Chris's Blog: Photographing a local gig

Remember to click the images to see them at full size

On Friday the 27th of May 2011 I had the opportunity to photograph three local bands at a venue called the Shakespeare Inn in Saddler Gate, Derby.

The event was called the was called Fontana Sound System Goes BOOM!.

Photographing bands is something I'd never done before and really didn't know what to expect. When my daughter Becki and I arrived at the venue we realised that the performances were going to take place outside at the rear of the pub. Not initially a problem as it was a lovely Spring evening, however, it was about 20:30 and the light was beginning to fade rapidly. It wasn't until the first band started to play that it dawned on me that there was no stage lighting, only the lights that illuminated the pub yard. Any thoughts of photographing without flash went out of the window immediately!!

I knew I was going to have to swap between my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 and my Sigma 70 - 300mm f4.5. I tried a few without flash but even with the f2.8 and a high ISO the results were pretty awful even on the monitor of the D300s.

So I donned the SB-600 flash and set the camera to manual mode with a shutter speed set at 1/60th of a second I started to shoot the band. As I took the shots I varied the aperture setting and the ISO until I was happy with the results. I took 130 shots and got about 100 usable ones which I've posted on my photoshop.com Gallery and on my Carrington Imagery Facebook page.

Below are a few of my favorite shots.