first concert shoot

As you might or might not know, my boyfriend, Devin, is the bass player for a totally rad band called We Live in Public. The two guitar players/singers, Matt and Jaeson, had been writing original songs together for years and playing venues as a duo, or sometimes a trio, under the name A Perfect Fifth.

Matt Olson, Jaeson Day, Devin Burrow and Zach Denison (on the drums in the back)

Matt and Jaeson came to know Devin right around the time that FDR's Revenge, the band he had played lead guitar for, was beginning to fizzle out. Matt and Jaeson were looking to record some of their stuff with a full band sound, but they needed a bassist and a drummer who could learn their existing songs quickly. Devin began teaching himself to play bass, and Zach (previously a member of both FDR's Revenge and Providence, Devin's first band) joined in to play drums.

[Matt]

The rest was, as they say oh-so-uniquely, history.

SO. I had this nice new camera I bought for my photography class. Naturally I volunteered to offer my nonexistent skills and photograph the band at some of their shows. Unfortunately, the first show I attempted to photograph was at Mojo's, which, though it has a great sound system, has very VERY limited lighting.

[Jaeson]

I was pretty bummed once I realized this. Devin simply suggested that I use the flash. Flash photography isn't ideal in these situations for a number of reasons.

• Using a flash at a concert is terribly distracting to both the band and the crowd.
• The light that actually results is pretty atrocious. Combining colored flashing lights with a bright frontal flash just doesn't look good.
• Even if the coloring does turn out decent, it just doesn't look real. Who wants to look at concert photos that don't feel authentic?
  

So, basically I just played with my camera by using a ton of different camera settings throughout the night. Since I haven't been shooting much recently, I really don't remember which setting(s) worked the best. Anyway, these are the photos I ended up with. The lack of lighting resulted in a lot color variation as well as blurred motion, neither of which is necessarily bad since that's pretty much how your eyes view concerts.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, did I mention it was St. Patty's day? My beautiful bestie Megan :)