In a triumphant return to the Pageant, Evanescence stormed the big club’s stage in a big ripper of a show that had the 2,000-strong crowd losing their collective mind over Amy Lee and company.
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Evanescence – heck of a show, but definitely a little tough to photograph in a lot of ways. For one, Amy Lee is in constant motion just about every single second she’s performing, either working the front of the stage or in some stage of a hair whip when her feet aren’t moving.
Lighting for this show was good in terms of brightness, so I shot at ISO 1600 at f/2.8 and at over 1/250, but the color balance for this gig was a little wild. Lighting was very cool overall, with blue gels over the spotlights and a weird mix of magenta and blue thrown in from the back. Still, nevermind these technical challenges, the production looked fantastic from the crowd.
Amy Lee works the front of the stage so thoroughly, I could have shot this entire set with just the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8. It was all in-your-face for Evanescence’s big return to the Pageant, and I had a blast shooting.
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This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with amy lee photos, evanescence, live music, pageant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hey Todd nice photos. Kind of an off-topic question I guess but I was wondering what the name of the image slideshow you have at the end of your post is called. Is it a WordPress plugin or a custom slideshow just for this theme? Thanks in advance and some really nice shots in here. The M83 shots look awesome too I’m glad to see you photographed them they’re an awesome band.
Amazing serie, Love the warm colors of the 3 one, brilliant as… usual… !
Thanks for the comment, Louis.
I envy you, I admit it honestly.
Great job!
Wow incredible series!!
Hi Todd!
These guys came to Springfield, IL recently as part of the Carnival of Madness tour, along with Chevelle, Halestorm and others. I was actually in a meeting for a teen-run section of the local paper, and didn’t even know if I’d be able to go.
When the meeting ended, I went over and bought a ticket, and walked in with my camera. Chevelle, the second-to-last act, had already started their set by then. I managed to get near the front by going a bit to the side, sacrificing a clearer angle of the stage for proximity.
I’ll get the bad out of the way: the biggest challenge I have is that my gear is not well-suited for low light photography. My camera, a Nikon D3000, has a maximum native ISO of 1600, and I have kit lenses – a 18-55mm that goes from f/3.5-5.6 and a 55-200mm tele that goes from f/4-5.6 – so it’s relatively difficult in that regard.
That being said, I think I did the best I could given the circumstances. Chevelle’s set was definitely a bit tough: they had warm mixes with lots of red and yellow with some occasional cool colors thrown in (at least for the songs I got to see – like I said they had already started when I finally arrived). However, they didn’t move all that much so that helped a bit. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely worked the crowd and stage a bit, but they weren’t dancing all over the place, which was helpful since dark and contrasty situations tend to make my autofocus have to hunt around a bit.
After their set and before Evanescence came out, I looked around to see if anyone I knew was at the show. Not recognizing anyone in my immediate vicinity, I began chatting with a security guard who happened to be nearby. I somehow managed to get on his good side, and when Evanescence finally came out he actually let me into the photo pit for a brief moment! I quickly fired off 2-3 photos in the few seconds I had before I was told by the rest of the guards to clear out of the pit. I went back and shot from the crowd some more, then went over to the other side to try to get a different angle.
Immediately, the guard on that side told me that DSLRs were not allowed and I was to put my camera away. I simply put it away in my bag and walked away, then went into the center of the crowd, squeezed my way forward through a few rows, took my camera back out, and kept shooting =)
Evanescence’s lighting was quite different from Chevelle’s. Lots of blue and magenta with a little white here and there, some flashes of warm colors every now and then, and an almost constant spotlight on Amy Lee. This was a huge help when shooting Amy, but I must say I wish some of the other band members had gotten some more love as they were only backlit almost the entire time.
One absolutely amazing thing was that some people in the crowd saw what I was trying to do, saw some of the photos on the back of my camera as I shot, and actually helped me out by moving out of the way and letting me get closer! I was shooting at one point when a guy turned his head and almost collided with me, and before I could even apologize he gleefully moved out of the way and let me move a good 3-4 feet closer. I also recall several people who saw me and shifted their heads and even urged others in front of them to do the same so that I could get a clearer shot (I’m a pretty short guy so this was invaluable to me).
I had a blast shooting the show and although I don’t have any images that could possibly hold a candle to your amazing work I was pleasantly surprised with what I did manage to capture.
Oh, and although I didn’t get to see Halestorm perform, I did meet them afterward by the tour buses. They were unbelievably nice and stayed out there hanging out with fans for over an hour, and made sure to get to almost every single person. In contrast, Amy Lee was brought out to sign autographs and hadn’t even signed a dozen of them and had only taken one photo with a fan when she was whisked away by security.
Also, just as a follow-up to my comment above – I was wondering if you might have any tips for nailing the focus?