New York Music Photographer Chris Owyoung - The Best Concert Photography & Band Portraits » gramercy theater

A Few from the Circle Pit

chris — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:43:57 +0000

Photos from the mosh pit at Decrepit Birth's performance at Gramercy Theater, NYC. November 7, 2009. (photo by Chris Owyoung)

Metal is almost a spiritual experience for a lot of fans. Nowhere else is this more evident than in the circle pit. While I don’t recommend that music photographers jump right in unless they a) have both camera insurance and b) feel pretty confident that they can stiff-arm a 175lb dude doing the windmill, I don’t think the mosh pit can be ignored when documenting the scene.

All of these images were taken during Decrepit Birth’s performance at Gramercy Theater using the 14mm end of the Nikon 14-24mm. ISO was high, shutter speed was low and a single SB-900 was used for the main light source.

Decrepit Birth

chris — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:08:52 +0000

Decrepit Birth performs at Gramercy Theater, NYC. November 7, 2009. (photo by Chris Owyoung)

Decrepit Birth writes some of the most lyrically bleak songs I’ve ever heard. Taking into consideration that they’re a death metal metal band, this is a good thing. As depressing as their written content may be, their performances are anything but – they kick some serious metal ass.

The band’s dynamic live show owes much to the stage presence of lead vocalist Bill Robinson, who keeps a level of pace and hype that is rare well beyond the confines of the genre. Intensity, thy name is Bill.

Photographer’s Notes

Shooting metal shows is hard enough without the sickening knowledge that you’re missing a money shot every millisecond your camera isn’t pointed at Bill Robinson.

Decrepit Birth was in the middle of a lineup of six bands. As you can see from the examples, I was doing a much better job of balancing the flash with the ambient light. Check out the concert photos from Warbringer and Augury for my lens choices and camera settings.

Augury

chris — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:18:25 +0000

Augury performs at Gramercy Theater, NYC. November 7, 2009. (photo by Chris Owyoung)

If you’ve never heard Augury‘s precision shredding, furious double drumming or ridiculous bass lines, the rapt concentration depicted in many of these photos won’t do the Canadian prog metal monsters the justice they deserve. If you’re familiar with how intensely technical guitar and drum work applies to the genre, you can probably tell that Augury completely destroyed.

It’s refreshing to see a band that clearly cares more about nailing the riffs than it does about the amount of hair it can swing (although as you can see, Augury bassist Dominic Forest, succeeds at both).

Photographer’s Notes

As I did for Warbringer, I shot primarily with the 14-24mm and 24-70mm zoom lenses with a single SB-900 speedlight on-camera. Exposure was set at 1/60 – 1/30 at ISO 2000 shooting at an f-stop of either f/3.5 or f/4.5. The flash was set mostly to TTL minus 1 EV in matrix metering mode.

Warbringer

chris — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:03:20 +0000

Frontman John Kevill throws me the horns after Warbringer's epic performance at Gramercy Theater, NYC. November 7, 2009. (photo by Chris Owyoung)

To say that Warbringer brings the pain is an understatement of epic proportion. The band’s performance is more accurately compared to the end result of a brick of C4 strapped to a bunny rabbit – bye bye bunny, bye bye.

That isn’t to imply that the guys in the band aren’t amazingly nice. As the lead shot is evidence of, charismatic frontman John Kevill is all about the fans. Warbringer’s set was incredibly fun to shoot.

Photographer’s Notes

Shooting with a single SB-900 on-camera, I had a lot of fun playing with the ratio of flash power to ambient light. As usual, my strategy was first to set a pleasing manual exposure for the ambient light and let the flash do the heavy lifting when it came to lighting the subject. I had my work cut out for me in frontman Jon Kevill whose on-stage energy seems boundless. Keeping up with him was hard enough without adjusting the exposure on the fly.

I ended up with a background exposure of 1/60 – 1/30 at ISO 2000 shooting at an f-stop of either f/3.5 or f/4.5. The flash was set mostly to TTL minus 1 EV in matrix metering mode. This worked well for the most part except when the ambient light went to black and the flash tended to overexpose slightly.

Shooting all six metal bands on the ticket with flash confirmed three things for me. 1) Shooting with flash is light shooting fish in a barrel. 2) You don’t need to shoot in bursts to get awesome stuff. 3) As long as you’re obeying rule #2, the performers don’t notice the flash at all.

Angelspit

chris — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:38:59 +0000

What is Feme-Fronted Australian Industrial music like? If you said “I have no idea but it’s probably covered in a $h!tl0@d of latex” you answered correctly. The Aussie industrial duo Angelspit is currently touring in support of KMFDM.