When I first started shooting rock concerts, There was no Adobe Lightroom 5 to help me. I was used to shooting T-max 3200 black & white, pushing it about 2-3 stops to get what I wanted in the darkroom, expressive rough shots, with grain you can shave with. I was and still try to get shots that show action (by sometimes using slower shutter speeds) and enhancing the atmosphere by trying to predict where the lights are going to fall next and clicking the shutter when the lights hit where I want.
Today, shooting in chaotic (light wise) and dark environments is different, I do it by shooting RAW files at very high ISO, and developing them in Lightroom 5. Developing in Lightroom 5 allows more accurate white balance and broad color control. testing, correcting and printing the kind of images you can see below, “old school”, would take a very long time.
Here’s a selection of “Rain King” concert images I shot at the “Whiskey a GO-Go” on Sunset Blvd. last Saturday. “rain King” are, Ben Shafrir – Drums, Eli Sokolow – Guitar and Vocals and Yali Bitan – Bass and Vocals. These guys really know their stuff! You can listen to them using the player underneath the gallery. In their own words, they are an “L.A. based rock trio whose mission is to wake the universe from the coma of auto-tuned digital modernity and rekindle the flames lit by the ancient warriors of face-melting, spine curving rock & roll.”
No “Photoshop” was used in the editing of these images, (only Lightroom :).
