What do you get with a pretty packed venue, a beautiful late summer night, in a city that has such an amazing vibe, and an iconic band such as Interpol in stage? Well, if you are a fan, you get a pretty awesome night. If you are a photographer, you get pit access to photographing Interpol and blasted with strobes and loads of backlight. Or in other words, one of those shows that really makes you work.
I was having a discussion with fellow clicker Steve before the show about photographing seasoned bands in large arenas and how they simply give you the material and all you need to do is stand there and click, with clear and white light, almost posing in a studio…. compared to bands like Interpol last night were the lights add so much more to the show, but are a huge challenge for photographers. We all need to be challenged once and a while, no?
Here is a quick (15 secs) video I did for the medias’ socials that show how much fun the strobes can be. And yes, shame on me for doing vertical videos, but it is for IG Stories… I swear !!
*When shooting in strobes, I know many people can get sick staring at them trying to find their angle. I find that when I look through the viewfinder of my camera, the queasy feeling is lessened. 🙂
Does it mean high speed shooting? Sure, more than usual. Thankfully the band isn’t running all around the stage, so you can grab focus for the half a second the first strobe hits, hold your composition, and then fire off a few frames. It does mean checking once and a while to ensure that you didn’t only get dark frames. Here is a sneak peak of some image series shooting in strobes. I shot a total of 300 images during the show, slightly higher than my normal count.
The images were shot for CHOM 97.7 // iHeartRadio.ca . You can check out the full media gallery HERE
Below are some of my faves, and some exclusive black and whites 🙂
