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Concert Photography: Tutorial Series

Concert Photography: Gear Guide
How-To: Metering & Exposure, pt. 1
How-To: Metering & Exposure, pt. 2
How-To: Shooting with Telephoto Lenses
8 Tips for a Great Photography Portfolio

17 Comments Add your own

• 1. Keith  |  August 4th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

  Todd, this is one HECK of a set man. So many sweet shots as well as great lighting work. I love the shots of the bassist and guitarist just drenched in blue. So cool. Awesome atmosphere.

• 2. Todd  |  August 4th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

  Hey Keith, thanks for the feedback. These guys were a lot of fun to shoot, weren’t they? Draiman especially had fantastic energy, and the set as a whole had no shortage of mood/atmosphere to capture.

• 3. Chris  |  August 5th, 2008 at 12:23 am

  Man — 2 and 5 are so rocking. [2 actually reminds me of one of Keith's... go figure, haha]. And the one of the guy head banging his sweat right into your front element (and I imagine your face…*shivers*) is so crazy amazing (hey — we do what needs to be done to get the shot, right?). The one right after it seems really flared out with contrast and a little “too” clipped, but at the same time I feel it kind of adds to the atmosphere. The lights look really nice — fromt the white ones on Draiman and getting into nice red-orange hues [but not too bright to affect colour] on the bassist. And, although I feel a little torn on this shot , I feel like it has a lot of energy and was still great to add to the set.

  Keep these sets COMIN’! Can’t wait for more, Todd.

• 4. Todd  |  August 5th, 2008 at 12:31 am

  Hey Chris! Thanks for your picks, #2 is my favorite from this set. I think it must have been made at the same time as Keith made this shot, though Keith was a few steps to my right and went with a wider angle.

  About that sweat shot, part of me was recoiling in horror while the other half was moving in as close as I could against the stage, ha.

  The lighting was very high contrast and much of the white light came from spots pointed nearly straight down, as you can see in some of these shots, which lent a very “hot” feel to many of the images.

  I do like that jump shot you picked out, maybe I’ll add it into the set. Thanks again.

• 5. Zach  |  August 5th, 2008 at 12:39 am

  This set is all kinds of awesome. Disturbed ain’t bad either. I really like the comp in #9 and the lights in #11. Some really sick captures here man, really sick. Nice variety of shots, excellent use of lights.

• 6. Todd  |  August 5th, 2008 at 1:09 am

  Hey Zach, thanks for the comments and your picks. On #9, that was later on during the set – while most of the lighting had some white light thrown in, that was a really interesting mix of deep color washes.

  I know one of the lighting designers who was working this tour, maybe he can chime in on this set. He and his crew did a fantastic job with all the effects, all the main stage acts looked great.

  Thanks again.

• 7. Celso  |  August 5th, 2008 at 4:32 am

  Ouch, I heard you won a free bath somewhere during a concert… :P At least you got something out of that. A great shot indeed and as already said, the overall of this set is just amazing! What where the overall values?(ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed)

  Best Regards.

• 8. Todd  |  August 5th, 2008 at 8:22 am

  Hey Celso, thanks for the feedback. I’ve given up on trying to baby my lenses, I figure I will have to clean the 14-24mm eventually. The front element of that lens is starting to look like a Jackson Pollack painting.

  Regarding the tech stuff, I shot the entire set, so the exposures were quite varied. What I can say is that light was not a problem for this set, especially for Draiman. I was able to stop down and keep very comfortable shutter speeds, all at ISO 1600.

• 9. Keath  |  August 5th, 2008 at 8:39 am

  Good job in what looks like less than ideal light conditions! Did you have to do much work afterwards to brighten images, etc or is this pretty much how they came out when shooting?

• 10. Todd  |  August 5th, 2008 at 8:57 am

  Hey Keath, thanks! I didn’t do too much post work on these. I don’t really have time to make many corrections and try to nail exposures at the time of shooting.

  I do convert all my images from RAW and will tweak the exposure if necessary, however.

• 11. Tasha  |  August 5th, 2008 at 9:14 am

  This whole set is amazing - especially that blue light! I can’t wait until you post more on Flickr so I can favorite them :)

• 12. Todd  |  August 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am

  Hey Tasha, thanks! Yes, there was a lot blue during this set, which worked nicely with the background smoke. Just posted a few more to Flickr and I’m sure I’ll make public a few more over the next week.

  Now I just have to get to the shots from Lolla…

• 13. Celso  |  August 6th, 2008 at 12:51 am

  Does that mean there will be no slipknot? :(

• 14. Todd  |  August 6th, 2008 at 1:32 am

  Ha, I’m working on the Slipknot write-up right now, in fact…

  Just a little while longer!

• 15. Chris  |  August 6th, 2008 at 1:34 am

  What?! C’mon Todd, god forbid you take a week or so to post shots! You only spent 3 days in Chicago spending your hours photographing bands, and you only have another job you need to work — they shoulda been up right away! Haha :P

• 16. Todd  |  August 6th, 2008 at 1:46 am

  Ha, Chris! I am multi-tasking, actually, simultaneously processing shots from Lollapalooza and also writing a sentence or two for the Slipknot write-up.

  What can I say, I’m a slacker. ;)

  I’m determined to finish processing all the shots from Lolla tonight, though, so you can expect write-ups to start rolling in from those performances late this week or early next week!

• 17. Slipknot @ Mayhem Fest | &hellip  |  August 6th, 2008 at 1:54 am

  [...] tremendous performances by Disturbed, DragonForce, and Mastodon on the main stage, Slipknot came to deliver the deathblow with an all [...]

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