Ideas for Photographing Rock Band Rehearsal

[bens]

After years of doing youth sports, school events and the like, the

kids are getting old enough that I have to branch out. I've been

thinking, how about musicians in action? Its spontaneous, there's

emotion, etc. Now a friend has asked me to shoot his rock band at a

rehearsal in a few days, and I'm looking for tips cuz I haven't the

foggiest what I am walking into.

 

The studio room is 25 feet by 25 feet, with some track lighting in a

relatively low ceiling above, dark walls. Haven't seen it myself.

Equipment -- I've got a Canon 10d and a variety of lenses, including

Canon 24/2.8, 35/2, 50/1.5, 85/1.8, tamron 20-40/2/8-3.5, tamron 28-

75/2.8, and sigma 70-200/2.8. If I have to, I have a Canon 550EX

and 420EX flash.

 

Shots used for website and flyers advertising concerts for local

clubs.

 

Any and all tips on this kind of shooting greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[matt_neighbour___york__u.k]

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>

I've done a bit of band shooting, especially when I was at uni. I've been in bands too...

</p>

<p>

I think that it will be difficult to get the action at a rehearsal. There's just something about the emotion of the concert atmosphere that will be visibly missing. That, and band gig shots are only as good as the lighting rig, and you really need a full concert rig with smoke etc for the best results.

</p>

<p>

You might want to try another approach - I had a band ask me to do a shoot with them for promo and album shots. I took them to a dark lane and grafitti-covered underpass near campus and shot a few rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600 with red filter. Nice, if I say so myself.

</p>

Matt

 

<br>

<p align="center">

<img src="http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/41de8be2ze326403/b109/__sr_/d48c.jpg?phN5.JDBmrVlJY14">

<br><i>University Battle of the Bands final</i></p>

[ivan_dzo]

There are many types of photos of bands. At rehearsals, it tends to be environmental portraits, so b+w would be moody (depending what you're looking for). At an actual performance it's totally different. You need a wide aperture prime lens and get in close. The 50/1.5 (I normally use a 50/1.2) would be great. No flash as it spoils the atmosphere. So its all about crazy angles, using the bright lights to effect and trying to hand hold at 1/15 second! For the rehearsal, with those conditions I'd use a tripod, or better still, get outside for a better background and lighting.

[matt_neighbour___york__u.k]

Tried to link to a photo on Yahoo, looks like it didn't work. Anyway, if you do take any photos at a gig, try to get a pass to get behind the steel barrier between audience and stage. It's a lot easier to avoid crowd-surfers! Oh, and wear earplugs!!

 

Matt<div></div>

[michaelkh]

There's a good tutorial here on photo.net (Learn / Concerts). Following the advice there, I

shot my first gig last month.

 

I shot on film. One was a roll of XP2, rated (a stop outside of its real range) at ISO 1600.

The justification for this was that if I got my metering grossly wrong I was more likely to

get something off this roll. These results were OK, but not brilliant. The second was a roll

of Provia 400F, pushed two stops to ISO 1600 and processed appropriately - the results

with this roll were really rather pleasing for a first go.

 

The key lessons I took, however, are appropriate to you:

 

1) use a fast prime lens

 

2) use a high ISO setting

 

3) spot meter, off a skintone, and overexpose (if appropriate to the skintone)

 

Personally, beyond that, I simply took a general sampling of skintones under the various

spotlights, worked out a good average meter reading (in my case a whole stop over the

pale english hard rock band skin tone), locked on manual with that reading, shot away and

kept an eye on where the actual metering fell, using the viewfinder exposure readout.

[bens]

thanks all, quite helpful, appreciate your taking the time.

[mike_scott2]

One word: earplugs.

 

Someone else mentioned it, but I wanted to say it again as I believe bringing ear protection is as important as anything else you?ll bring to this assignment.

[tom_musselman]

Ben, first and most importantly, get some earplugs. I find rehearsals are hard to shoot because the band members will probably be sitting facing each other but not close. Emotionally, they will be concentrating and working. The lighting will probably be very bad. The room is usually a very bad background. Overall, hardly the stuff good photos are made of. But that is what rehearsals are and, as photographers, we have to make the best of it.

 

The important elements are, of course, the people. But the arrangement of people, and their emotions, make it difficult to get photos of interactions while they are playing. You will get some, like from right beside the drummer. Look for interaction pictures when they are not playing, like talking or adjusting equipment.

 

Flash is usually ok during rehearsals, just ask first. I find a little fill flash helps a lot, just pay attention to your color balance. Turning up the flash and dragging the shutter can give some nice effects, but that is easily overdone. The same goes for zooming during exposure with dragged shutter. Use second curtain sync.

 

I feel that the rehearsal pictures usually don't stand on their own, but can look very good next to some good concert pictures. The band usually appreciates rehearsal pictures because that's part of their history and story that no one sees. If the band has the potential to make it big, these simple, plain pictures can be very exciting to take, and that will show in the photos.

 

Good luck. I feel the best teacher for good rehearsal pics is experience.

[bens]

Tom, thanks, great advice. forgive my stupidity, but how/what does dragging the shutter and using second curtain synch do? i haven't tried these techniques before.

[Spearhead]

I'm a lot more positive about this than some of the others here.<p>

 

If you look at CD booklets, you can find plenty of shots taken during studio recording sessions, which are similar to rehearsal shots. You have the opportunity to get more portrait-like shots and some casual interaction between the band members. Sure you won't get the intensity of a live performance, but you should be able to get some shots that work fine for the advertising if they don't have any live shots, which is what you say they will be used for.<p>

 

I don't usually shoot rehearsals, but I do shoot at sound check, which has a similar feel to rehearsals. I go to sound check mostly for lighting and positions, but look for some close-up shots that I won't get during a performance. You can do the same. I could never have gotten this shot (regularly used) during a show.<p>

 

<center><img src="http://www.spirer.com/tabla/gigi2.jpg"><br><i>Gigi (Ejigayehu Shibabaw) with Tabla Beat Science<br>Copyright 2003 Jeff Spirer</i></center>

[tom_musselman]

Ben, dragging the shutter just means that you are using a long-ish shutter speed, maybe 1/10 or slower, and also using flash. You can do this easily by exposing for the ambient light. In other words, take a picture as if you did not have flash, but have your flash turned on for fill.<br><br>

 

Normally, the flash fires when the shutter reaches full open. That's called "first curtain sync." If you are using a long shutter speed, greater than the flash sync speed, the shutter stays open for a while, and then starts to close. Some cameras and flashes allow you to set the flash to fire just before the shutter starts to close. That is called "second curtain sync."<br><br>

 

That's only a brief and confusing introduction. I found these pages with better info:<br><br>

 

<a href="http://www.planetneil.com/faq/dragging-the-shutter.html">http://www.planetneil.com/faq/dragging-the-shutter.html</a><br><br>

 

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009NM4

">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009NM4

</a><br><br>

 

The example photos in the links I found were all static, in other words no blur. With long shutter speeds, like 1/2 second, you can get motion blur in your picture. The flash freezes whatever is close enough to be effected by the flash light. It's a way to add to the drama of a rehearsal, but like I said, it's easy to overdo it.<br><br>

 

The blur can come from the subject moving. Also, you can add blur by deliberately moving the camera or zooming during exposure. The tricky part is getting the right shutter speed so the amount of blur is what you want.<br><br>

 

I don't have any real good examples. In this one you can see a trail along the movment of his left stick. In this case the stick is moving down so the trail is behind. With first curtain sync the trail would be on the other side the stick.<br><br>

 

<center><img src="http://www.musselmanphoto.com/images/download/photo.net/5DV309d.jpg"></a></center><br><br>

 

In this example the blur was added by intentionally zooming during exposure. Only the objects close to the camera, like the face, get "frozen" because that is where I was metering the flash. The flash was too dim to have much effect on objects further away.<br><br>

 

<center><img src="http://www.musselmanphoto.com/images/download/photo.net/01CD0421d.jpg"></a></center><br><br>

 

Strong flash, say without any compensation, has more effect at "freezing" motion than flash set below ambient, say -1 stop. Try some experimenting. Good luck.<br><br>

[bens]

thanks tom, that's very helpful, as flash is something of a challenge. i'm shooting the rehearsal next wednesday, so what you've written i have time to read, study the links and think about. very much appreciate it.

[bens]

having done the shoot, returning to say the advice was excellent. dark room, poor background, but a good time to get photographs of the band members relating to each other and, with proper cropping some decent shots of people playing and concentrating. thanks everyone, your advice helped alot.

[35mmdelux]

earplugs. then just shoot away w/ 35mmf/2. Thats all you need in a 25x25. Keep it simple. Push for the available lights shots as much as possible or, minimally, diffused flash. Try to get some angled shots. Take a hoot and a swig and fire away.