Photos: Slayer @ Mayhem Fest 2012

Slayer are just one of those legendary metal bands. They’re one of those bands that don’t really “do” all that much on stage in terms of over-the-top showmanship, but who don’t really need to, either. Just give me Kerry King rocking a power stance and a little haze on the stage, I’m happy.

Photographer’s Notes:

Cameras Used:

• Nikon D3
• Nikon D700

Lenses Used:

• Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
• Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8

Slayer always have pretty moody lighting, with lots of colored accents. While the band themselves don’t move around a tremendous amount, one of the challenges I enjoy with photographing Slayer is that the lighting shifts enough to make things interesting.

Case in point was one moment in the first three songs when Kerry King came to the front of the stage (or as close as he ever did, anyway) and was blasated from above with intensely bright white light.

For me, this was a moment that could have been a nightmare. Normally with live music photography, a huge dynamic range isn’t all that much of a problem, at least not on the performers themselves. This scene was a little different.

While traditional wisdom in photography with negative film has been to expose for the shadows and to print for the highlights, digital is always a little different. And scenes like this are different still.

Personally, for a scene like this, all I really care about is the face of the subject, and in this case, Kerry King’s handsome mug. All the highlights can be massively blown as long as the exposure on the face holds detail for me.

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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 Tuesday, September 4th, 2012 at 9:26 am and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with 2012, festival, kerry king, mayhem fest, slayer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.