The Sounds

Maja Ivarsson and Jesper Anderberg of The Sounds perform at Roseland Ballroom, NYC. September 17, 2009.

Whether it’s the high likelihood of taking the newest addition to my portfolio or just seeing how high Maja Ivarsson’s heels with be this time, going to see The Sounds in concert is something I look forward to every concert season.

While a little indie piece of me dies every time I hear one of their songs playing on the in-store-soundtrack at The Gap (I’m shopping at The Gap so how hipster could I possibly be?) I am both thankful and happy that the band’s popularity has risen to a level high enough to mean multiple visits in NYC – I’ve seen and photographed them four (4) times this tour!

I’m also happy their true headliner status gives them access to beautifully atmospheric light shows like the on at Roseland Ballroom this past week. Did I say I was happy about the light show? Well, mostly happy.

Photographer’s Notes

Lighting

I’d love to say that this concert photography shoot was both a pleasure and a breeze, but for those of you who know my work, the very fact that there are black & white photos in this set should tell you that this concert was a bitch to photograph (but very rock’n'roll). With marching orders to shoot the first three and the last three songs, I had high hopes for nice direct front lighting for at least one of the songs during the encore; it never happened.

Exposure

Whether by design or not, there was virtually no light on the faces of any of the band members and too much light behind them. The entire band was backlit for the entire show which forced my ISO up to 3200 and my shutter speed down to 1/15 of a second when shooting at f/2.8.

In stark contrast to my old Canon EOS-1D Mark III, which could not focus properly even in backlight daylight, my Nikon D3 did not seem to mind the difficult lighting at all when pared with the newer 14-24mm or 24-70mm or old 70-200mm zoom lenses.

About the B&W

For those of you who are wondering, the black and white photos were converted using a mixture of roughly R-90% G-10% B-0% in Photoshop’s channel mixer the artistic choice was between a completely red photo or a nicely toned b&w conversion that relied heavily on the red channel. I chose the later where I thought appropriate.

Thank Yous

Huge ups to The Sounds for putting on such an awesome show. Big love to Steven and Bethany for coordinating the shoot!

Related posts:

1. One from The Sounds
2. The Sounds
3. The Sounds
4. moe.
5. Sara Bareilles

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 am and is filed under Music Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.