Concert Photography

Wiener Blut Live at ((Szene)), Vienna

Hello there,


I love concert photography, I love it for at least three reasons that come to my mind now - I love the music and I love to capture emotions during musicians’ performances, the more action on the stage the better, and I like challenges of low light photography. On top of you have a good chance to be able to show your pictures to wider audience. Especially if bands like your work, they will be sharing your pictures to promote themselves. Eventually at one stage it can even pay off.

Mojo Blues Band at Metropol, Vienna

I started with concert photography about year, year and a half ago and have kept climbing the ladder into getting better (technically) and getting access to larger venues and finding work for different magazines, or promoter, or simply bands themselves. Since I am a fan of heavy metal and hard rock and simply rock obviously I directed myself into this area while looking for ways getting myself in. In this way I can enjoy the music and the show and work at the same time. However I noticed when it comes to shooting and I am fully concentrated on framing shots, anticipating movements, and photographing I hardly remember the music itself. All that stays are visuals in my minds but cannot really say what the first three songs were. Typically you are allowed to shoot only first three songs but it varies with bands and their management style and promoter and venue. Small clubs in most of the cases do not care and you can shoot all you want. With bigger halls, first you need to go through hell to get accreditation to even get in with the camera and then you are strictly limited three numbers in most of the cases.

John Petrucci of Dream Theater, Gasometer, Vienna

So the question is how to get accreditation and photo pass. Well you need to approach the organizers or promoters first. Even when you find the link and contacts the first question you will be asked: “For which medium, or for whom are you shooting?”. And of course if you do not have a magazine or newspaper or other organization behind you, the chances of getting accreditation are weak or basically close to zero.  Seems like a hopeless situation, you want to photograph concerts but nobody wants to let you in. To work for magazine you have to have something to show to editors (a portfolio) in the first place but you do not have one. Crazy. So looked around clubs around me and sent number of emails to local music magazines and web portals owners. In some cases I even got response! Even when it was negative it was still response. I hate sending mails to black holes.

John Myung of Dream Theater,
Gasometer, Vienna

Started with small clubs and simply worked on connections. Connections are the key in this music business. This is one of the things I learnt so far. Once people get to know you things are getting better. After 20 or 30 gigs I already had something to show and kept looking further, your pictures are visible on bands’ sites, and portals and your name is attached. I also offered help to few music management and booking companies to cover some larger events, especially during high festival season they need more photographers than usual. Over time this pays off (not money wise unfortunately) but at least now when you call a promoter asking for accreditation you can say you shoot for these or those guys. And now your chances are much higher. Still really big shows are difficult to get in. Promoters very much limit access to photographers, always first on the list will be printed local media, magazines, then other music companies, and perhaps then music web portals. And they hate press agencies unless you are Reuters or something like that. So patience, hope,  and stubbornness are needed. And of course in between shooting all that is available to shoot.

Screw (Japan), ((Szene)), Vienna

If you look at shootings in small venues, like clubs they brings you one more benefit. You can really learn and practice extremely low light photography. Typically such places are poorly illuminated from photographers’ point of view. In Most of the cases bands are back lit and the most popular colour of floodlights is red, which looks horrible on photographs. You have 100% red face, in many scenarios with burnt highlights and completely black background. Sometimes you can recover them sometimes not and then the only solution left is to convert the picture into black and white. I tend not to use flash but in some situation it is a must. But even then I try to blend ambient light with flash, even pulled back by 1 or 2 stops only to barely illuminate faces. It is better to learn not to use flash, especially that when you get to larger stages, flashes are forbidden in the fist place. After few club shows you will already know the extremes and how far you can go with your high ISO settings and what sort of shutter speeds can be used. As to shutter speed of course you have to take into consideration musicians’ behaviour on the stage. You can get away with 1/30s but you might have to jump all to way to 1/500s and still not freeze the motion.

Mike Portnoy, Adrenaline Mob
((Szene)), Vienna

I typically start with 1/125s with f/2.8 and ISO 6400 in manual mode and go from here depending on the situation. Depending on the performance style I use either continuous focusing or one shot focus, and almost always set to single focus point which I keep changing according to the scene. If I need higher shutter speed I pump up ISO to 12800 and sometimes to 25600. I am not worrying too much about the noise. I prefer to have sharp image with noise than blurred one without too much noise. 80% of times this works, then you wait for flashing lights and keep shooting. I try to anticipate the lights when and how they flash and with what colour.

This is my method, others for sure will work their own ways. And once you gain access to real venue and real pit with photo pass, you will notice how much different lighting situation can be. In some cases I was able to go down all the way to ISO 1600 and shoot with 1/1000s. This was something. Especially when you shoot with 200mm lens and can see through singer’s eyes and picture is crystal sharp and crystal clear and fantastically exposed. In terms of lenses I start with 16-35mm then switch to 24-70mm and change to 70-200mm. If I have three songs then I am covered from all possible focal lengths. I especially like 16mm on full frame. Even from the pit you can cover quite large area of the stage. Shooting vertical with 16mm also creates great visual effect with huge musician's feet right in front of you and then he as a whole looks like sky scraper.

Combichrist, ((Szene)), Vienna.

Sometimes even slightly moved image can still look great... see the drummer here. Shot at 1/320s and he was still too fast to freeze him. In any case I love this shot or its energy!

There is no one clear path and I keep looking for it and for the time being I simply keep shooting and learning every time. There are few gigs in coming weeks and I am looking forward to each one of them. As always great learning opportunities, especially that I still have very long way ahead.


On top of everything it has to bring you fun and you must enjoy it.
Some of my LIVE work at Jerzy Bin Photography website

Cheers
Jerzy