One of the nicest surprises of photographing Bon Iver was also being introduced to singer Kathleen Edwards, who opened the show with a beautiful and very well received set.
Aside from Edwards's gorgeous voice, the house was treated to some very nice lighting for the set as well. While it was a very simple treatment of three white backlights on the band and a mix of warm light from the front, the production looked as good as it sounded to this music photographer.
Photographer's Notes:
Cameras Used:
- Nikon D3
- Nikon D700
Lenses Used:
Even though the lighting scheme for Kathleen Edwards appeared simple, I thought it was fantastic.
Beautifully warm frontlighting made all the difference. There was a mix of uplighting and lighting from high in the rafters on Kathleen Edwards, and these lights were balanced in such a way that it created a lovely mix for the singer. Her bandmates were lit more simply, but still quite well, by warm light from the sides of the stage a bit of uplighting.
The lighting, for all its nice quality, was a bit dim, so I shot this set using f/1.4 primes with just a little help from the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 for tighter shots of Edwards. For everything else, the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and Nikon 85mm f/1.4 did very well.
While I always prefer zooms for the flexibility of composition, the 50mm and 85mm focal lengths worked well. If anything, I always try to make it a game when using primes – the objective is always to make images that don't appear as if there was any limitation in framing.
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