Skunkhour

Supported by Fait Accompli

Avalon Bech RSL club

5/7/2023

It had been a while since I went to a live gig and I was missing the whole experience. When I got the last minute message to see if I was free to come take some live music photos for a sold out gig at Avalon Beach RSL, I couldn’t say yes quicker. 

This was my first ever professional live music shoot and I was chomping at the bit to start. When I normally shoot its for a dress rehearsal for a play or musical, so I use my long 70-200mm f2.8 lens, but with this I was going to be in the pit and side stage. So a long lens was not necessary or going to help that much (I still packed it because I love that lens). I went with my 15-35mm f2.8 so I could get some great wide shote of the band all together and also of the crowd going crazy. While I was in the pit I pretty much just had the 50mm f1.8 on the camera the whole time.

The support band, Fait Accompli, came out and did a killer set. The crowd was not at full capacity just yet but the ones that came early loved it. I got some killer shots from side of stage and in the pit, including my favourite shot of the night. After the first three songs I headed to the back of the room, here is were I was so happy I packed the 70-200mm. I took some great shots from behind the sound desk. The headline act, Skunkhour, came out the the crowd were going crazy. I went back to the stage and the pit and loved what I got from there. All in all I took 3300 photos. It was a great night and everyone had a blast.

I was also asked to take some footage of the patrons lining up to enter the room. That was really easy with the Canon R6 and the IBIS, and when that was paired with the image stabilisation on the 15-35mm f2.8, there was no need for a gimble. 

The next day I went through all the photos and picked the ones I liked. I am using Lightroom and it was a simple proses of just five ’staring’ the ones I liked. With the edit itself I normally go really vibrant and poppy, but with music (from all the photos I have looked at) black and white seams to be the industry norm, mostly. I did go through and resize them all for social media and them corrected the light and then made them black and white. Although I did pick a handful and left them colour, including my favourite pic of the night. 

I loved this job and I really can’t wait to do more music. Take a look and some of the photos I took in the small gallery bellow and let me know what you think. Can you guess the photo that was my favourite of the night.