Paper Tongues

What do you do when you’re the opening band and most of the kids on the front of the barricade have no idea who you are? If you’re Paper Tongues, you send out frontman Aswan North to spend the nearly the entirety of the first song rocking out on the barricade, winning new fans with every handshake and finger point.

By the time I left the photo pit after the third song, the fans were giving huge love to Paper Tongues. Mission accomplished, I’d say.

Photographer’s Notes:

This set was just as I feared it would be: dark. And yet, there was enough going on in the background to make things interesting with a little high ISO magic and marginal shutterspeeds.

While primes would have helped open up the darkness, I stuck to the f/2.8 for the dynamic range of focal lengths that were needed to capture this dynamic band. During the first three songs, nearly all of the members of Paper Tongues were in constant motion, which, together with the dim treatment, made for tough shooting.

Of course, with those challenges also came the rewards of capturing the band’s super-energetic live show. If it’s a choice between a bit of motion blur or skipping the shot, I’ll choose motion blur every time.

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 18th, 2010 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with Aswan North, opener, pageant, paper tongues, switchfoot, tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.