Gold. Solid Gold. 08/29/2009

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Someone just sqeezed my arse. I'm concentrating on photographing dancers onstage so I don't react. The bastard squeezes me again, harder. I turn around, furious, and this short chick is grinning at me.
"I couldn't help myself!" she shouts over the music.
Eventually I figure out people at the Solid Gold parties are less likely to grab me if I wear a skirt instead of trousers. Something I haven't figured out how to stop is people grabbing for my camera. In normal situations this doesn't happen but alcohol seems to make people bolder. When someone shouts "You should be in front of the camera!" I need to tighten my grip and move the camera away immediately. It really annoys me but I can't be a bitch about these things. Heaps of locals go to the Solid Gold parties, everyone is a friend or a friend of a friend. And everyone is happily drunk.

That's me with the afro.

Solid Gold is a retro party. Everyone dresses up. The night is organised with dancers and prizes for best outfits. It usually sells out. Even the security seem to have a good time. My job is to photograph people, print out the photo immediately, and hand it to the subject. The best lighting is near the stage. There are heaps of different coloured spots and a mirror ball. I shoot using my speedlight, shutter speed at 1/13, ISO 800, aperture at 3.5. The slow shutter speed shows the ambient light with a little motion blur on the subject. I'm still tweaking to get this effect the way I like it.

I also photograph the dancers and the images are used on www.getout.net.au and www.solidgolddisco.com.au. Shooting onstage where the lighting is brighter; I kill the flash, up the ISO to 1600, shutter at 1/100 or 1/125, aperture at 3.5. The aim is to capture the strongest highlights. The dancers move around a lot, pulling faces as they mouth the lyrics. I shoot heaps of frames. Tiny details can wreck a great shot for me. If the dancer is halfway between facial expressions I can't use the shot.

I used some of the photos from the night on the Facebook fan page for Get Out in Byron Bay. Going with the retro theme for the night I made the shots into polaroids using the following steps:
1. Open image in photoshop
2. Create vignette around image
3. Flatten image
4. Create Curves adjustment layer and set to 'Cross Process'
5. Create new fill layer in 40% black above all, blend mode set to 'Hue'
6. Flatten
7. Convert image to LAB Colour
8. Apply Unsharp Mask to lightness layer
9. Convert image to RGB Colour
10. Place image within a polaroid frame found online
11. Add text
12. Flatten, save for web.
Read the full tutorial (minus steps 10 - 12) here.

Katie before

Katie after

View the full set on Flickr.

 

You don't have to turn on the red light. 07/31/2009

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As rock and roll (and jazz) is the devil's music what better colour to heat up a live performance.
Craig Bulley, ex-tour lighting technician.

At gigs, I am sometimes more interested in the kit held by other photographers than what happens onstage. Tonight, Fyah Walk play a sold out album release at the Northern. There's a guest list of 40 people and one of my mates grudgingly gave up their pass for me. While standing at the entrance I see a Canon 5D surveying the crowd. I am looking so hard at the camera it takes me an hour to recognise the human attached to it. It's Luke. I met him at a Gorillaz secret gig a while ago. Then, he was running around with a film camera, not having converted to digital yet.
Nice 5D, I say.
5D Mark II, he corrects me. He tells me about the lenses he has purchased and is about to purchase, thrown in with tidbits about his recent trip to Thailand. I'd be green with envy if it weren't for the red light flooding the stage. Luke tells me his polarising filter helps deal with the distortion created by red light. He shoots the drum kit to prove it, first without the filter and then with it. I can't see any difference, perhaps it works better on skin.

If you're not aware of this already, digital sensors are not a fan of red lighting. Red light beats detail into submission and turns subtle nuances into a glowing red shape. For example, a face would be a red oval with black eyes, black nostrils and a black gap for a mouth. It's the bane of any photographer's existence. Increasing ISO and decreasing aperture will only go so far. You can fix the issue in post - by shooting RAW you can adjust your settings to get a sharper image. My preferred technique for dealing with red lit images is to convert them to black and white. Of course, you could overpower red lighting with your hot shoe flash, at the risk of ruining everyone else's photo and temporarily blinding the performer.

1. Original. 2. Cooling filter. 3. Contrast and brightness. 4. Convert to B&W. 5. Remove mic.

I sulk about red lighting with Craig Bulley, an ex-lighting technician. He tells me that 'For special photo shoots we always added a couple of par 38 cans with blue gels washing across main stage front'. This would counteract the warmth of the red light and create a sharper image. Quality images are a priority at media flashmobs such as Bluesfest and Splendour, but not  at smaller venues.
The Nothern's backstage room is lit by a couple of fluorescent bars on the ceiling. I follow Fyah Walk vocalist Sonia in and shoot a few frames while she warms up with lead vocalist Simon and Stu (vocals, trombone, and Sonia's fiance). This is the highlight of the night for me - their vocals rise pure and strong in the small room, unobstructed by other noise. Soni and Stu embrace. Trumpeter and bonafide little person, Smurf, ducks and hides from my camera.
 
Onstage, Simon sings with his eyes closed and preserves his energy. At larger gigs and festivals you can only photograph artists during the first two songs. I keep to this rule as it pushes me to get the best shots I can as early as possible. Late into the set Simon opens his eyes, unravels his dreadlocks, and bounces around onstage gesticulating to a frenzied crowd. I grab my camera and climb onto a low wall encircling the sunken dancefloor. I get a few frames in before security ask me to get down.

 

Dark skin, low light. Nightclubs and WuTang. 07/07/2009

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24hr party people

In La La Land nightclub, four guys wait patiently while I repeatedly press the shutter. Repeatedly, nothing happens. I shift aim slightly right and the focus sharpens. Relief is evident on my face. One guy laughs and points at his mate, central in the image.
"It's because you're black!" he says.
How embarrassing. My camera is a racist.

Later, heavy-ass bass thunders into the street outside the Beach Hotel. There's a certain festive smell in the air. There's a lot of people in hoodies and a couple of women who don't seem to feel the cold. WuTang's Ghostface Killah performs backlit by eight gel spots and with a few spots on the ceiling in front of them. It is a high ceiling, the light isn't so strong. Low light on dark skin will mean working with a contrast level my lens doesn't like.

Ghostface, winking at me ;)

I'm behind the barrier with the marketing manager and two security guys. They get some action when the barrier shudders and shifts closer to us. I move to the side, one eye on the barrier and the other on the stage. Several times GFK and his troupe pose for me while my auto focus has other ideas. Setting the correct white balance (in this case flash or tungent), and using automatic focal point selection seems to remind the lens who is boss, but not always.
Another method I try is auto setting the focus then switching to manual, which retains focus wherever the auto set it. With the guys moving around onstage, this method isn't consistently effective.
Of course, there is the purist option of only using manual focus... but my eyes can't distinguish forms in low light either. I love old-school half circles to know when the focus is sharp, and my DSLR doesn't have this.

Y'all don't know what it's like, being male, middle class and white.

GFK lower the lights, people raise their phones and cigarette lighters in a minute's silence for Michael Jackson. They do it twice because most people don't shut up. The show finishes with the security guys helping 20 women over the barrier to dance onstage. I suspect their eagerness will quickly make them the subject of lyrical objectification. I hear GFK begin chanting about ladies getting their pussies wet. I see a few
of their triumphant grins become close-lipped smiles.
I stop shooting.

View the full set on Flickr.

 

Amity Affliction, Deez Nuts (all ages gig) 06/30/2009

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Break Even

“If you get a bloody mouth, you’re not gonna sue me, are you.” It’s more statement than question, as Deez Nuts vocalist JJ Peters shows his busted microphone to the crowd. All night, that microphone has been pushed against an assortment of mouths belonging to screaming teenage boys, who rush the stage and press their forehead against that of the leading man. Someone spies the microphone cap and passes it to Peters. He promptly drops it. They will sing with a broken microphone, and no-one will get a bloody mouth.

All bands on the list tonight encourage crowdsurfing, moshing and rushing the stage. Teenage boys emerge overhead like salmon swimming upstream. Two guys jump simultaneously. Their heads collide but I’m the only person wincing.
I’ve wedged myself front stage left between a couple of amps, thankful I remembered my earplugs. There is no photo pit or barrier. Crammed into the front row are two kids snapping away with DSLRs and Speedlights. At Bluesfest, I was warned not to use my flash - apparently it annoys performers - but the stage is poorly lit. There is an alternating bi-colour gel on one side, and a spot on the other. I’m trying to capture highlights with my 50mm lens, set to 2.2, 1/125 and 1600. The tour photographer has a nice looking wide angle lens with a Speedlight and a slave flash set up in a rear corner of the stage.

Deez Nuts

Deez Nuts, like Break Even before them, play a short sharp set of high energy rap-core (a mix between metal and rap). I hate any lyrics that degrade women and manage to tune out any time I hear ‘bitch’, but can’t help laughing at the song title ‘Your mother should have swallowed you”.
 
When they finish, our ears are greeted by Lady Gaga. The kids sing and dance along, the irony of contrast not lost on them. The boys wear t-shirts that say things like ‘Bitch You're Dead’ and ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck cancer’. The girls are grunge/glam with flannelette shirts, pretty heels and ribbon bows in their hair. The teens are self conscious in front of the camera. The girls squeal… then fix their clothes and stare off into the distance. The guys duck and point at someone else… then begin play fighting. The older crowd is the type who’d look interesting naked – inked flesh peeping out below shirtsleeves, collars and hemlines, metal dots sparkle in their faces. 

Crowd Surfer

Lady Gaga fades into Black Eyed Peas, stage crew dim the gels and turn the spotlight away from the stage. Oh no. I’ve just lost my ambient light. The manager shrugs at me. “The band (Amity Affliction) asked for it,” he says. I resume my place on the stage's edge between the amps. A crew member tapes a nearby keyboard stand to the floor. When he does the same to the drum kit, I realise onstage may not be the safest place to be.

From sidestage, I am disappointed with the shadows my flash throws on the white walls and am within swinging distance of the guitarist. I move to a desk against the side wall, I want aerial shots of the moshpit. A circular gap has developed behind the front rows, and guys are running around in it, crashing into each other. There are three other people standing on the desk with me, and after a few moments I feel it break beneath us. Luckily, it still holds us, and I jump off feeling like the proverbial straw on the camel.
I call it a night.
Outside, I pass parked cars with waiting mothers, their faces lit by mobile phones.

See the entire set on flickr.