Initial
Thoughts
My tutor gave me a
brief for this assignment at the end of my feedback for Assignment 2.
I had previously expressed my interest in gig photography and, after
seeing my concerns noted in my learning log regarding my decreasing
interest in photography through the past few modules of this degree
pathway, my tutor thought that this would be a good opportunity to
use my interest and try to re ignite my photographical spark.
My initial brief was
to concentrate on a specific band. To spend a month shadowing them
and photographing all aspects of the band interaction from promo
shots to portraits and from rehearsals to performances. On reading
this brief, I started to worry and panic as it was not possible for
me to make that commitment. My circumstances did not allow me to
undertake it due to not having a great deal of spare time or money as
well as difficulties with travel and childcare.
I emailed my
concerns to my tutor explaining that it was just not possible and
that I had a few gigs coming up to see some different bands locally
and whether I could use one of these gigs for the assignment. His
response was positive. He suggested gaining access to the venue
beforehand and possibly to use the transformation of the venue for a
gig as a story, or even a small event or festival. “As long as
the work sits together as a whole, by focussing on one band, venue or
event as opposed to just using a collection of random photos of
gigs.”
So I interpreted my
new brief to be:
Cover
an event using photographs of the performances to illustrate it, in
the style of a music website or music magazine article.
Research
Gig
and event coverage in rock music magazines is something that I am used to
looking at as a viewer. Through magazines such as 'Kerrang'
and
'Rocksound',
I understand the final layout and the type of photos that I am
looking to produce. I bought the latest copy of Kerrang and also Rocksound to
give some examples of how they cover gigs and music events. They have
a section at the back which shows the latest live gig coverage that they have reviewed and they tend to be one/two vertical page(s) or half a vertical page
for each gig (see images 1a-1g). The review layout will include pictures of the all bands that played the gig, the headliner and usually either two or three support acts as well.
I know from previous magazines that they cover festivals in a slightly different way. They make more of a feature out of it, using the cover page as an insight, then maybe having two or three double page spreads inside the magazine as well. I don't have any of these issues but I did have a look online at the webpage to see if I could get find any examples but they only show the cover and a selection of pages from inside the previous issues. I did, however, find an example from their 'Download Festival' coverage edition where you can see the usage of images on the cover (Image 2) and also from their 'Sonisphere Festival' coverage edition where we have an example of the front cover (Image 3) and one of the double page spreads from inside (image 4).
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| Image 1a - Kerrang Issue 1568 May 16 2015 Scanned |
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| Image 1b - Kerrang Issue 1568 May 16 2015 Scanned |
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| Image 1c Double page spread found in Kerrang Magazine online archives found at http://www.kerrang.com/magazine/ |
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| Image 1d Single page/half page spreads found in Kerrang Magazine online archives found at http://www.kerrang.com/magazine/ |
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| Image 1e - Rocksound Magazine Issue 200 Scanned |
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| Image 1f - Rocksound Magazine Issue 200 Scanned |
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| Image 1g - Rocksound Magazine Issue 200 Scanned |
I know from previous magazines that they cover festivals in a slightly different way. They make more of a feature out of it, using the cover page as an insight, then maybe having two or three double page spreads inside the magazine as well. I don't have any of these issues but I did have a look online at the webpage to see if I could get find any examples but they only show the cover and a selection of pages from inside the previous issues. I did, however, find an example from their 'Download Festival' coverage edition where you can see the usage of images on the cover (Image 2) and also from their 'Sonisphere Festival' coverage edition where we have an example of the front cover (Image 3) and one of the double page spreads from inside (image 4).
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| Image 2 - Kerrang Magazine Online archives - K!1522 edition found at http://www.kerrang.com/19183/k1522-download-festival-essential-action-rock-heaven/ |
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| Image 3 - Kerrang Magazine Online archives - K!1524 edition found at http://www.kerrang.com/19771/k1524-sonisphere-ultimate-guide/ |
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| Image 4 - Kerrang Magazine Online archives - K!1524 edition found at http://www.kerrang.com/19771/k1524-sonisphere-ultimate-guide/ |
The
event that I am looking to cover is a gig headlined by American band
'The Birthday
Massacre'
with support acts 'The
Red Paintings',
'The Dead Betas'
and the farewell gig of Bristol band 'Her
Dark Embrace'.
All the bands are of an alternative genre, mostly rock but also punk
so the magazines mentioned above are the correct genre and style of
magazine for the music, and a good idea of what I need to be working
towards and give me an excellent reference point to the the of images
and layout I should produce. As I have mentioned, the examples above tend to have all the acts within the one review, except in festival reviews, and for the assignment I need to be producing four double page spreads to I will be using one band per double page spread for the purpose of this task.
Ideas
and Pre gig thoughts
Where I find gig
photography fun, we have to remember that I am still not actually a
professional photographer. There are a few points that I need to
think about before even getting to the gig.
First off, we have
the venue. Luckily, I have been to the venue before on more than one
occasion and I know that they allow DSLR cameras inside. But the
previous gigs I have been to there have been with bands that I know
and I was unsure of the policy if the band was 'bigger' and more
popular, like this headlining band may be. I sent a quick email to
the venue via their webpage and have a swift response to confirm that
me taking my DSLR would not be an issue on the day. The venue itself
is small with a small stage. There is no photo pit, like you get with
much bigger venues, and as I will be a paying customer, I knew that
my position inside the venue would make a difference to my shots, so
I aimed to be near the front to be able to get suitable shots from
within the crowd. I wouldn't be given any access priority to take
photos.
As a second point, I
knew that the venue had a unique feature. Numerous floor to ceiling
pillars throughout the floor which can create visual disturbances.
So, not only would I need to be near the front but I would also need
to place myself in the middle section, in a middle point to the
stage, as to attempt to get shots without a big black pillar down the
shot.
Finally, gig
photography is synonymous with bad lighting. I knew that this venue
did have better lighting than a lot of other venues that I have been
to but only if they use their selection of lighting colours and not
just the dreaded red light.
As for the bands, I
had only ever seen the first band before so I was used to their stage
presence but the other three bands I had no idea about. I was
expecting there to be numerous band members, instruments and possible
a lively stage act, but I couldn't really prepare for that until the
day. You Tube allowed an insight into each band to try
to help with what to expect but I guessed it would all depend on
stage size, etc.
I only have one
camera at the moment, my Canon 1000D, so that was my equipment for
the gig. I was worried about the lighting as well as my close
proximity to the stage so I decided to go for my 50mm F1.8 static
lens as it lets in the most light but the only downside is that it
doesn't zoom in if needed. I took my 18mm-55mm lens as a back up.
My plan was to
capture photos of each band with as many images as possible of all
band members. Also to get as many varieties of photos as I can. The
final project will have more than likely only have one or two photos
of each band so I would like to have a good choice of images the
choose from as opposed to all the photos looking the same.
I would like to
create a magazine cover as an opener to the story, so I need to think
about fonts and layout for a cover as well. Then I can use the
references to the magazines in my research to arrange double page
layouts for inside the magazine too.
Undertaking
the photography
On arrival at the
venue at the time stated on the tickets, the queue was already around
the block and only got bigger as the doors didn't open on time. It
also didn't help that I was feeling really unwell the night of the
gig so I wasn't in the best of sorts either. On getting into the
venue, my first observation was that they had removed all the tables
and chairs from the floor, this highlighted to me that they were
expecting this to be a very busy gig and had a high attendance. I
managed to get to stand in the middle of the stage, just slightly off
centre to the right and only three rows back from the stage. But this
also meant that there were three rows of other people in front of me,
some tall too. However, I was in a fairly good position.
Unfortunately, the room filled up really quickly, so manoeuvrability
was out of the question and I knew that I wasn't able to move around
the venue to get different shots from different angles.
The first band, Her
Dark Embrace, were good and not too active but a good chunk of
their first few songs embraced the dreaded red light. Thankfully
there was some lighting colour variety towards the end of their set
to allow for some better photos. I couldn't see the drummer at all as
he was off to the left of the stage behind the guitarist and their
bassist was off to the right side of the stage and seemed to be
permanently hidden behind one of the black pillars.
The second band, The
Dead Betas, were a lot more lively and were very active on stage.
But again, it was very difficult to see all of the band members due
to the pillars up at the front of the stage. The crowd was a lot more
lively too which made it difficult to lift my camera at times as we
were all squeezed in and the venue only got busier throughout the
night.
The third band , The
Red Paintings, were an equal mix of active and mellow with the
added bonus of on stage artists. This is where a very tall lad
managed to to wiggle into the small gap I had purposefully left in
front of me and this made my task even more difficult as I was even
more squeezed in and had a head right in front of my camera!
The final headlining
band, The Birthday Massacre, were extremely popular and the
amount of people in the venue had dramatically increased by the time
they took the stage. There were a lot of band members on a small
stage, with their instruments, and the dreaded pillars hid a few of
them. The fact that I couldn't move around mixed with that meant that
I couldn't get great photos but I got the best I could during the
first few songs. Then I moved to the back of the room to get a final
overview of the room while the headlining band were on stage.
I also managed to
get a photo of the venue name while it was lit up in the dark before
leaving. It looks much more atmospheric in the dark than in the
daylight so Im happy I got that shot.
Uploading
my images and making my selection
Altogether I took
approximately 581 photos at the gig and uploaded them all to my
computer. I then imported them all to Photoshop Elements Organiser
under 'All Photos' then subcategorised them into each individual
band.
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| Selection of Her Dark Embrace Images |
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| Selection of The Dead Betas images |
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| Selection of The Red Paintings images |
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| Selection of The Birthday Massacre images |
Then was the task of
sifting through each image and pulling out any with bad lighting, too
much blurring, any that were out of focus and ones that weren't
really magazine worthy. I needed good, clear photos with some
atmosphere in them, I didn't want shots that were 'bland', they
needed to show some of the character of the musicians or of the genre
of music. After looking through each photograph individually, I noted
down the numbers of the images I felt were the best.
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| Notebook Scan - Choosing image numbers |
I am planning to do
a cover shot for the magazine, which will be of the headlining band,
and then in line with the assignment, I will do four double page
spreads. This isn't common in this type of genre magazine so I am
going to try to make suitable layouts based on my research layouts
but instead of using one or two double pages to cover an event with
all the bands, I can use each double page for each individual band.
With this in mind, I am looking at using between 2 and 5 photos of
each band for each double page. I will be thinking about the layouts
when making my final selection with view to cropping and any other
processing, as I had a fixed lens and so different focal lengths and
angles of view were not possible.
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| Notebook scan - Layout idea |
The main processing
that I undertook was cropping as well as altering the brightness and
in some cases the contrast and then slight sharpening when needed. I couldn't really decide on what specific layout I wanted. It is just a case of choosing a suitable large image and then choosing the smaller images to fit around the main one, and then possibly turning them off centre on the page to make it more 'quirky'. I always think the layouts in these magazines look like a lot of photos or polaroids scattered on a table. It's not supposed to be neat and tidy, it's meant to look scattered and unpolished as the messy look goes hand in hand with the genre of the music. So that is how I chose to work when making my layouts.
The sequencing was easy as I wanted to lay the story out in the same order that the gig was played, so the cover would obviously be first but then each bands double page would be in the order that they played at the gig, leading up to the final band, the headliner, to close the story.
Once I had made my
final image selection through the process of making the page layouts,
I went back to each individual photograph to add the metadata. I made
templates for each band which I then imported to each photo of each
band to show that they were all taken at the same gig but to notify
which band the photo is actually of.
My
final image selection
Final layouts
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| Final images selection in organiser |
Final layouts
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| Cover Shot |
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| Her Dark Embrace double page spread |
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| The Dead Betas double page spread |
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| The Red Painting double page spread |
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| Headliner The Birthday Massacre double page spread |
Conclusion
I have to admit that
this assignment was a lot more interesting to undertake when I have
an interest in the subject and it being more in my comfort zone, but
that doesn't mean that I did well in it. I feel that I did well to
fit the brief and am pleased with how the final layouts have come
together as a story.
One negative that I
will say is that it was very difficult to undertake this kind of
photography to a suitable level from the crowd and I'm very aware of
this showing through my images. The venue isn't a big venue and with
no photo pit, it would be hard to get the desired images from the
crowd without visual interference from people in front of you,
as seen in my images for this assignment. As I know from previous
experience, you are unlikely to get photo pit access or a press pass
without working for some kind of publication. Had this venue been
bigger, there would have been a very slim chance of me getting my
DSLR camera into the venue let alone getting a photo pass to go with
it.
So I am happy with
my final project but I do think that the images could've been better
had I had better lenses, to deal with low lighting as well as zooming
ability and if I hadn't been shooting from the middle of the crowd.
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