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

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.

Evanescence

chris — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:03:01 +0000

Amy Lee of Evanescence performs at a secret show at Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom. November 4, 2009. (photo by Chris Owyoung)

Before playing to a crowd of 40,000 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Evanescence performed an intimate “secret show” to just over 1,000 diehard fans from the New York area. Tickets reported sold out in 5 minutes. Though the band performed beautifully throughout, Amy Lee’s stripped down piano solo Good Enough (from Open Door, 2006) stole the show. Evanescence is currently writing material for release in 2010.

PHOTOGRAPHER’s NOTES

Whenever my enjoyment of a band’s music predates my job as a concert photographer, I put more pressure on myself to do my best work. While I compete with myself every time I enter the pit, the mental stakes are always higher when I’m a fan of the band. I would also like to think that the more I like the music, the more potential there is for killer photos.

Since Amy Lee is both the frontwoman and the only founding member in the current Evanescence lineup, I naturally focused on her for the lion’s share of the first three songs. As I do with every band I shoot, I did my video and still research and knew that Lee would have me running from one side of the pit to the other hunting for the sweet spot angles around her often double-handed microphone grip. If this sounds like a lot of work, it was.

Since I don’t like the distortion on the 14-24mm for female leads, I shot mainly with the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR. The standard zoom was wide enough for full-length shots while the telephoto gave me the reach I needed to shoot downstage.

The lighting, while not ample, was often good enough to produce a decent exposure at ISO 2000 and 1/300 and f/3.5.

If you have any questions or if you just like the photos, leave a comment.

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Good Enough

The Gaslight Anthem

chris — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:17:46 +0000

The Gaslight Anthem performs at Terminal 5, NYC. October 15, 2009.

When frontman Brian Fallon told the crowd that the band had “slept in a lot of dirty places to get to the show” last night, the crowd erupted in applause. Though the guys hadn’t necessarily had access to a working shower recently, the fans didn’t seem to mind; New Yorkers trekked to the far west side in the worst weather this fall to see their hometown heroes tear it up at Terminal 5. New York City loves The Gaslight Anthem and Gaslight loves it right back.

Move photos and shooting notes after the break.

Photographer’s Notes

Having just dragged 35 pounds of camera gear across town in the rain, I was pleasantly surprised to see a bright and beautiful The Gaslight Anthem backdrop adorning the stage. I knew this probably meant that the band would have enough lighting for the signage at the very least. As luck and the lighting designer would have it, virtually the entire band was covered in nearly white light for most of the allotted three songs.

Gaslight played a hugely energetic set that had the fans going nuts and every photographer in the pit begging for more time.

I shot mostly at ISO 2000 on the Nikon D3 with a shutter speed of 1/160 at f/2.8 – little to no exposure compensation was necessary after the fact.

Lens Use:
Nikon 24-70mm – 70%
Nikon 70-200mm – 25%
Nikon 14-24mm – 5%

Shout Outs

A huge thanks goes out to Jon for hooking up the last minute credentials.

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.

Band Portrait: August Burns Red

chris — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:02:20 +0000

Band portrait - August Burns Red - Nikon D3, 14-24mm. ISO200 at f/10 and 1/50

Hot off our series of band portraits at Vans Warped Tour, Todd and I caught up with metalcore savants August Burns Red for a quick shoot on-location. Shooting notes after the jump.

Photographer’s Notes

Dont’ let the tats, crushing breakdowns or death growl scare you, the guys from August Burns Red are incredibly funny and generally awesome to work with.

As always, Todd and I our band photography Nikon style, employing several different configurations of speedlights using CLS to trigger. The lead image is lit by an SB-900 fired through a 15″ softbox, high and camera left. Another SB-900 fired into a 45″ silver umbrella was used for fill, high and camera right. Accent lighting from the back and side was provided by a pair of SB-600 units fired bare. The lighting ratios were controlled by an SB-900 in Commander mode on-camear.

With almost no ambient light left in the day, a shutter speed of 1/50 was necessary to let a little bit of atmosphere into the shot.

The money shot

Band Portrait - August Burns Red - Nikon D3, 24-70mm. ISO 200 at f/11 and 1/80

The tightest shot of session came during Todd’s setup below the dock.

Behind the Scenes

The BrOwyoungs light it up with Nikon CLS

After you’ve got the framing set, that lighting rig looks a lot like this:

Portrait of Chris Owyoung, music photographer

End Notes:

Thanks to August Burns Red: Jake, JB, Matt, Brent, and Dustin and additional thanks to Josh for coordinating the shoot, and to Ricardo for introducing us.

Warped Tour 2009 – Individual Portraits

chris — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:13:10 +0000

Jake Reed of TAT shows me his pearly whites.

One of my favorite aspects of music photography is photographing individual artists. Don’t get me wrong, photographing entire bands is awesome, but whether you’re trying to properly position the founding members of the group or make sure to photograph the drummer from his good side, band shoots often governed by rules and roles to play. On the other hand, individual portraits leave a lot of room to either get very serious or have a lot of fun. The BrOwyoungs did a little of both on our visit to Warped Tour. All of the good stuff after the jump!

Lighting Info

Straight up Nikon CLS. Without exception, the lighting setups for these photos were the sames as the Warped Tour group portraits.

Shooting Notes

Some of the best portraits come from knowing when to offer direction, when to egg someone on and when to shut up and shoot what’s in front of you. We photographed a lot of inidividual artists, here are the highlights:

TAT

Jake Reed, Tatiana DeMaria and Nick Kent get frighteningly close to the Nikon 14-24mm

Nick Kent shows me "The Guns"

Tatiana DeMaria

Nick Kent

Jake Reed

Ricardo

TAT with Scary Kids Scaring Kids

Yeah, that will leave a mark.

Chris Depew of Single File

Joe Ginsberg of Single File

Joe does his best "Home Alone"

Chris Depew of Single File

Chris goes metal on metal

Robert Ortiz of Escape The Fate

Jason Evigan of After Midnight Project

Spencer Bastian and Christian Meadows of After Midnight Project

Alana Grace

Warped Tour 2009 – Band Portraits

chris — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:37:27 +0000

After Midnight Project photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

So you’re standing backstage at an all day music festival with a bucket full of Nikon speedlights, a brother who happens to be one of the premier music photographers in the world and a few hours to kill – what would you do?

If you answered correctly, you’d shoot the hell out of whatever band was in front of you and lather, rinse and repeat until you find yourself slumped over your plate of shoestring cheese fries in a suburban Steak ‘n’ Shake at 1:00am.

As luck would have it, Todd Owyoung and I did just that at the Saint Louis stop on Warped Tour, 2009.

Shooting Conditions

With the exception of TAT, who we photographed on two occasions that afternoon, we averaged roughly 6 minutes of shooting time per band. Setup time ranged from just 3 minutes to about 10. Shocked? Horrified? It was insane but after all, it was Warped Tour.

When you’re in the challenging situation of having back to back shoots scheduled hours on end either you get very good at setting everything up or you end up pissing everyone off and going home with a lot of people who think you’re unprofessional and no photos.

Lighting Info

For anyone who wonders whether the Nikon CLS system has enough power for daylight use, here is the answer – most of these photos were taken under the full intensity of the afternoon sun.

As many as 7 nikon speedlights were used for each portrait. In general, at least one Nikon SB-600 was placed behind the subject with one SB-900 on either side of the subject. An additional SB-900 was fired into a small softbox (for more examples see my portraits of The Energy and Todd’s portraits of Dragonforce) that was boomed overhead. Additional SB-600 units were added to the existing setup if more power was needed. All of these speedlights were configured as remote flashes.

The output of the each group of remote lights was controlled by an on-camera SB-900 in Command mode. The ability to change the output of three groups of remotes without running around to adjust each light made the shooting process extremely efficient.

Alana Grace

Alana Grace photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

Alana’s photos were taken in a shaded area just outside the press room. For this specific shot, a silver reflector was used to for fill, held low and camera right, just out of frame. The Nikon 70-200mm lens was zoomed to 160mm and stopped down to f/3.5, which gave the photo a pleasing background blur (bokeh) while maintaining a high level of detail at the point of focus.

Big D and The Kids Table

Big D and The Kids Table photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

With a total of 9 band members, Big D and The Kids Table was one of the most difficult portraits to pose. Taken after dusk, almost all of the light in this photo is courtesy of the remotes. The background would have been completely black if not for the slow shutter speed of 1/20 at ISO200. I liked how the flare from rear lights added accent to the edge of the frame.

As you might infer from their name, everyone from Big D and The Kids Table is incredibly nice in person.

Conditions

Conditions photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

Even though we only had a few minutes with them, the guys from Conditions were great to work with. My favorite thing about this photograph is the how “Hollywood set” the tool shed looks. Earlier in the day we were kicked out of this very area because one of the venue staff couldn’t imagine “why anyone would want that shed in the background.” She went on to suggest we take all of our photos inside where there were “plenty of nice [blank] walls.”

Escape the Fate

Escape The Fate photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

I was eager to shoot Escape the Fate as they were one of the very first bands I ever photographed live. Since my photos of that show were nothing short of horrible, I was glad to have another crack at them.

Forever The Sickest Kids

Forever The Sickest Kids photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

When I discovered a discarded floor-standing sign frame in a pile of junk, I knew there was only one band capable of doing it justice. After shooting a few “normal” photos of FTSK, I threw this in front of them and they knew exactly what do it. Todd got in close on this one with the Nikon 14-24mm stopped down to f/13.

Single File

Single File photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

Don’t let this understated group shot fool you. Despite a long day of rocking out, the guys from Single File cut loose for their individual portraits (I’ll be posting individuals from nearly all of the bands).

TAT

TAT photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

TAT takes this year’s award for Band Most Fun To Shoot at Warped Tour. Whoever said that brits are known for their dry sense of humor clearly never met Tatiana, Nick or Jake. Despite dislocating her knee cap during the band’s live set and being bitten by Pouyan Afkary of Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Tatiana brought humor and poise to every frame we shot. If that weren’t enough, Nick and Jake took turns outdoing one another with facial gags and rock attitude.

This photo, shot between a pair of tour buses, came from the second of two sessions with the band. A group of three SB-600s were ganged up behind the band with a diffused SB-900 for key light overhead.

TAT and Scary Kids Scaring Kids

TAT with Scary Kids Scaring Kids photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

You don’t have see the group hugs or the wagon circle of tour buses to know that Warped Tour is like a gigantic traveling family. TAT dropped by our session with Pouyan and Tyson of Scary Kids Scaring Kids and we had to get a shot of everyone together.

One of the most amazing things about the Nikon 14-24mm is how sharp it is across the entire frame – not something one associates with a zoom lens let alone an ultra wide. It allows the photographer to get right in on the action without worrying about image quality on the wide end. This shot was taken at 14mm, just inches from the band and it’s tack sharp all the way out to the sides.

If I can remember correctly seven different speedlights were used for this photo.

There For Tomorrow

There For Tomorrow photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

There For Tomorrow was one of the first bands we photographed. The guys kept their cool despite the fact that Todd and I put them inside a smelly recycling container that had been cooking in the 90 degree heat for hours. “Don’t lean up against the walls guys, they’re sticky.”

TV/TV

TV/TV photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

Our shoot with TV/TV tested the limits of the Nikon CLS system. Shot in full sun, the speedlights had plenty of reasons to fail (overheating + infrared interference) but they didn’t. Although the background of the unedited shot could have come down a stop, it wasn’t anything a 5 second pass with the burn tool couldn’t fix.

Westbound Train

Westbound Train photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

What are the chances that a ska band with seven members will all show up on time? Better yet, what are the chances that all of them remember to bring their glasses? Westbound Train, it must have been fate.

We The Kings

We The Kings photographed backstage at Warped Tour, 2009

We The Kings was definitely the fastest shoot of the day. Two minutes to set up, two minutes to shoot. Thanks for squeezing us in guys.

Behind The Scenes

Band Photography with Nikon CLS Speedlight System

Todd Owyoung tests the lighting rig before the photo shoot with Westbound Train

Chris Owyoung makes final adjustments before Todd Owyoung's photo shoot with TAT

Thank You

At the end of a 14-hour work day, there are a lot of thank yous to be given. Thank you to all of the bands for coming out in the heat, playing your asses off and then pulling it together for awesome photo shoots. Thank you to whoever in the catering staff decided to put those wafer-thin slices of lemon into the fried shrimp poboy sandwiches – absolute genius my friend.

Finally enormous thank yous to Todd and Bethany – without your numerous talents and steadfast friendship, none of these photos would have been possible. You will be paid in full with boom-holding and ice cream when the time comes.

Stay Tuned

Be sure to check Todd’s website of concert photography for his take on the day. Also check out the highlights from the Vans Warped Tour 2009 individual portraits.