After looking at Eve Arnold’s work last Tuesday in class, I was inspired by her use of black and white film, so I decided to take a few black and white photos at a show I went to on Friday night. I took my lil Fuji X100 with me, it has a pretty cool simulation of Fuji’s ACROS black and white film stock, which I thought might prove to be useful.
I’d been looking forward to the night literally all year, so I didn’t want to put too much attention into getting photos. I find the X100 really helps me focus on being present. Instead of figuring out which lens/lenses to take, what filters I’ll need, and all of the other things usually involved with preparing for a shoot, I can just pick up the camera and go out.
I’ve been a huge Snail Mail fan since I first heard her song Heat Wave in mid-December, I totally lost my mind when the little guitar riff comes in with the drums about 50 seconds in. I’ve probably listened to her album at least 5 times a week since hearing that (sometimes even 5 times a day). So yeah, when I said I’d been looking forward to the night literally all year, I wasn’t kidding.
(Here’s the clip in case I’ve piqued your interest)
Arriving at the venue felt like walking into an American high school prom. After talking to some of the venue staff I learned that the venue (now called the Estonian House) was a movie theatre until the 1970s (my memory isn’t great, so don’t quote me on that date), after which it was bought by the Estonian Society of Melbourne and converted into an event hall. The venue still has the sloped floors and balcony (with original chairs!) from its theatre days, and there is now a bar upstairs, and a kitchen on the main floor. I thought the kitchen was extremely cool, even though it was exactly the same as a kitchen you’d see in any community hall, it was something I’ve never seen at a gig (they were selling soft drink and snacks too!).
Shortly after getting there I ran into my friend Dan who I hadn’t seen in at least six months, he was one of the accredited photographers for the night (I hadn’t bothered applying because tickets were cheap and I wasn’t planning on taking a camera). We had chatted about Sony and our favourite concert photographers until the show started, it was nice to see someone I knew there. We managed to secure a spot right at the stage, which made getting photos a bit easier, but because we were so close to the amps, the sound of the guitars pretty much drowned out all vocals. Dan told me that the venue staff had offered to unlock the balcony for him so that he could get some photos from above the crowd, and that he was planning on going up there after a few songs at the front. I decided to try and go up to the balcony with him, even though I wasn’t allowed to be up there (I wasn’t accredited for the show, and their list only had 1 photographer on it). Worst case scenario was not being allowed upstairs and having to watch the rest of the show from the back of the room. Luckily enough I was holding a camera and looked like I knew what I was doing, so they let me upstairs without any questions. We got the balcony to ourselves for the rest of the show, which was pretty cool. I could dance around as much as I wanted without any judgement from the crowd, the view was great, and I could actually hear Lindsey’s singing over the guitars! It was definitely the best spot in the house.
I don’t know how much there is to say about the photos I took. Every once and a while the lighting looked friendly so I’d turn on my camerea and take a few pics. I left my shutter around 1/100th and my aperture at f2, with my ISO on auto. I find the ACROS simulation does really well at higher ISOs, so I’m fine with leaving it on auto, it even adds film grain based on what ISO you are shooting at. All of these photos are straight out of camera JPEGs with some tweaks to the tone settings (contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks), which I used to get a bit more of a punchy look that I think live music lends itself towards. I did notice the tone adjustments made the grain effect a lot more noticeable, next time I think I’ll set the grain to weak instead of strong, and then let the adjustments bring it out a bit. I wasn’t too intentional about my composition, obviously the photos take advantage of the rule of thirds and such, but it’s not something I really thought too much about while shooting, I didn’t want the photos to take away from the music.
After the show Dan and I went to see if we could grab a setlist from the stage, but they’d all been taken already. We got talking to some people who were hoping to meet Lindsey and get her to sign their CDs, and I decided to wait around with them to try meet Lindsey as well. I was hoping to buy a CD at the show (so the money would go directly to the band), but they were only selling LPs and shirts which I hadn’t brought enough money for. We waited in front of the venue for probably 45 minutes before the band finished packing up and came out to their van, but we eventually got to say hi! Lindsey was really nice, and because I didn’t have a CD I thought I’d see she would sign the American dollar bill thats been in my wallet for the last six months (she’s from Baltimore), even though writing on US money is illegal. She happily signed it, and wrote “Fuck the law Snail Mail 4ever” on it too, which I reckon is pretty cool, and I now have the coolest dollar bill around.
So yeah, I had a pretty cool Friday night last week. How was your friday night?
*EDIT: After doing a bit of research on Google, I learned that the venue was operating as The Great Western Theatre from 1928 to 1960 (although screenings were fewer after 1950 when television hurt the theatres attendance). It was sold to the Estonian Society in 1970 and reopened in 1972 as The Estonian House. Looks like my memory was pretty spot on. SOURCE