Critique on gig shots

StopNotWorking

Hello everyone

I started recently going to some open mic nights and following my musician friend around to get some practice at shooting gigs, would anyone here have some advice on what I can do better?












Also any recommendations on good band photographers that I could sponge some inspiration from would be very much appreciated!

.Longshanks.

Change the 's to

StopNotWorking

.Longshanks. wrote: »

Change the 's to

The rules said not to dump more than 4 images in a row so I assumed I would be better off just linking them. I'll change them now though

thebaz

firstly they are too dark , but more importantly they lack passion - have a look at Shay or Janers gig photos - to see raw passion ; passion & energy are the most important criteria for music photography . When you develop these , then you work on stamping your own unique take or style.
Keep practising , and as Gary Player said , the more i practiced the better I got.

magicbastarder

re the gary player quote:
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/14/luck/

Tiriel

Of them all I think the 4th one stands out to me. The others are not quite sharp, slightly off focus and too dark.

What settings were you using and what lens? The lighting setup there is probably not very strong, so your images are flat as a result - with stronger stage lighting you probably would have had more to work with. I think get in closer, frame the subject, look for more eye contact/engagement with the subject.

I've never done gig photography, so take all of the above with a pinch of salt - fair play for giving it a shot and keep it up!

dinneenp

As above the 4th one is the best.
1st could work in B&W with brightness pushed up.
2nd doesnt' work for me at all- spotlights distracting and
3rd- background too distracting and the shadow lines accross them too.
5th could have been good if you had his face.
6th- again no faces
7th- too much shadows
8th- push up brightness and crop out the guy on the left

for most of the others you don't have their faces in the photos.
maybe not the best gig to try as it seems that they were sat in front of the mike the whole time.

Shoot as high iso as you can, continous burst, in pp fix
Mess around, try different angles, slightly long exposure

There's a few people here who do some great gig photos, don't remember their names offhand- have a browse through random phiotos.

I've only tried a few gigs, many in Roisín Dubh in Galway which has awful lighting for photography- red lights. I haven't gotten any great results so far but will try again. Some photos here andhere

StopNotWorking

Thanks folks! Exposure wise my problem is the camera body, I'm using a 1d Mk II, High ISO is 3200 and looks like absolute crap so I'm stuck at 1600. The majority of those shots were taken at the bare minimum, 1/80 or 1/40 shutter speed(1/80 for the 85mm 1.8 and 1/40 for the 28mm 1.8 lens). Pretty much everything was shot at 1.8 or f2. (Pub lighting )

I could try bump the shadows up more in post but the extra noise reduction could make the images even softer. Thanks for all the tips though, I'll make sure get more clear face shots and maybe bother the venue to even out the lighting before sound check