I have always wanted to shoot this band. A great looking front woman, high energy, a great look and nice lighting. Well, I finally got my chance but it was a lot harder than it looked. Mainly due to the predominantly backlighting during the show combined with a really fast moving subject and the barrage of flashes going off in the audience. This was a show that I assumed I would have plenty of light for and wouldn’t need to go above ISO 800, yet I found myself at ISO 3200 for most of the show.
When it comes to shows that are predominantly backlit the problem is that the front of the performers end up being underexposed and getting any detail in the faces is really tough. I used spot metering mode as a guide and worked hard at waiting for the right moment to shoot. The the next challenge was that this band moves a lot, especially Grace. She runs around the stage on her high heels and switches between the keyboards, vocals and guitar with ease but left the photographers trying to keep up with her in the photo pit all a little frazzled. One technique I used was to shoot from the middle of the pit at a low angle with a wide angle lens capturing as much as I could in a single frame, then doing some cropping in post production.
Here are the Grace potter and the Nocturnals shots:
The full gallery:
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