Washington DC’s Darkest Hour brought a pummeling set of metal opening for The Dillinger Escape Plan. Paradoxically playing under the brightest lights of the night, this five-piece was a blast to photograph with the wide-angle.
Photographer’s Notes:
Plenty of frontlight and incandescent backlighting made this a relatively bright set; the main challenge for this show was the very narrow photo pit.
With the braces of the barricade pushed up all the way to the stage, moving in photo pit was an exercise in self preservation as fans thrust out metal claws and the band dominated the monitors.
While the stage wasn’t terribly high, the close distances made the shooting angles another problem to solve. I found that shooting slightly downstage – rather than straight on – helped minimize the steep angles.
For Darkest Hour’s performance, I rocked the 14-24mm f/2.8. Up close and personal like this, the ultra-wide is almost a necessity.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 at 9:55 am and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with 2010, darkest hour, dillinger escape plan, live, metal, music photography, thrash, tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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I hate to say it, but even the Nikon 14-24mmm wasn't quite wide enough for metal band Darkest Hour: http://bit.ly/dozkIQ
Jinkies!! There was hardly a pit, huh? How did you shoot with fans RIGHT BEHIND YOU? That must’ve been a crazy shoot.
Yeah, the pit was nearly non-existent. I’m happy it was there at all, but it was tough going. I was constantly ducking hands and arms during this set. And hair, since a lot of kids were just headbanging and doing hair whips, ha.
Nice! I’ve been wanting to shoot this band for a while… they’re always on tour so I’ll get my chance eventually.
Some of the best shots from this set are when the hands/arms of the crowd are in view. So epic.
These guys were a lot of fun. I didn’t go in knowing anything about them, but Darkest Hour had a lot of energy, and metal is always fun to photograph.
Yeah, the crowd interaction made for some nice opportunities. That was one good thing about the photo pit being so narrow – I could just crouch down and get a pretty nice perspective.
At least you had something of a pit. At the Worcester Palladium – upstairs – (in MA) there is NO photo pit if you want these kinds of shots. Literally at the mercy of the crowd. But these shots give me some ideas next time I’m there.
Metal shows without a photo pit – if you’re in the fray for that, I salute you.
you need 10-20 bro hehehe…
A fisheye would have been nice for this show, that’s for sure.
I hate to say it, but even the Nikon 14-24mmm wasn't quite wide enough for metal band Darkest Hour: http://bit.ly/dozkIQ