.
Kayley
Hi Kayley,
It really depends on the band and conditions. If I’m shooting the whole show, I might take it leisurely and shoot just a 200 images or go full tilt and shoot nearly 2000.
For 3-song shows, it might be 20% of that.
Thanks for the comment.
Hey I’m shooting that tonight!
Hope lighting is a little more favorable though. You did a nice job compensating however.
Hi Justin, good luck shooting tonight. The light is tough, but there are enough neat elements to keep it interesting.
Yeah, I can’t say my photos are BETTER, but the lighting most definitely was: http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/switchfoot-house-of-blues-chicago
RT Switchfoot http://ow.ly/1oJgJy
Great shots Todd! I need to spend more time to learn how to set the camera up for these kinds of shots. I’ve shot Switchfoot in the past, but my pics don’t come out quite as nice as yours. I have close to the same equipment, so I am the variable in the equation. I admire your work!
Hey Steven,
Thanks for the comment. I may post what my very first shots out of the gate look like, but they may well be in the trash – the light was so bright that my “starting position” exposures look like there’s a flash grenade going off at the back of the stage.
Dial down the exposure, even a bright light can be tamed.
yes. the lighting for these shows looks great, but is consistently pretty difficult to shoot. especially when our LD lets the hazer go crazy. oh well.
http://www.switchfoot.com/blog/dailyfoot
andy.
Hey Andy,
Thanks for the comment, I remember seeing you in the pit.
Switchfoot had a nice production – I loved the challenge. It can be so hit or miss with dim lighting on tours, a band with any production at all can be refreshing.
Great pics! Switchfoot is my favorite band to shoot :)