I had no idea what to expect with Soul Descenders, the first of four bands playing for Story of the Year’s CD release for The Constant. As it turned out, these boys rocked out like guitar heroes. Hair whips, on-the-knees-shredding, and powerstances.
Robert Trujillo of Metallica would be proud.
Music Photographer’s Notes:
As I tweeted just after their set, I do love photographing metal. There’s an inherent energy in the music that has the capacity to translate into really dynamic concert photography. And even if the stage treatment is dark, that kinetic power manages to still come through.
In addition, it’s always a nice surprise to be basically blown away by the first act of the night. Sure, the night was pretty dim, but when a band’s frontman goes down on his knees at the edge of the stage to shred, lighting takes a backseat to buckling down and nailing the shot.
Besides, red light is pretty metal. ISO 6400, f/2.8, and 1/40 got the job done.
As I’ve mentioned before, I think there’s a really nice freedom that can come with photographing opening bands. The same lack of pressure to deliver or even skip the set can be used to push through the challenges of bad light and crazy motion to bring home something more lasting.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with live, metal, music, music photography, pageant, photography, soul descender, story of the year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hair whips, on-the-knees-shredding, powerstances that would make Robert Trujillo proud. And they were the openers. http://bit.ly/dtPVvX
Todd, I love shooting metal shows also. It’s nice you were able to overcome the low lighting and red to boot! Great job!
Hey Eric, thanks for the comment. The red/magenta light for this gig was intense, but I still had a lot of fun with this performance and it was a nice way to start off the event.
Wow, an ISO of 6400, and I was cringing at using my max of 3200. Metal shows ARE a lot of fun. One of my favorites was Arch Enemy – something about a chick rocker is amazing to shoot.
Let me ask you something, as it’s something I struggle with: Does the harsh red light ever bother you? I sometimes worry that I’m losing the integrity of my shots when they’re soo overpowered by red, and it just seems that so many of my shoots are drowning in red (partly from the venues I’m working with, and partly the music genres I feature…) How much post work did you do on these shots?
Great images, though!
Hey Diana,
All things being equal, I’d prefer not to shoot with lighting like this. But red light isn’t going away in live music photography, so I’m not going to cry about it (too much).
With regard to post, I simply cooled the WB of the images to help tone down the immense red and magenta. Two sliders, two clicks.
Fantastic as always Todd.
I had to jump aboard and comment on just how wonderful metal shows are to shoot. I personally had the opportunity to shoot Behemoth a few months back, and while their musical style may not be my cup of tea, the absolutely incredible amount of energy the guys poured into every second of their performance was just a sight to see. Even more lucky, I got to shoot during their ENTIRE set, after a little bit of chatting with security.
I’m not surprised you had to crank it to ISO 6400 for the shots of this opening band, as its common for the lights to be far less extravagant than they are for the headliner. And the motion blur on the bassist’s hair from shooting at 1/40 is a great effect as well.
Hey Christopher,
Thanks for the kind words. Knowing this venue, I wasn’t surprised at the light for these guys either. I was, however, impressed by how well Lightroom 3 beta dealt with the WB shift that helped add more depth back into the images.
1/40 second? Metal? And results like that? Jeezus. I just have to ask how many shots you had to take to end up with that many keepers? :-)
Hey Eystein,
Due to the wide angle, the slower shutter speed wasn’t too much of a problem for the times I used it – not all the photos were shot that slow. Thanks for the comment.
Wow!!! ISO 6400 and noiseless!?!?
Dude, I must confess: I’m pursuiting this results.
Congrats!
Hey Luciano,
Thanks for the kind words, though I have to say that a lot of it is the small size of these images. The D3 and D700 are good, but there is still some luminance noise here. What those two cameras are very good at is quite low chroma noise.
How do you manage to keep the 14-24mm speckle free during shows like this? The head-banging, the sweat, the bulbous front element.. what do you use?
Hey Chad,
I have to regularly wipe down the 14-24mm every season, as it’s simply impossible to keep it spotless after a show. That front element is just a magnet for split, sweat, and water.