I think it must have been either the excitement or the stress factor that caused me to stay awake at 3am on a Saturday morning, tossing and turning in bed. After some time, I decided to give up and do some web surfing. I checked out a couple of web sites and blogs that explained the difficulties of shooting for concerts, one of which was Boudist’s tutorial on Concert Photography Masterclass. However, no amount of preparation was enough, when No Eye Candy’s gig for Music for Hope was due in less than 18 hours! OMG!! I just had to go out there and do it!
I was not even sure if I could make it, if the Army had recalled and mobilized my unit for the afternoon. Luckily, as the clocked ticked past 3pm, I knew it was not going to happen. Thus, I was at Heeren with my Warden just about 25 minutes prior to No Eye Candy’s scheduled slot at 7pm, and fortunately for me, the organizers seemed to be slightly behind schedule.
After greeting the band members and supporters of the band, I went about my business taking test shots, checking the lighting, the ISO settings required, the shutter speed required and the angles possible that I could take. It wasn’t pretty man… I could not set the ISO too low, and I needed a shutter speed of at least 1/250. Good thing my lens afforded me a wide-aperture of f/2.8 that allows more light to enter the camera. Unfortunately, I found that the focal length of my lens is a little short if I wanted to zoom in tight on the performers’ faces. Luckily for me though, this was not one of those concerts that do not allow flash guns to be used, and the crowd was so polite (or shy) they all stayed far away from the stage. I could make my way to the bottom of the stage and take pictures, but I tried to stay away from the center, because other supporters were busy taking in videos or photos as well.
I could not have comprehended how stressful my first concert shoot was going to be, until now. First, I had to make sure that I covered all the band members, as well as the band as a whole. And I had to look for interesting view points from different angles – high, low, left, right and center. Coupled with the technicalities of camera settings, and lighting considerations, the task was becoming overwhelming. One of the major problems I had was with the auto focus of my camera. Somehow, I had trouble getting it to focus on the right place. Many times, I had thought that the picture was good, but when I zoomed in from the LCD for a look, the AF had focussed on *GASP* the mic instead of the face! The task was perhaps made even tougher when you’re trying to take pictures of a rock band. They just don’t stay still!
After about 30 minutes of madness, in which the sense of panic was constantly rising, I had made it through my first concert shoot. And congratulations to No Eye Candy on their first public performance! It was an extremely valuable experience for me. Thanks to Wilfrid’s contagious and infectious enthusiasm, I was able to do this.
Visit No Eye Candy’s site for more information about them.
November 30th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
THANK YOU for being there for your support and for being our band photographer. The photos are GREAT! We love them all. They capture the essence so well.
And you took a picture of my sister too! I am in tears!
You have great potential. Next time when we have band practice or gigs, we will certainly sent you an invite!
… so long as you don’t start charging us … ha ha ha.
Nikon cameras are great cameras eh? Time to speed up our acquisition of the 70-200mm lens .. ha ha ha (ooops, I hope your wife is not reading this comment).
Anyway, great stuff you have here. From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU!
November 30th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
[...] during our band No Eye Candy’s 30 minutes live performance at Hereen last evening. It was his first concert shot and you have got to agree with me that these are great shots capturing the essence of our gig as [...]
November 30th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
[...] of the pictures taken during our performance by Mark our band photographer that I will link to later, here are some of the pictures I took after our [...]
November 30th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Wilfrid, you are most welcome! And it was certainly my pleasure to be there. I think I did not do too good, but I will strive to improve. Looking for some master to accept me as an apprentice
December 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
Hi Mark. Nice meeting you last Saturday.
Oh, what a new surprise to see my face there too! hehe… thx thx. 
Your photos are GREAT~!
At the time when I first saw your photos, I was kind of ‘regret’ to spend so much to engage a photographer to take my actual day wedding photos… Should have asked help from you instead… hahaha… 
Take care. Hope to see you next time.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 am
Hello there Darkspore…… great shots u hv there & from the photos, it can be seen that the atmosphere, the charge, the mood, the crowd was all energize to the max…..
Great shooting to the max with the Nikon (I am no photographer) but I know when a photo is well taken or not & yrs was great….
Wiating to see Wilfrid’s
Regards
KL
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Lora, it was my pleasure to meet you and Benny too! You look so different from your brother.
Thanks for your kind words, but I do have much more to learn and improve on my photography. At the moment I am willing to get any experience for free, but probably only if I am a backup photographer for any big events. Can’t afford to mess up anyone’s big day!
I am sure we will meet again.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 pm
KL, thanks for dropping by my blog! It was a very fun learning experience and I am all geared up for more! I love my new Nikon D90. When you lack skills like I do, you really need good equipment to cover up your mistakes
December 7th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Oh wow! Great shots!
I wasn’t in town to catch the performance, or else I would have met you.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
ECL, yeah but I suspect we will have other opportunities to bump into each other. Somewhere, some time in Singapore.