October 16, 2008 – Fingers flying over the ivories of his grand pinao, Ben Folds performed to a sold out crowd at the Pageant.
Photographer's Notes:
Press were allowed to photograph the first 30 seconds of Ben Folds' first three songs, for a total of 90 seconds of allotted shooting.
While I had heard about such restrictions for other artists, I was quite surprised to hear about it for this show as I checked in with the venue personnel.
Ben Folds' piano was positioned halfway to the back of the Pageant's relatively deep stage, with a speaker monitor at the right side. Due to the configuration, I relied primarily on the Nikon 70-200mm to close the distance, though the Nikon 24-70mm was used as well for a few wider angles.
Rather than change lenses in the very short shooting windows, I used two camera bodies for this shoot, the Nikon D3 and D700, which was a huge boon.
Lighting for this set was reserved, with washes of blue and red, while Folds was lit with warm, faintly orange light for much of the first three songs. Exposing for a bright frame helped cut though some of this effect, aided by the high ISO performance of the new Nikons.
