July 24, 2009 – Packing out the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, late-90s rock powerhouse Incubus threw down a fiery set that proved that they still have the chops and the stage performance that made them stars.
Photographer's Notes:
This was a last-minute shoot, but I'm glad that I got to catch this set. The ground rules for Incubus were a little different than normal only in the allotted songs – press shot songs 4, 5, and 6 instead of the first three. There was no real reason evident except that the second song was dominated by red lights, so perhaps the band's kind tour manager wanted to give us photographer's a break.
The lighting for this set was generally quite good. Instead of from the front of house, the spotlights for this show were included in the stage rigging above the stage, where there were a couple of spot operators aiming lights down at Brandon Boyd.
Boyd himself was a relatively easy subject in that he stayed at the mic for the vast majority of the time. The one real obstacle in photographing him was the inclusion of two ego risers flanking his mic at slight angles, which meant that waist-up shots were main take-away during Boyd's time at the mic. These ego risers didn't see too much use during the show that I photographed, but Boyd did sit on them between the second and third songs, which put him at his closest to the photo pit.
Aside from the risers, the main challenge in photographing Boyd was simply capturing his expressions. While this isn't really different from the task of photographing any other singer, due to Boyd's relative lack of movement capturing his facial expressions became heightened in the shoot.
Like their singer, guitarists Mike Einziger and Ben Kenney were relatively easy subjects as well and didn't move around too much on their respective sides of the stage.
I photographed this show primarily with the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 on the Nikon D3. The Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 was used on the D700 for a few shots, but, due to the relative distance of the band's setup, it didn't see to much action.
End Notes:
As always, let me know if you have questions about this set.
