A2 PHOTOGRAPHY - EMILY MOORBY
MUSIC CULTURE
Slamdunk North
Part One - As It Is / Knuckle Puck
For my first shoot, I decided to work in the style of Adam Elmakias, and I photographed a festival called 'Slamdunk'. I am going with my statement of intent, and conducting a photo shoot inspired by each of my artists individually, before I develop my project. I am doing this in order to get a feel for what it is like to photograph different elements of music, and I will then figure out the route I would like to go down within this project. In terms of kit, I used a Canon EOS 600D to capture the bands in action. As well as seeing some amazing bands on the day, I also collected some images of the performers. In terms of how the overall shoot went, I am very happy with how my images turned out. I definitely think that was I acheived is a step up from my work at AS Level, as not only was I capturing something that was in front of me, but I had more to consider when shooting, such as:
- Movement
- Lighting
- More than one member in each band
- The crowd
Considering all of these factors, I think I managed to work around them and as a result, shoot a diverse range of images that are to a good standard. There are quite a few images as you will see that are not as high quality as others, however this helped me learn how to shoot bands due to the fact I could see what I was doing wrong with the images that didn't turn out as good. This was also only my second time shooting at a Live Music Event with a proper Camera, so in terms of my experience, it was definitely all new to me, but I really enjoyed it. I would have collected more images of 'The Wonder Years', but my sister was jumped on and had a suspected broken elbow, which was my queue to be dragged out the crowd by the guards to look after her.
As It Is and Knuckle Puck were two of the first bands to perform on the day, and it was around 1PM when the first of the two came on; so I had midday vibs in terms of natural lighting. It was quite sunny with very few clouds, and I was really happy with the weather and how it supported my images. Due to the time of the day, the stage lights were not as vibrant in my images, which looking back, wasn't exactly a bad thing. In terms of movement, I would say that Knuckle Puck were the hardest to get movement free images of, due to the fact they are very energetic when playing, and rarely show signs of standing still. Despite this, I am happy with the images I did get of them. As It Is however, were still quite energetic, but it was mainly the front man (Patty Walters) who jumped around the most, providing me with an opportunity to get more photos of the rest of the band, who were quite stationary in comparison. As I was to the left of the stage, I managed to capture all of the stage, which I think personally improved my images. The composition has a slight slant as a result, but I would prefer it this way in order to capture more of the bands who were playing. I tried to vary when I used the 'Rule of Thirds' in order to make my images more diverse and interesting to look at. Not using the technique enabled me to collect some unconventional style images when compared to generic Live Band Shots from the likes of Adam Elmakias.
Part Two - Such Gold / Transit / Fireworks
As me and my friends had skipped watching a few bands to look round the Festival, it was round about 19:00PM (five hours since As it Is and Knuckle Puck) before I started shooting bands again. As you can see in the images, the lighting has changed, and this reflects on the time gap between shooting the first two bands and these three, and how the Sun had moved position over the course of the day. More so in these images, you will start to see that the Stage Lighting is more prominent due to the change of time, and this element is what I liked specifically about shooting late in the afternoon. Such Gold were relatively easy to shoot as they weer quite stationary for most of their set, Transit's Front Man's actions resulted in me only getting around under 20 photos of them, and Fireworks were very energetic and interacted well with the crowd. Despite me only taking very few photos of Transit, the ones I got personally are quite strong and precise. The Lighting also tied in with the colour of the Front Man's shirt as well, so this made one image in particular work really well. This time, I was positioned to the Right of the stage, giving me a chance to shoot at the complete opposite end of the stage from where I was at a few hours before. This is the reason why Stage Left is documented more than Stage Right, but it was nice to be at this angle after being Stage Right for the first two bands we watched.
Part Three - The Wonder Years
This was the band who I was most excited to get the change of shooting, due to the fact I have been a very big fan for a long time, and I have previously seen some amazing work from other Photographers of the band on The Internet. Their set started at about 21:30PM from what I remember, and it gradually got darker as the set went on due to the time, resulting in it being quite dark towards the end of the setlist. As I had never shot at this time before, I wasn't sure about how my images would turn out, as I couldn't rely on my Flash to brighten the images if needed be. After I looked at my images, I was both surprised and delighted with how they had turned out. The Dark Night Sky had completely worked in my favour, and the contrast between the Dark and the Stage Lighting provided me with a range of Vibrant and Illuminated Images. I turned my Camera Screen around so I couldn't get any previews of my images, which added to the surprise element and meant I could take more images as I was not distracted trying to look at each image once taken. The crowd was really rough for The Wonder Years Set, and despite my camers being kicke dout my hands twice, I managed to collect a range of images of the band performing. Unlike for Knuckle Puck and As it Is (where I was stood to the left of the stage), I was Front and Centre for this part, which I feel affected the composition of my images slightly in the sense that the Centre of the Stage was the key point in practically all of my images. But, this just meant that Front Man Dan (Soupy) was the main focus for the majority of the shoot, which wasn't really a bad thing looking back; it just made the other band members slightly harder to include in the shots.