Choosing the right camera settings for concert photography can be a daunting task, even for experienced music photographers. Here’s a breakdown of every major camera setting that I recommend for shooting live music.
A few months back I got to see the mighty, ever-reigning dinosaur kings of rock, the Rolling Stones. I had a general admission ticket and a small pocket camera, and arrived many hours early so as to worm my way clear up to the front.
The above video, titled "How not to be a photographer at a gig," has gotten a ton of attention over the past few days as it has made the rounds online. It shows concert photographer Aelle Lucà at a small gig really going at it with the flash and bothering (at the very least) the person who recorded and posted the video.
As you might imagine, the comments section for this video on YouTube quickly turned into a troll-fest of insults and negativity directed at Lucà. But as it turns out, this is exactly what the band wanted and asked for... and his photos turned out pretty darn well.
Have you ever heard of the "4 Seconds" Myth in Concert Photography? Well, probably not, because I made this phenomenon up as a play on words with the 4 Leaf Clover "Myth." The 4 Seconds Myth talks about the fact that there’s a maximum period of time at just a few concerts when you can in fact shoot at crisp, noiseless ISO 100.
Let me start by stating that I’ve been a fan of Montreal’s Slaves on Dope since the mid to late 1990s. Does that make a difference in the relevance of the rest of this blog entry? Nope. Just felt like saying that.
I’ve had the chance to shoot them a few times live and they are always fun to see…. and ever better to shoot! They were playing at the Heavy MTL festival this past August, early on the second day, and I made my way to the small stage to grab a few shots.
In some cases, it seems like the stars align, the sea parts and the universe itself conspires to help you get the perfect shot. That's sort of what happened to photographer Richard Crawley when he attended a Rolling Stones concert in the 1970s and wound up with the most famous shot he would ever take.
There have been several stories lately of musicians banning photography and asking fans to keep their cell phones in their pockets and enjoy the show. Most recently, Prince's "purple rules" had security guards at The City Winery in NYC snatching phones in mid-air and kicking people out.
The Unsound music festival taking a larger scale (though less aggressive) approach: festival organizers have banned photography and filming festival-wide, and are asking that festival attendees be the ones to do the enforcing.
It's become a pattern with musicians lately. In an attempt to force people to actually experience the concert they're attending, many musicians are banning photography at their shows outright. In the past, we shared messages put up by the bands She & Him, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Savages, all of whom are kindly asking concert goers to put away their darn cell phones.
The crowd surfing blow up ball at a concert isn't a new idea, but late last year HP and Almap BBDO took it in a new direction. As part of HPs "Making Memories Last" campaign, the company fit one of the massive concert beach balls with a high-definition camera and WiFi antenna.
Musician Beyoncé has a love/hate relationship with the camera; or maybe it's a hate/hate relationship. Regardless, her views on the subject came out at a recent show in Atlanta where the singer -- who has gone so far as to ban pro photography entirely -- told a fan to "Put that D**n Camera Down."
Photographer Jared Polin recently had the opportunity to photograph the musician Macklemore in concert. Fortunately, instead of just shooting the three song set and moving on with his life, he brought his GoPro along to give interested photographers a taste of what it's like taking photos from the pit at a packed out concert.
He put the above video together afterwards, adding his own commentary to give us some perspective of what exactly was going through his head as he tried to line up the perfect shot.
After posting a before-and-after of a concert photo she had taken and edited in Lightroom, photographer Kohl Murdock received several requests to post a tutorial on how exactly she edited it.
The photograph was taken at a Shiny Toy Guns concert and is a great straight on portrait of lead singer Carah Faye Charnow with the exception of the massive amount of red fill light plaguing the snap. This is a common problem with concert photos, and so we're as glad as everyone else that Murdoch obliged and created the tutorial.
In 1965, amateur photographer Marc Weinstein used a fake press pass to get police to escort him stage-side at the historic Beatles concert in Shea Stadium. Now, almost 50 years later, he has sold all 61 of the images he captured there for a whopping £30,000 (or about $45,500). The story involves a little bit of bravery, a little bit of trickery, and a lot of luck.
Music photographers in the UK have organized a boycott of indie band The Stone Roses reunion concerts (to be held this weekend) over a contract that they say is unfairly strict with their image rights. All press and music photographers are familiar with the typical restrictions that come with photographing an event or band, but the Stone Roses have asked the photogs to "assign to the Group, with full title guarantee, all Rights in perpetuity throughout the world..." A request for which the band was going to allegedly pay only £1 according to the first draft of the contract.
Here’s an inspiring and educational video in which Marc Silber sits down to …