Photos: Angels & Airwaves

Performing under bombastic lighting, Angels & Airwaves thrilled 2,200+ of their fans at the Pageant in support of their third studio album, Love. While the dynamic stage treatment was a nice challenge, the big lights won out in a show that rewarded the patient photographer.

Photographer’s Notes:

Angels & Airwaves set on this tour can be characterized by two major lighting elements: warm uplights and strong backlighting. Combine these factors with seemingly unpredictable elements of both and Tom DeLonge’s rapid movements on stage when not at the mic, and the music photographer has a nice, juicy challenge on stage.

Overall, lighting was just about right for ISO 3200 work and f/2.8 zooms, though there were certainly points when light levels dropped below this threshold. Still, the fast AF lock of my primes and the flexibility of variable focal lengths ultimately won out against any promise of light-gathering speed.

With all the difficulties, this was still a great show for any music photographer. Where there are big lights, however fleeting, there are also big rewards. I found that the lighting for the set was most forgiving during the third song, when the warm uplights shifted to a cooler, more neutral balance and mixed nicely with the background lighting.

End Notes:

Check out the set from Say Anything opening for AVA at this show here:

Say Anything @ The Pageant

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 Monday, April 19th, 2010 at 11:53 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with 2010, angels and airwaves, blink 182, live, music, music photography, pageant, pop, rock, tom delonge, tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.