I swung by Hovet last night to photograph what is most likely my last concert of 2018. Lauryn Hill was in town and performed as a part of her “Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” 20th Anniversary Tour.
It’s been a long while since I covered and photographed any concerts so I was pretty excited to go and do this Lauryn Hill show. Unfortunately, it was a great big disappointment. We are placed in “front of house”, which surprisingly is not in front of the stage but way back in front of the sound mixer board. On top of being really far from the stage, the light was crap for all 3 songs that we photographed. I was shooting between ISO 5000 and 10,000 most of the time, and if you combine that with needing to crop into images it does not make a winning formula.
Ideally, when shooting a concert I want to get pictures of artists that are close up. Half body shots and head shots are what I look for. You want to see their face and eyes well. When shooting musicians and celebrities. Those kinds of photographs can have a pretty good shelf live and sell for a few years. When you are forced to go wider with the pictures there is a good risk that they will not be as attractive to clients a few months down the line. Especially if newer pictures are available that are closer. But it is what it is, you win some and you lose some.
Right now I am on paternity leave and staying home with my daughter Alessandra. So I’m pretty much taking it easy until 2019 kicks off. I have another photo job booked next week, but I don’t expect I will do much else aside from that.