The Gaslight Anthem @ Sound Academy - July 14, 2010.

The Gaslight Anthem kicked off their tour for their new album American Slang at the Sound Academy on July 14, 2010 with Tim Barry opening. Shot for AUX.

                          

Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips @ the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre - July 8, 2010.

Surrounded by bouncing balloons, confetti and an inflatable clear ball for Wayne Coyne to walk overtop of the crowd – I don’t think I’ve had that much fun watching and shooting a concert before. And who knows if anything can top it, visually. Shooting was slightly tricky. There was a massive LED monitor behind Wayne which my camera wanted to focus at a lot of the time. Also, with that being so brightly lit – it meant that if you exposed for that, Wayne’s face would then be in the dark. Luckily he had so much fun running around the stage and coming to the edge of the crowd that I was able to shoot him from all angles.

Apparently The Flaming Lips and Spoon aren’t enough for a concert. Rhode Island’s Fang Island and Newmarket’s own Tokyo Police Club helped open this amazing concert from last Thursday. Shot for AUX on Thursday July 8, 2010.

                          

Silversun Pickups play a Secret/Free show @ Tattoo Rock Parlour - June 30, 2010.

Two weeks ago, I was disappointed to hear I wouldn’t be shooting the Silversun Pickups show at the Sound Academy. I shot them last fall and they put on a great show I was pumped to see them again. Luckily, AUX had other things in mind. The next day, it was announced that SSPU would be playing a free show at Tattoo Rock Parlour and I had my chance to shoot them then. Photographed for AUX.

                          

After shooting behind the scenes for their music video the other week, I headed out to the Mod Club last Thursday night to see Zeus perform. They had Danielle Duval and Matt Murphy opening for them and it was a pleasure to see them live again. Last summer I covered their performances at Dakota’s Tavern so it was great to catch them since the release of their album Say Us. Shot for AUX.

                          

Hipsters armed with neon glow sticks packed the Kool Haus for an evening of dancing to LCD Soundsystem last Tuesday. Shot for AUX.

                          

Six Shooter Records held a CD release show at Lee’s Palace this past Saturday night for the release of Justin Rutledge’s 4th album The Early Widows. Amelia Curran and Doug Paisley opened the show to a packed house.  Shot for AUX.

                          

Stars performed their upcoming album The Five Ghosts in its entirety to a sold out crowd at the Mod Club in Toronto on May 5, 2010. Shot for AUX.

                          

Timbaland @ Sound Academy - February 22, 2010.

Photography is a constant learning experience. I have spoken to people who have been doing it for 20+ years and they have said if anyone says they have nothing more to learn then they are lying. I have shot at the same venues countless of times but my recent gig for Timbaland threw me a curve ball with some incredible intense strobe lighting.

I prefer shooting all my concerts in Manual Mode. Usually keeping my lenses at f/2.8 and iso 1600-2500 depending on the venue, I have a good idea when to change my shutter speed. To tell you the truth, I rarely look at the metering while doing concerts because the lights change enough that the meter just ends up distracting me. In the last few concerts, I have recently tried Aperture Mode. Since you need as much light as possible, my aperture usually stays at f/2.8 and that will allow AP mode to change the shutter speed when necessary. The problem with these settings (I learned after, talking to two concert photography friends, Carrie and Frank) is that when the strobe occurs, they’ll be far too much light coming into the shot and your pics will just be blown out.

So at least I know what to do the next time I have to deal with this: Turn the aperture a few stops down to something between f/8 or f/11 and slow down the shutter to something like 1/50th – 1/60th of a second. In the end the strobe will act like a flash and still freeze the image, despite the slower speed. Even though I’m happy with some of the shots I got in the concert, a lot more were thrown out than a usual set for myself. Learn something new every time…

                          

Tegan and Sara @ Kool Haus - January 20, 2010.

Review of show by Bryson Parks is available at Blare Magazine.

                          

Juliette Lewis

It’s a bit late, but better late than never, right? First let me wish everyone a happy new year. I thought I’d spend my first post of 2010 to reflect on my work with concert photography in the last year. I really only started shooting concerts in early 2009. A few years before then, I offered to help friends in bands out by shooting some of their shows in Hamilton – I had my Nikon d70s which I purchased in January of 2007 and a kit lens. The last year before switching over to Canon, I bought a Sigma 30mm f1.4 which helped a lot in the low light, and being in small venues let me get up close.

April 2009 was my first taste at ‘official’ concert photography. Ben Folds gave me my first break by letting me come down to Syracuse, New York to shoot one of his concerts. Having been a fan of him and his previous band, Ben Folds Five for years – I couldn’t say no. The concert was on a Sunday and I drove 4 hours each way to shoot the concert and get back in time for my Monday morning meeting at the office. I was lucky enough to shoot for him again about a month later in Oakland, San Francisco. By then, I knew I wanted to continue this in my hometown of Toronto.

Through the powers of twitter, my friend Krissy Meyers linked me to a (now) good friend of mine and another concert photographer, Pete Nema. He let me tag along with him during Toronto’s big music & film festival, NXNE and shoot beside him. I came out for two of the nights and shot maybe a total of 10 bands within those two nights. I had enough photos to have something to show other managers or promoters of bands to try to get whatever I could – and this was all still with my Nikon d70s.

In July of 2009 I bought my Canon 5DmkII and 2 L series lenses: the 24-70mm f2.8 and the 70-200mm f2.8 IS and haven’t looked back. Expensive as hell to purchase everything all within a week (including batteries, tripod, flash, and another lens, the 35mm f2.0) but it was well worth it. Since I wasn’t a writer and couldn’t review a concert to save my life I couldn’t get photo passes to any of the larger shows unless I worked for a publication or did a lot of research. That involved looking for any band’s management or promotion company’s email on band’s site and cross my fingers hoping that showing samples of my work would be enough. Of course I got turned down but I also got approved for some artists such as: Juliette Lewis, Lykke Li, Miike Snow, Steve Martin, Zeus and Moby.

Thankfully, others took notice of my work and I have had the priveledge to work for 3 websites, shooting for them as well. They include: I Heart the Music, We Go To Shows and Blare Magazine. In the last half of 2009, I’ve gotten to shoot many shows, including a few award shows. I’d like to thank the following people for their support, advice and friendship:
Philip Bloom, Carrie Musgrave, Pete Nema, Frank Yang, Josh Khan, Stephen McGill, Kimberlee McCormack, Jennifer Polk, Steve Weiss and of course the many friends I’ve made through flickr and twitter.

Here are some of my favourite shots from this past year… d70s shots included. All of the full sets of these shows can be viewed on my flickr site and I hope you Enjoy. A word of warning though – don’t expect to get rich from trying to get into concert photography. If you don’t like music and are just hoping to make some extra money then look somewhere else. It’s a great marriage of my love of music (no joke, I probably listen to music for about 10 hours a day) and photography. I still have a full time job and only a few of the very talented can live off of shooting concerts. If you are interested in getting into some concert photography work though and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send me an Email.

Juliette Lewis