I recently had the pleasure to shoot Felly (the moniker for Christian Robert Felner) at The Echo. You can read my US Rocker Music review here. I have to admit that I had never heard of Felly before this night, but I'm now a fan. While hanging out waiting for his set to begin, someone approached me and asked me about my photography / reviews. He so happened to mention that he was going to school at USC. I did not know this Felly connection until doing my post-concert write-up research -- Felly graduated from USC in 2017. After learning that fact, I do wonder how many in the audience were USC students / graduates.
Side comment: after all these years of hanging out at The Echo, I do find it amusing when The Echo security has to walk up and down the line of people waiting for doors to open and ask, "Is anyone here in line waiting to get into the Echoplex?" Inevitably, half the people realize they're at the wrong part of the two-stage venue and need directions to the downstairs stage.
I've been playing around with a slower shutter speed recently. I happened to catch Youtube videos by both Jared Polin and Vanessa Joy talking about slowing your shutter speed to do something new after doing your standard shots. I'm taking their advice -- perhaps slowing the shutter speed even more than what they were doing. I used a shutter speed of 1/4 for the below photo. I then twist my RF 24-70MM zoom ring to zoom in. I've tried zooming out a few times. I find it easier to zoom in so that's what I'm doing. As for ISO and aperture, depending on the lights, I adjust accordingly. For this one, I used an ISO of 2000 and an F/4.5.
When it comes to shooting at The Echo, there is no photo pit so when I'm on an assignment, I target getting there 15 minutes or so before doors open. I get my ticket and photo pass and then get in line. I suppose if the line is long, I would ask security if I could cut to the front. I then make a beeline to the front of the stage once the doors open.
After hanging out at the front of the stage for a few songs, I like to make my way to stage right. There's a small area there that is off to the side of the stage. Unless the venue is super sold out, people tend not to stand there. You are at the front of the stage, but you're off to the side. For some reason, people do like to hang out at a similar spot on stage left, but not always stage right. Perhaps because the stage right is where the bar is located and also there is a four foot wide hallway that is used by people heading to the men's bathroom and patio.
I always like to capture a shot of the lead singer going up to the front of the stage and the fans enthusiasm of being within touching distance of the performer. What I like about the below shot is how I'm catching double images of everyone. It shows a motion of Felly at the front of the stage and everyone at the front having eyes directed at him.
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| Felly at The Echo |
The below photo is a more tradition photo. I also used the RF 24-70MM for this shot. I used a shutter speed of 1/160 (for concert photography I do like using a faster shutter speed, but the stage lights weren't blasting) and an F/2.8. My ISO is 10,000. This is a moment where people brought out their phones and used the flashlight feature. The stage lights were switching between this bright white color and red. I was timing my shots to capture the white lights. I am zoomed in at 70MM for the shot. One might say I should have zoomed out a little to capture more of the fans and their phones held high; however, there is a support beam that would show up in the photo if I went wider that I find takes away from the shot. For this shot, I'm now on stage left. Unlike stage right, there is much more space. Also, stage left has benches that are against the three walls of the area. Luckily, there were only a few people sitting on the benches and I was able to climb up on one of the benches to take this shot at about 2.5 feet higher as compared to shooting from the floor.
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| Felly at The Echo |
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