New York Music Photographer Chris Owyoung - The Best Music Photography & Band Portraits » terminal 5

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.

Metric

chris — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:49:42 +0000

June 17, 2009 – One of the best bands to form in this city and then leave, Metric performed to an absolutely packed Terminal 5. Fronted by the dynamic Emily Haines, the band performed material from their newly released album Fantasies as well as some of their more popular songs. Metric are at their best on this current tour!

PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTES

I’ve been listening to Metric for years and they’re one of my favorite bands to listen to as well as to photograph. I had the privilege of meeting the band last year at All Points West can say that not only do they craft great songs, they are incredibly nice people. It’s not very rock’n'roll to be nice, but hey everything’s nice in Canada. =)

The first three songs were lit by a strong blue wash with warm underlights. As the band found their groove, the lighting was punctuated by white hotlights from behind. Though all of the band members rocked out continuously, the best lighting during the first three fell on Emily who alternated between her keyboard and a freehand mic. The overall quality of light was pretty poor, I was able to shoot at ISO 2000 with both the 50mm f/1.8 and 24-70mm zoom lenses on the Nikon D3.

Cut Copy

chris — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:37:36 +0000

If you like Cut Copy’s albums, you’ll love their live set. With elegant instrumentation and hard hitting beats, the Aussie trio simply doesn’t disappoint. Add to this mix an opening set by Matt & Kim, a killer light show and a few thousand dancing fans and you’ve got yourself one hell of a concert.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTES

Cut Copy’s set was one of the more difficult I’ve done lately for no other reason than challenging lighting.
The special LED light rig used on this tour is capable of a wide range of colors but emits very little quality light. The result is largely dark photos with one or more of the RGB channels completely blown. The color casts are so extreme that they cannot be corrected for using the kelvin color temperature settings on camera – they must be left as is or dealt with in post as I have for a number of the images above.

In cases of extreme color casts such as these, I generally try to find either a less extreme white balance setting or a neutral color point from which to completely normalize the color. The neutral point could be the silver mic head or even the whites of a musician’s eyes.

I shot with the 24-70mm and 70-200mm on the Nikon D3 at ISO 3200 and f/2.8 at around 1/250 of a second.

Matt and Kim

chris — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:09:15 +0000

March 21, 2009 – Matt and Kim proved that they can rock a crowd of hundreds or a sold out crowd of thousands with their performance ahead of Cut Copy at Terminal 5. The Brooklyn duo shattered synth keys and punctured drum heads in support of their new album Grand out now on Fader Label. If you’ve never experienced the insanity that is a Matt and Kim show, go. Go now.

Photographer’s Notes

Although you wouldn’t necessarily know if from the photos, the lighting for this set was a dismal mix of strobes, backlighting and red wash. Luckily the Nikon D3 files are as flexible as they come. I shot for the first three songs with no flash and took a few shots from outside the pit on stage right.

My exposure ran roughly from 1/250 at f/2.8 and ISO 3200 to as low as 1/60 at the same aperture and ISO 3200. Although ISO 6400 is totally usable, I generally avoid it if the actual quality of the light is poor.

In all honesty, Matt and Kim are best photographed with flash in smaller venues with fewer rules. They crowd surf, go even more nuts, the fans love it and the photos are a lot more exciting.

My Favorite Matt and Kim Video, “Daylight”

Tom Jones

chris — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:33:26 +0000

02.24.09 – The Terminal 5 marquee read “move over Justin, Tom Jones is bringing sexy back to NYC.” Of course, it didn’t actually say that, but given the screaming horde of panty-tossing women, it might as well have.

Dressed in a black tuxedo jacket with his trademark combination of chest chair and gold jewelry, Jones’ soulful 1.5 hour set confirmed that at age 68, he’s still a sexual behemoth with the pipes to back up every iota of his swagger.

Tom Jones is currently touring the US in support of his new album 24 Hours. The album, on which he has song writing credits, is his first US release in 15 years.

Photographer’s Notes

When I heard that Tom Jones would be performing at Terminal 5, I had to go. The man is a legend and Terminal 5 is about the best venue in NYC to photograph his type of show.

We shot from the pit for first two songs of the set. Tom was lit by a warm spot for most of the allotted shooting time. His 12 piece backing band remained in shadow at the back end of the stage.

The Nikon 24-70 and 70-200 got equal time on my D3 for this one. The 24mm end of the standard lens came in handy for the half and full-length shots while the 135mm point of the telephoto was necessary for the downstage and head shots.

As you can see from the full-lengths, Tom Jones is a pretty big guy. The angles from the pit were a little severe for my tastes.

My exposure fell in the range of ISO 3200 at 1/250 and f/4 for the majority of the set.

The main issue with this shoot was the spot light on the man himself. Whatever light they used was inconsistent enough to create as much as a 2 stop difference between frames. The “flicker” of the light was fast enough not to be noticed by the naked eye but slow enough to cause a big difference in exposure from shot to shot.

The spots also seemed to have a negative effect on AF performance. Even though there were plenty of keeps, I noticed a much higher rate of out of focus frames. Two other photographers at the gig (one canon, one nikon) confirmed this.

End Notes

I’d like to give a big thanks to Miya and Nick for coordinating a great shoot.