June 25, 2009 – The Avett Brothers brought their bluegrass and folk-tinged rock show to the Pageant, delighting a wildly enthusiastic crowd with a 90 minute set that had fans on their feet and begging for more.
Photographer’s Notes:
The Avett Brothers were the opening act of the first concert I photographed, so when I heard that they were playing the Pageant, I knew I had to photograph the show. In contrast to the small bar/club where I caught them years ago, the Pageant offered the band a much larger stage and a much more sophisticated lighting rig at their disposal.
The stage setup for the band for this show was relatively tight, with a row of speaker monitors at the front of the stage and mics setup a few feet behind those. The relatively close space between the band members meant that clean angles were difficult at times, but nothing that a little maneuvering didn’t help. To this end, the Nikon 70-200mm was a great help for isolating band members.
For the most part, lighting for this concert was quite good in terms of atmosphere. Lots of cool backlighting contrasted very warm light from the front, while magenta and reds provided occasional accents.
While I started off shooting with the 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 primes, I later switched to the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8, bumping the ISO to 3200.
Here’s an overall shot so you all can see how the band is setup:
If you’re curious, here’s a snap from that first gig with the Avett Brothers:
End Notes:
Thanks to Stephanie for setting up credentials on this anniversary of sorts. It was great to photograph the Avett Brothers again, and especially satisfying to see that they have not only grown into larger venues, but with an adoring fanbase to fill them.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 10:15 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with avett brothers, concert p, concert photography, images, live, music, Music Photography, photographer, photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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My name is Todd, and I love the rock show. My work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, the New York Times, Alternative Press, Metal Hammer, Entertainment Weekly, and Billboard Magazine. I'm available for worldwide travel for editorial and commercial assignments.
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happy anniversary honey.
Thanks, Lucky!
I think my previous comment never made it here, or did it? Wordpress seems to have some sort of error.
Hey Lvynne,
I don’t think your previous comment made it – sorry about that. Would you mind reposting it?
Hey Tod,
beautifully shot as always! Send some of that lighting NYC bound :)
Most of our venues could use a decent light board operator.
cheers
Paul
Hey Paul,
Thanks for the kind words, great to hear from you. I’ll send you the Pageant’s lighting tech if you send over half of the Blender’s house lights – deal?
Tod sounds like a deal made in heaven
cheers
Great, I’ll send you a FedEx label. Even with half the lights, I think the Blender would still have best house lights I’ve seen for a club of its size.
Hey Todd, nice pictures this ones. I like the differents moods on each one.
A question, fast lens, like f/2.8 have better definition between f/5 and f/8 (in most cases, i guess that +1500 dlrs lens have a great definition in all apertures). Anyway, so, do you shoot in the biggest aperture possible? or do you close it a bit to get more definition and crank up the ISO?
That’s all for today, take care
Claudio
Hi Claudio,
Thanks for the comment.
It’s true; most all lenses improve with regard to sharpness and contrast when closed down one or two stops from maximum aperture. I generally shoot at maximum aperture with my zooms (f/2.8) for a few reasons.
1) Light is often at a premium, so I prefer to get as much light as possible to the sensor while still maintaining reasonable shutter speeds.
2) The zooms I use are quite good at f/2.8. I have no question about their ability to deliver at max aperture.
The times I do stop down are when I’m able to comfortably hit shutter speeds above 1/400 or so at an ISO of 1600. Aside from that, I’d rather have lower ISO or higher shutter speeds.
With my lenses, even on the D3 and D700, I’d rather shoot at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 than f/4 and ISO 3200. Sharpness and contrast are not a concern for me.
One problem I encounter often when shooting wide open is the shallow DOF, where often a potentially great shot is ruined because I’ll nail the guitarist’s headstock perfectly but his face is blurred. My favorite low light lens is the Canon 85mm f/1.2, which has a DOF measured in inches when cranked wide open. It has a slow AF due to the large amount of glass it has to move, so it can be very frustrating to see what I think is a great shot in the LCD of my Canon 50D, but when I open it in Photoshop the entire image is too soft to use.
What a paradox of fast glass: great speed, but speed itself isn’t valuable without precision. I was really hoping Canon would really nail the AF with the Mark II of that lens, though I hear it’s better than the Mark I.
With my f/2.8 lenses, I’m shooting wide open the majority of the time. With my f/1.4 primes, I’ll shoot between f/1.4 and f/1.8 or so. If I have the luxury of stopping down much more than that, I’ll just start shooting with my zooms.