Taking Concert Photos: Think Different
Oct 12th, 2007 by jeremy
Taking concert photos really can be a lot of fun; hopefully you get that sense from me as I cover so many topics on how you can hopefully take better photos. Of course not everyone goes to a concert with this in mind, though for me it is a big part of the experience. Yeah, there is some good music going on as well, but how is the lighting for photos?
Especially if you attend more than one concert for your favorite entertainer, you may quickly find that many of your photos start to look the same. I know, you may really like the guy, but there only so many closeups and singing at the mic shots, right? Well, not necessarily. After you have the basics done, then comes the fun part where you get to stretch your creativity, much like the artist is on stage.
I have mentioned before the importance of watching lighting and really anything else in the scene that is going to enhance your photo. You can take things a step further though and move your positioning of the shot, even turning the camera on an angle. We are so ingrained to thinking that we need to make sure all lines follow what we expect, namely a perfectly flat horizon, that we often think anything different is just plain wrong. Welcome to the creative world where we love to break the rules.
Though you may end up with some photos that do just plain look wrong, you may surprise yourself with what you capture at times. Try turning that camera on an angle. How about getting super close and low (like running up to the stage that you normally do) and take a super wide shot. Instead of going directly up to the center of the stage go clear off to one side and get some interesting profiles or even interactions with other fans. There are many possibilities that you can try.
So next concert you are at, try to think a little different. You may be pleased with the results.
Canon 20D, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 1/80 at f/3.2 and 400 ISO
Wow Jeremy, I’m finding out more and more about concert picture taking. How much of it I can actually apply (this senior brain has one thing on its mind….close up…LOL…just kidding!) with a lower end camera (S3 IS) is another matter. Its more like its hard to teach an old dog new tricks…:o) But I love being able to try to capture different pictures of Donny….its often hard to click at the right moment…like when Donny does his 1 during Love Me For a Reason. I found your leaving the flash off article very interesting and plan on trying it to capture more lighting effects. Thanks for all your tips.
Jeremy,
I always appreciate your advice. Will try some of your techniques. Thanks!
Super unique pix of Donny.
Jeremy
First of all you always take great pictures of Donny
Thank you for sharing them with us.
and most of all I ‘m learning alot from you to be a better pictures taken
Thanks, Linda
Keep up the great work
ok jeremy! i went in october to a marie osmond & the osmond brothers concert & tried thinking differently when taking my pics! so ya i just got around to posting them in my flickr account but i want to see what u think!
http://flickr.com/photos/22825687@N07/2194197016/
stephanie =}
Stephanie - Great set of photos! I like how you tried different ideas on your composition, especially on that first one you link to of Marie.
One suggestion, if you have access to Photoshop or any other photo editing program that will let you adjust the white balance try to make some adjustments for it. Your photos are appearing a little green on my monitors, which can easily be adjusted to perfection. It also may be that you have your photos uploaded in Adobe RGB color profile; you can fix this by first converting the color profile to sRGB to get the colors right when you upload to flickr. I might write a bit about that sometime soon.