I love a low light challenge!

I'm not going to lie here but my first love (besides my wife) has always been lighting design. It was only natural for me to fall back into photography because lighting is such an important aspect of it. In order to document some of my lighting designs (for theater, concerts and corporate events. You can see what I've done here and also on my main company website for Brilliant Events and Meetings, Inc.) I had to learn how to take photos under mostly low level lighting conditions - without a flash.

Initially, I used a point and shoot camera and would place it on my lighting console, set it to low light and then set the timer. This helped limit any motion blur that occurs when you press and release the shutter. Eventually, after I got serious with my photography again, I started using an SLR on a tripod. I still used a timer though for the same reason and not to mention it's hard to operate a lighting console for a concert AND take photos at the same time. Anyway, I feel this experience has helped me hone my low light skills and if you go to my music galleries you'll see where I got even more experience. Depending on the situation, I mostly shoot hand held but when I can, I try and use a mono pod to keep things steady. Image stabilizing lenses help even further. It's not cheating. It's using the right tools for the job.

Last night, I was back at the Indio Performing Arts Center taking photos for Palm Springs Metromix photographing the hip hop group OFWGKTA. I managed to come up with two favorite shots. It was a rare moment when the right lights turned on at the right time and I was able to get that split second composition to really capture the energy of the artist. The second image worked out great to and also gave me a laugh. The entire time during the concert, fans kept trying to climb on stage and where grabbing the artist. In a brief moment, the artist seemed to have this brief look of... well, judge for yourself!

 

Experimenting

I recently came across some event photos taken recently at a local club by photographer, Kyle Hendrix. He had taken photos in a way I never thought to for events and I was curious to find out how he did it. He never did get back to me with all of the details but I was surprised when he told me how long he "dragged" out the shutter speed, sometimes to over 1 second. Knowing the space he was shooting in, it explained why he was able to get the background to look the way it did and his flash(s) took care of the subject matter just great. The rest of the look, I'm assuming, was done while post processing.

So last Friday night while shooting for Metromix, I decided to experiment a little. So I kept my ISO down to about 500 (which can be low at the Red Barn) and set the time to about one second, aperture at around f/10 (which is REALLY small for the Red Barn) and snapped a few. Well, I'm sure shooting a portrait of people standing still would great but when you're photographing musicians who are all over the place... not so good. I of course got the ghosting I expected but I did get a little bit of a sharp subject matter. I didn't give up there though. I had always wanted to try a zooming technique. Basically, as the shutter is opened, I would change the zoom. Well all I have to say is, "way cool", especially when you have neon lights behind your subject! That's how I got the photo of "D" singing.

The next photo is "Mondo". I'm posting that here because, while I didn't deviate to much from my usual shooting style, I did have the shutter set at 1/10 of a second, where normally I'm at about 1/60th.

This allowed me to catch the ambient light behind him nicely. What I really like about this photo though is that I feel I captured "Mondo". He's got that big smile on his face and it's genuine. He loves performing and B Movie Superstars as a whole love being on the stage and singing their hearts out. The last photo is Martin, their lead guitarist. Here's a guy who would never look up while playing and when he does and I've got the camera ready... lol. I get the meanest looks but it's all in good fun (I like to think we're pretty good friends).

By the end of the night I already had what I needed for Metromix so I decided to have some fun and pulled the flash off the camera and attach the wireless trigger. I shoot with a Gary Fong Origami Fold Flat Diffuser attached to my flash and held the flash pointed so that the diffuser reflected light up towards Martin and slightly towards the wall. So even though the light was primarily an up-light, the wall acted as a reflector and filled in nicely from the side, still giving me the shadows I wanted on his right side.

Here are the rest of the photos from that night. The very first photo is an example of the first technique I tried.

Take care for now.
-A

-B Movie Superstars website-

What's up Palm Springs!?

Whew... What a day! I got in a little late to the office, did a little of this and a little of that, came up with a set design for India.Arie (lighting is next week) and grabbed a quick dinner and off to Indio for the El Dorado Desert Rock Festival (Benefiting ACT for MS) to take pictures for Palm Springs Metromix and myself.

I had a great time! I met a lot of new people and saw some familiar faces from the first time I went out and shot photos for Metromix and I believe I got many good photos of the bands that played this evening.

So you're probably wondering by now, who or what is Metromix? Metromix is a cool new website geared towards 21 to 34 year old adults who are looking for something to do. It's "your one-stop local entertainment guide on where to go and what to do in Palm Springs, from the hottest restaurants and bars, to the latest in events, music, movies, style, and TV". An opportunity came up for me to take some photos for them last weekend and I couldn't refuse. I basically take pictures of people having a good time out on the town, which is basically what my "Around Town" gallery is all about. You can see pictures that I took at the Red Barn in Palm Desert here and pictures from McCormick's in Palm Desert here.

The pictures from the rock concert are now up on the Metromix website.