Photos: Bloc Party @ The Pageant

The first and last time I photographed Bloc Party was in 2007, hot off their success of Silent Alarm. Fast forward six years three albums later, and it almost felt like a bit of a personal challenge to shoot these guys again—and to see what all those years of touring have done for the band’s performance chops.

Photographer’s Notes:

Cameras Used:

• Nikon D800

Lenses Used:

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

When I first started researching Bloc Party’s 2013 tour for production value, the few images that I found looked this gig would be very rough. Lighting looked like it came from low on the stage with little washing across  Kele Okereke’s face. Overall, lighting looks extremely dark and moody.

Thankfully, this was one instance where research was misleading. While lighting was moody, it was overall much more dynamic in person and ended up translating into still images quite well. This difference just goes to show what a difference in exposure can make in the perception of an event.

For this show, I used just one Nikon D800. I’ve done this for a couple shows here and there, for personal greed as much as for experimentation. On the greed front, it’s simply because the 36mp files of the Nikon D800 are just fantastic. There’s way more resolution that any event-based photographer would arguably ever need in these RAW files. That said, just because I may not “need” that information doesn’t mean that I don’t want it. Because I definitely want it.

The one downside to shooting a full 36mp file with ever click is that there’s a slowdown to image processing. But even with my geriatric Mac Pro, this isn’t a huge problem, and certainly not with strict editing process.

The other hardware-based limitation of the Nikon D800 for gigs is that it’s a relatively slow camera. Just 4 frames per second, which feels sluggish compared to the Nikon D700‘s 5 FPS in stock mode and then the increased 7 FPS with the batter grip. And yet, it’s still fast enough for a good rock show.

After using the D800 for live music photography over the last 6 months, I really have no hesitations about recommending it for gigs. It’s not a speed demon, but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in the ability to crop or make ridiculously massive prints.

Buy Prints, Spread The Love

Like these images? Order prints by clicking through from the slideshow below or the images above.

Help Support www.ishootshows.com

If this article or any other content on www.ishootshows.com was helpful to you, please consider supporting this site and grabbing your next photo gear purchase through one of my affiliate links:

• B&H Photo
• Amazon.com

Simply clicking through any product links on this site helps me bring you free content like the photography tips and gear reviews regularly posted on www.ishootshows.com, and naturally it doesn’t cost you a cent more. If you do grab some gear, drop me a line! I’d love to hear about what you picked up.

Tea Me

If you want to donate directly to help support and host www.ishootshows.com (and if there’s any leftover, keep me stocked in tea), you can contribute money to www.ishootshows.com via PayPal.

Comments & Feedback? Let ‘em rip.

Questions or comments? Leave a comment below, and let me know what you thought of this post.

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, February 11th, 2013 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with bloc party, bloc party photos, the pageant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.