Photo Reviews: The Dandy Warhols (a night at The Bellwether)

A few weeks back, I got to shoot The Dandy Warhols at The Bellwether for US Rocker Music. You can read the article here. 

I figured I'd discuss a couple photos that I took. I'm happy with the shots. I got to the venue perhaps 15 minutes later than I anticipated due to the fact that I accidentally walked pass the side street that I needed to turn on and so I had to loop back. When I finally got inside the venue, there were really no good places to stand next to the stage. Would there have been if I got there 15 minutes earlier? Who knows. The venue recently took out their photo pit area that was in front of the stage. I'm not saying that if I had found a spot next to the stage that I would have stayed there the whole night. I'm just saying I didn't get a chance to shoot right up front. 

I did find a spot in the balcony and shot there for awhile and then headed down to the stage floor. Towards the end of the set, I went over to stage right, perhaps 5 yards from the end of the stage. Keyboardist Zia McCabe was playing on that end of the stage. I was using my RF 70-200mm F2.8 lens on my Canon R5 body. 

I think that a RF 70-200 lens tends to catch the eye of musicians. She noticed me and gave me a look. I took three quick snaps. The below photo is the third in that series. I do believe that the first two photos had better stage lights; however, those two photos have her up close to her microphone. This one has her a half foot away from the microphone. I just prefer not having a face partially hidden by a microphone.   

Throughout the set, her hair was flowing from a floor fan, which is why you're seeing strands of hair flowing behind her. There's a smile as she knows that she's giving me a chance at a perfect shot. I like how she has the tambourine in her left hand. 

The settings I used were ISO 4000, shutter 1/400, aperture 3.5, and a focal length 200. Perhaps I should have slowed down my shutter and taken my aperture to 2.8. That would have allowed me to go with a different ISO.  The reason I was at aperture 3.5 is because the lights were blasting at the moment. My prior photos were taken at aperture 2.8. I figured I needed to act quickly to capture this moment so I immediately just played with the aperture. Did I even realize that I was taken it up two stops? No. I just adjusted it until the photo brightness looked okay in my EVF. 

The Dandy Warhols at The Bellwether

About 2 and a half minutes later, I took the below shot of guitarist Peter Holmström. Now he was all the way on stage left while I was still hanging out on stage right. There was a photographer next to me and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that his camera lens was pointed towards Holmström. I looked over in that direction and saw that the disco ball was in a glory of white lights. I took a series of nine photos and I think this is the only one I really like. 

The problem with shooting all the way across the stage were the fans. I wanted to get a shot without the shadows of the fans. I lifted up my camera up and used the view finder to take this photo. The 9 photos were taken over a period of a little less than 2 minutes. If you look over at the lower right edge of the photo, that might be a partial shadow of a fan, but you can't really tell. The bright white light seems to end just short of the corner edge of the photo. I love how one small beam of light appears to be piercing his body. Basically, I just love all the beams of light and how the stage lights are dimmed to turn his body into a near silhouette. 

The camera settings are the same as Zia McCabe photo. 

The Dandy Warhols at The Bellwether