State

Zip Code

Country

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Four years ago on June 27, 2020, Louisville photographer Tyler Gerth was killed in a shooting during the protests that sparked from Breonna Taylor’s death.

Earlier this year, the case came to a close when the shooter responsible for his death, Steven Lopez, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

In the years since his death, Tyler’s family has dedicated themselves to passing on his passion for photography and giving back to the community.

“I think for him, photography was just his way to explore and be curious and really give a voice to what he saw in the world around him,” Tyler’s sister Brittany Loewen said.

During the 2020 protests, Tyler’s photos captured a racial reckoning in Louisville and across the country. Loewen said he was drawn to capturing history.

“With Tyler’s passion for history and his love of photography, he really felt like that was the meeting of both of those passions and felt a really strong urge to be down at Jefferson Square,” Loewen said. “He felt like this was history unfolding.”

Surveillance video showed the moments Lopez was asked to leave the protest after other protesters said he had been unruly. In the video, Lopez is seen pulling out another protester’s gun and shooting into the crowd. Tyler was hit and died before he could be taken to the hospital.

Lopez eventually took a plea deal in the case. The murder charge was amended down to manslaughter and he was sentenced to 30 years for that charge and 21 counts of wanton endangerment.

“He has life ahead of him,” Loewen said. “Unlike Tyler, he still has the opportunity to live with purpose and make something out of this. That’s our family’s deep hope is that restoration can come.”

Loewen spoke at the sentencing. She said she’s grappled with forgiving Lopez and hopes that he can learn from Tyler’s legacy.

“I hope that he is inspired by Tyler and I hope that he can learn from Tyler,” Loewen said. “There’s tremendous irony in the fact that Tyler was killed a week before his 28th birthday and Steven was just sentenced a short time before his 28th birthday.”

Over the past four years, his family has created a non-profit called Building Equal Bridges – the Tyler Gerth Foundation.

The organization gives out scholarships and also started a program called the Polaroid Project through the Louisville Urban League that allows kids to practice their own photography.

“It challenges them to see their surroundings in a new way, to tell the story of their families or their communities, their neighborhoods, in a different way,” Louisville Urban League President & CEO Lyndon Pryor said.

The program lets kids experiment with photojournalism. Pryor says the students are asked to take pictures in the community and write an essay about the meaning behind them.

Tyler’s family said it’s the perfect way to honor his legacy and let others share his passion.

“Because Tyler’s death was so public and so traumatic, we wanted to shift the focus from the details of his death to the focus of his life,” Loewen said.

“It’s carrying that message on through them and helping them to essentially do the exact same thing through their images, through their words, through this art form,” Pryor said.

Copyright 2024 WAVE. All rights reserved.

“Being a nude photographer in Thailand is not easy. They won’t just talk about you, just about your work. You have to be strong enough to know that they’re going to talk about your appearance, your family, or how they raised you. There are some people who already judge you, that you are a bad person.”

Sophirat Muangkum, a Thai female nude photographer, expresses her deep frustration as to how she has been treated throughout her career, especially when nude photography remains shunned in Thai culture. As a result, nude photographers like herself still face backlash, social prejudice and, in the worst cases, verbal sexual harassment.

When we’re naked, we are all the same

In her latest solo exhibition, “Decentralised Thainess”, Sophirat explores how people are defined by traditional values, stereotypes and cultural norms in the four regions of Thailand. Among the stereotypes are that people in the North are shy, those in the Northeast are blunt, or those in the Deep South are violent. Therefore, she uses nude photography to strip away such stereotypes, to show that people are all the same.

“I feel that nudity is not only about being naked,” she explains. “It’s about freedom. It’s about equality. So, for this nude photography exhibition, I’m bringing everyone back to the basics. When we’re all naked, we are all the same.”

The whole photo exhibition took Sophirat more than four years to create. Most of the models she chose for the photoshoots were those she met in local communities, who she finds interesting and have their own stories to tell. A few examples include a young female activist for LGBTQ+ rights, who fell victim to bullying and body shaming, another female who shaved her head to rebel against political oppression and a group of sex workers who remain disparaged in Thai society.

On this journey, the 40-year-old photographer describes herself as an “empty glass” exploring different communities, delving into their stories, and eventually, bringing all the missing pieces together. This was when she discovered that each region of Thailand has its own history and culture, as opposed to what many Thais have learnt in the textbooks, which depict a “centralised” idea of what it means to be “Thai”.

“So, I’m very interested in what was never in the textbooks or what people often misunderstand about people in the various regions,” she explains as the backstory to the exhibition.

It’s art, not obscene

As in her previous art exhibitions, Sophirat believes that a nude photograph can convey various meanings, and is not restricted to the meaning of “art” or “obscene”. In fact, Sophirat has been trying to get this message across throughout the past decade of her career.

It all started in 2018, her first solo exhibition in Thailand, when she was bombarded by questions from Thai reporters. The most frequently asked question was whether her nude photo exhibition is considered “art” or “obscene”, which incited her to prove her point ever since.

“That project was kind of experimental, where I took photos of more than 30 women of different ages and religions. I asked what nudity means to them. Then I transformed their answers and incorporated them into my artwork. That was when I found out that one nude photograph is more than just “art” or “obscene”. A nude photo of a pregnant mother could also express her love for the child she is carrying, while feeling that her body is still beautiful.”

As to why she fell for nude photography, she explains that being naked is her “nature”, indicating that every human is born naked and that there is nothing wrong with being comfortable in your own skin.

This is completely the opposite of her conservative upbringing. She was raised to strictly uphold Thai traditional values and, most importantly, to meet the expectations of being a “good daughter”. Among these expectations were taking responsibility for household chores, dressing modestly and being obedient. It was not until she studied in Germany and became a photographer there that she decided to break the mould, realising the true meaning of freedom.

“It’s just my nature that I want to free myself sometimes,” she says. “When I grew up, I liked to take photos of myself, and I just liked the lighting and shadow on my skin. After 10 years, whenever I looked back at my artworks, I discovered that it’s not only the beauty of the light or shadows on my skin. It’s about freedom.”

Fighting bias

Being a nude photographer in the Thai art scene remains a tremendous struggle. When it comes to nude art, Sophirat pointed out that Thai viewers are more familiar with nude magazines, mainly catered to male audiences, which have led to the perception that nudity must always be “sexy”. On the other hand, Thai viewers remain unfamiliar with nude art in other settings, such as in museums and art galleries, which are much more common in the West.

Because of the limited perception of nude art among Thais, Sophirat feels that nude photographers, like herself, remain marginalised in the Thai art scene. Even worse, being “Thai” and “female” makes things even harder, due to conservative cultural norms that dictate that Thai women stay modest and reserved and, therefore, women in nude photography are always looked down upon.

“If I’m a Thai female, they have already decided for me what I have to do, even if they do not know me,” she says, adding that being a Thai female nude photographer wouldn’t be a problem if she lived outside of Thailand.

“Many times that I visit a nude gallery or exhibition, Thai people have no problem with foreign photographers, but they have a problem if it’s a Thai photographer, because they are concerned about religion, or values of being a good person, especially if you are a woman.”

Sophirat explains further that she was never not allowed to do something just because she’s a woman, back when she was still a nude photographer in Germany. When she came back to Thailand, however, being a Thai woman and a nude photographer became the most common issue that reporters would raise with her, even those from international media.

At the same time, even though Sophirat has a long list of solo and group exhibitions to prove her experience, she still has to approach the media by herself, to convince people to explore other aspects of nude photography. Another difficulty that the female photographer experienced was when she was rejected by some universities as a guest lecturer, just because her portfolio includes nudity, reiterating her point that nude photographers are still subject to discrimination.

“It is quite hard,” she says. “I cannot do only nude photography and exhibitions. I have to approach the media. I have to approach the university. I have to write something. I have to make them understand me from many perspectives. I mean, it’s much harder for me compared to others.”

Despite being recognised now as one of the top nude photographers in Thailand, most people are still not open-minded about nude-related art, especially the way people raise eyebrows or tease someone when they post a photo of themselves visiting a nude exhibition.

One incident she still remembers was when a visitor took a selfie with her. Someone joked that he or she wanted to become a nude model for Sophirat. As much as it offended her, she said that she could only laugh it off “just to be polite”.

“No one wants anyone to laugh at what you love,” she explains. “So, when someone says ‘Ah… you’re going to be a nude model for this photographer right?’ It’s not a joke to me,” she explains.

As the bias against nude art persists, Sophirat believes that having more (female) nude photographers would help push more boundaries in the Thai art scene.

“I would be grateful if there were more female photographers coming out,” she says. “Because, if you shout alone, you will get tired and your voice would be small. If there are more people who understand your work and are doing the same thing, I think we can change something,” she believes.

It’s a naked body that covers your soul

As for her ultimate goal as a Thai photographer of nudes, Sophirat says that she dreams of travelling around the world, to explore different cultures through nude photography. She also dreams of taking photos of communities where they still live naked and this latest solo exhibition marks the starting point of her next journey.

“I really want to travel around the world to take nude photos of people, like this exhibition, but in other cultures,” she says. “Because I think, for me, it’s a naked body that covers your soul. Some people create their appearance to be like that of others, but we have no idea what’s inside them when they are naked.”

By Nad Bunnag, Thai PBS World

The world-famous Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards competition is now open to entries.

There’s just over a month to go before the 2024 competition closes, meaning you still have time to submit your funniest wildlife images.

Looking for a bit of inspiration? Here are a few of the funniest photo entries so far, from joke-telling polar bears to (slightly) awkward penguins.  

Best photos from the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2024 (so far)

Holding on for a ride – Alexander Fine

Not a good idea – Anton Pretorius

Three’s a crowd – Deena Sveinsson

Slow hands – Harry Collins

Laughing out loud – Ingo Hamann

Three heads are better than one – John Mullineux

Watch out for that tree – Mark Koster

Pick me pick meeeeee – Thomas Van Puymbroeck

Peak-a-boo – Tilan Weerasinghe

Did you hear the one about the…? – Wendy Kaveney

Itching to enter?

The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards competition is open until 31 July 2024. It’s free to enter and open to levels of photographer.

More weird and wonderful wildlife:

The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards has previewed a selection of top entries to date competing for 2024’s funniest wildlife photos, including a three-headed giraffe, a rather cool sloth and cub bears holding on for a ride.

With less than a month before the competition closes, the photo contest has already fielded hundreds of entries from around the world, catching some of wildlife’s funniest moments on camera. The competition organisers are releasing a few of the shots to inspire both professional and amateur photographers to enter their images before the closing date of July 31.

Now in its 10th year, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards has partnered with Nikon, one of the world’s leading camera brands.

The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards was co-founded in 2015 by professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam. They sought a competition focused on the lighter side of wildlife photography that would help promote the conservation of wildlife and habitats through humor.

Each year, the competition supports a sustainable conservation organisation and this year it will work again with Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) a U.K. charity that backs conservation leaders working in their home countries across the Global South. Over 30 years, it has channeled £20 million to more than 200 conservationists in 90 countries.

The free competition is open to all wildlife photography novices, amateurs and professionals — you don’t have to be using a Nikon camera — to celebrate the hilarity of our natural world and highlight what we need to do to protect it.

Discover more about the competition and its conservation efforts.

A male mallard flying appears to be running into a tree at Chaparral Park in Scottsdale. Actually, it was flying behind it.

At Half Moon Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, the expedition ship was bound in a stunning snowy world. “I expected thousands of chinstrap penguins but there were only a few hundred,” said Deena Sveinsson. “In the distance, I saw these three hanging out with one another but suddenly there seemed to be some disagreement and the penguin pair briskly walked off leaving the poor little lone fella wondering why. How humanlike. And how awful it must be to be that third wheel.”

Anthropomorphic antics of polar bears seemingly telling each other jokes and laughing hysterically.

A Three-Toed sloth in Costa Rica that looks like he may have been a guitar player in a previous life. This image gives new meaning to Eric Clapton’s nickname “slowhand.”

Two male giraffe were fighting shortly after drinking water in the green Kalahari. They started sizing each other up but ended up scooching over to a third giraffe. In a single moment, the three formed one body with three heads.

This western cattle egret thinking of having a go at the male organ of a buffalo.

This newborn seal is having a whale of a laugh.

A water cock gives a hilarious performance.

Who wants to live in a plastic free ocean? Meeeeeeeee.

From dogs on the beach to tugboats in the harbor, these photographers captured quintessential Savannah

AFTER THE EXCITEMENT of last year’s inaugural photo contest, Savannah magazine brought back the friendly competition for a second year. Inspired by the city’s inimitable beauty and creative spirit, we called for professional, amateur and student (under 18 years of age) photographers to share their best original images that capture the essence of the Greater Savannah area and Georgia coast in exchange for cash prizes — and bragging rights, of course. 

Between January and March, more than 100 people answered our call and shared hundreds of images. Here, we’ve rounded up our staff favorites, with some help from a panel of esteemed judges. Cast your vote for Readers’ Favorite by Aug. 1, 2024. One winner will be announced in our September/October issue and receive a $200 prize!

Professional Category

WINNER
“Morning Lighthouse” by Steve Vilnit

RUNNER-UP
“The Golden Roots” by Micah Turner

HONORABLE MENTION
“Ogeechee” by Kathryn Ann Waller

EDITOR’S FAVORITE
“Yesterday’s Paper” by Randall Patrick

Amateur Category

WINNER
“Savannah River Tugs” by Tim Nichols

RUNNER-UP (TIED)
“The Birds” by Diane Fulmer

RUNNER-UP (TIED)
“Old and Older” by Ann P. Raimee

HONORABLE MENTION
“Foggy Walking Tour” by Nichols Hennig

EDITOR’S FAVORITE
“Thunderbolt Fisherman’s Seafood” by William Byatt

Student Category

WINNER
“Panama Jack 1” by Cruz Velazquez 

RUNNER-UP
“The Bridge to Industry” by Lance Ha

HONORABLE MENTION
“The Beauty of Downtown” by Isabella Evans 

MEET THE JUDGES

Daniel Palmer

Daniel S. Palmer is chief curator at the SCAD Museum of Art. Previously, he was curator at Public Art Fund, New York, where he organized 20 exhibitions. Prior to his role at Public Art Fund, he served as the Leon Levy Assistant Curator at the Jewish Museum and Curatorial Research Assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Palmer has curated numerous exhibitions independently and has contributed writing to many artist monographs, publications and journals including ARTnews, The New York Times, Mousse and Kaleidoscope, among others. He holds a doctorate and Master of Philosophy in art history from the CUNY Graduate Center and a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University.

Katie McGee

Winner, 2023 “So Savannah” Photo Contest

Katie McGee is grateful to have grown up in an inspiring city like Savannah. The beautiful landscape is what led her to study photography in college and continue working professionally for 16 years. When she is not working, you may find her at an estate sale, driving down the bluff or walking downtown with her golden retrievers, Finley and Olive.

Somi Benson-Jaja

Somi Benson-Jaja is the owner of Shot By Somi Studios, an award-winning commercial portrait photographer and two-time Best Photographer in Savannah magazine’s Best of Savannah reader survey. Before photography, Benson-Jaja was an elementary school music teacher for six years in the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System. He is actively involved in the community by serving on various boards, including the United Way of the Coastal Empire Board of Directors, the Emmaus House Board of Directors, the National Association for Catering and Events (NACE), the Lowcountry Chapter Board of Directors and is currently the president of Buy Local Savannah. He was named to Georgia Southern University 40 under 40 2020 Alumni Award class, honored by Savannah magazine as a part of the 2021 New Guard and is a 2021 graduate of Leadership Savannah.

Stayce Koegler

Winner, Best Photographer, Savannah magazine Best of Savannah 2023 

Savannah-based photographer Stayce Koegler brings 16 years of experience capturing candid, emotion-filled family moments and high school seniors. Her goal is to provide a gallery that anyone falls hard in love with, while also enjoying the experience of creating those memories. 

---

Cast your vote for Readers’ Favorite by Aug. 1, 2024.

---

Find this feature and so much more in Savannah magazine’s July/August 2024 “Life on the Water” issue.

Photographing live music can be an amazing experience once you embrace the idea that you have no control over any of the elements in your frame. So how do you create great pictures when you have limited angles to shoot from, terrible lighting, and no control over what your subject will do next?

Introduction

In this age of digital streaming with every type of media available on demand, attending a live show still has an incredible and irreplaceable magic all its own. In our family, we are all avid live music and comedy junkies and take the opportunity to go out and see live shows whenever we can. It’s great to support artists by going to see their shows in person when they go on tour. In my case, my passion for live performance also carries over to my photography.

There’s usually a great deal of thought and effort behind the scenes that goes into making a live performance visually compelling. Whether it’s music or theater – the lighting, the costumes, and the drama unfolding on the stage all contribute to the visual spectacle of the scene. These visual elements are the obvious starting point when capturing a live performance as a still photographer, but a great photograph can also capture its emotion and energy. Despite being a snapshot of a single moment frozen in time, a skillfully executed photograph can even convey the dynamism and movement of a performance.

Check out the work of some of the legendary music photographers like Jim Marshall, Deborah Feingold, Ross Halfin, and Danny Clinch, and you’ll see what I mean. Some of their amazing images make you feel like you’re there in the crowd, taking in the atmosphere and experiencing the concert for yourself.

While we mere mortals of the music photography world might aspire to one day have the opportunity to photograph artists of the stature of Bowie, Hendrix, and Queen, there are plenty of lesser-known but incredibly talented musicians and bands out there touring and performing, who need photographers to come and capture their shows and create the kind of amazing images that they can use to promote their own careers. Coincidentally, these images can also be a great way to promote our own careers as photographers!

Before we go any further, I would like to give a big shout-out to the artist who appears in these photographs. Meg Smith was recently featured in Rolling Stone as a rising young star in the music scene, and I was thrilled when she invited me to come and photograph a set that she was performing at a local concert venue The Sinclair, as part of her nationwide tour.

What follows are what I hope will be some useful tips for getting great images when you’re photographing live music. I don’t profess to have all of the answers about how best to shoot live music, nor do I want to give anybody the impression that my way of doing it is the right way or the only way. This article is a distillation of my own experience photographing live music – a recounting of some of the many mistakes that I have made along the way, and the approaches and techniques that I have found to work well (and not so well) for me when it comes to getting good concert photographs.

Big Pixels Are Your Friend

I don’t want to spend too much of this article talking specifically about gear, but a lot of people ask what kind of camera is best for concert photography, so I feel that I should at least address this question parenthetically.

You can photograph live music with pretty much any camera, but some types of cameras are definitely better suited to the job. Compared to even twenty years ago, we have a lot more choice today when it comes to gear, but I would say that one of the most advantageous features a camera can have when it comes to photographing live music is its ability to create nice, clean images even in low light. The lighting in most concert venues is terrible, and in contrast to studio photography, you usually have no control over it. Furthermore, the artist – your subject – will probably be moving around, flitting between differently illuminated areas of the stage. Sometimes they could be bathed in the harsh glare of a spotlight, sometimes they could be in deep shadow. Your camera is going to need to be able to deal with a wide range of generally suboptimal light conditions.

It’s a basic law of physics that bigger pixels will be better than smaller pixels when it comes to gathering light – that is to say, a bigger pixel will have a better signal-to-noise ratio than an equivalent, smaller pixel. Sure, the electronics of sensors and image processing chips are constantly improving, but these components of your camera’s imaging pipeline need to work a lot harder to extract a clean image from smaller, noisier pixels in low light. There’s also the argument that AI-driven denoising algorithms have changed the game when it comes to cleaning up noisy images. Again, you can rely on this technology up to a point, but there are limits to what these algorithms can do, and your chances of getting a great image are improved if your image is already in pretty good shape straight out of the camera.

In spite of all the firmware and software wizardry that we have at our disposal to clean up noisy images, you really are better off getting a clean image straight out of your camera if you can achieve it – and the bigger your pixels are, the easier this will be. For this reason, I feel that some of the lower-resolution full frame cameras are a good choice for concert photography. I really like using the Leica SL2-S and Panasonic Lumix S5IIX cameras that have “only” about 24 megapixels on their full frame sensors. This is more than enough resolution for almost any photographic scenario, and their larger pixels give them superb low light performance.

If you don’t have a large sensor camera with big pixels, don’t worry. There are plenty of photographers out there shooting concerts with Four Thirds and even smaller sensors. You work with what you’ve got. More time spent with the denoising algorithms in post-processing may be necessary if your images are really noisy, and one good tip if all else fails, is to convert your noisiest concert images to black and white. The sensor noise is much less intrusive and bothersome in monochrome images and can give the image a kind of film grain look. A gritty black and white image might even be the perfect format if you’re shooting a moody music genre.

I made the deliberate choice not to apply any noise reduction (either AI or manual) to the images in this article, to illustrate how well lower resolution, full-frame sensors can handle low light conditions. All of the photographs were shot using the Leica SL2-S and the Panasonic Lumix S5IIX at auto ISO settings up to and including ISO 12,800.

Exposure

I like to have full manual control of my camera when I’m shooting in general, but especially for concerts. I want a shutter speed high enough to keep motion blur down when the artist is moving – and if my lens allows it, a wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which enables me to keep my ISO setting lower and reduce sensor noise.

One thing that you can’t spend too much time on when you’re shooting a live concert is futzing with your exposure settings. I have learned this from bitter, personal experience, having missed some great shots because I was caught unprepared – busy with my head down, fiddling with my camera settings when some amazing action was happening just a few feet in front of me.

What I like to do, therefore, is to set a wide aperture and a shutter speed that will keep the motion blur to a minimum, and then use the automatic ISO setting to ensure the appropriate exposure for that particular shutter speed/aperture combination. I usually shoot concerts with my shutter speed set somewhere in the region of 1/100 second. This is a compromise insofar as it isn’t fast enough to prevent motion blur when the artist is moving rapidly, but it works in most scenarios while still allowing me to shoot at lower ISO, and I always have the option to quickly increase the shutter speed for the more dynamic moments of the performance (more on this in a moment).

I usually cap my maximum ISO setting depending upon the limits of the camera’s low light performance. On my full frame cameras, for example, I’m happy to let the ISO go as high as 12,800 since both cameras can easily produce excellent images at that gain. In a pinch, I could probably go to even higher ISO settings on those cameras if I was willing to tolerate a little more noise and a tad more work processing the images.

Focus

I have found from experience that the best approach to handling focus for concert photography also depends on what camera you are using. Cameras with the latest and greatest phase-detect autofocus like the S5IIX are ideal and can even be (mostly) reliably used in continuous autofocus mode – locking onto the subject and tracking them automatically as they move. My SL2-S with contrast-detect autofocus definitely struggles a little more than the S5IIX in low light, but it still gets the job done.

With continuous autofocus, even if you have AI face or eye detection, it’s sometimes possible for the camera to lose track of the artist’s face if they are using a handheld microphone or if there are other objects such as guitar necks, microphone stands, or the artist’s hands crossing their face in your frame as they move. This is another lesson that I have learned the hard way. If you think this might be happening, it’s sometimes worth switching back to single autofocus mode and reducing your focus zone size so that you have more precise control over getting the artist’s face in focus.

It is possible to use manual focus for concert photography if you have good dexterity, and the focus assist tools like focus peaking can be really helpful for this. The technique of zone focusing used a lot by street photographers can be more difficult to take advantage of in the kind of low light that is typical in concert venues since we are already being pushed towards shooting with wider apertures, and zone focusing works best with narrower apertures. Using a wide angle lens can help in this case, since it will have a wider depth of field at any given aperture than the equivalent longer focal length lens.

Use the Stage Lighting to Your Advantage

If the concert venue has a professional lighting setup, there are usually plenty of opportunities to use the stage lights to crank up the drama in your shots. A technique that can give you wonderful, dramatic concert shots is to position yourself such that the artist is occasionally eclipsing one of the rear spotlights. If you are prepared for it, in moments of “total eclipse,” you can get a dramatic silhouette of the artist outlined by a gorgeous rim light. This effect can be even more dramatic if the artist has a lot of hair for the light to shine through.

My preference though is to try to catch the “partial eclipse” and nail the exposure somewhere between the brilliant backlight and the deep shadow of the artist’s silhouette. This allows some details of the artist’s features to stand out from the shadows, making for a more interesting shot.

In some of my concert shoots, I found that if I missed my timing on the artist’s movement and took a full-on blast of the spotlight into my lens, what I ended up with was often just a mush of washed-out glare and lens flare from which it was very difficult to recover any interesting details. This is not so much a problem for stage lights that are not angled directly toward your camera, but you really need to try to time your shot to capture at least the “partial eclipse” if you are shooting straight into a spotlight.

Colored stage lights can also add a lot of extra drama to a shot, and it’s a matter of personal taste how you choose to handle them when you are managing your white balance in post-processing. One approach I like to use with colored lights is to mask the performer and the background separately, and then set the white balance on the performer to achieve somewhat more realistic skin tones while leaving the background colors as they are for dramatic effect. I find that this can also make the performer stand out better, especially if the stage behind them is bathed in a sea of red or blue light.

Anticipation

Beyond being very comfortable using your camera and familiar with its settings and performance, I would say that the most important skill for concert photography is anticipation. Getting great pictures of a performance does require some luck, but as the French scientist Louis Pasteur once observed, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” It really helps to be able to anticipate where the performance is going to go next.

One obvious preparatory step that you can take as a concert photographer is to familiarize yourself with the artist’s songs before the performance. Even better than just listening to the songs is watching videos of previous performances if they are available. This is great for getting a sense of what the artist likes to do at different points in a song, how they move, and what gestures they use. Does the song have any emotional moments in which the artist may do something particularly dramatic? Is there a punchy chorus or an instrumental riff where the artist likes to dance?

I previously said that I don’t want to have to mess with my camera settings during a concert, but the one setting I might change is the shutter speed. If I know that a particular song has a more energetic beat and the artist is going to move about more, or if there’s a particular moment in a song where the artist likes to dance, I will sometimes increase my shutter speed just for those moments in the performance.

One other tip that somebody once gave me that might seem obvious but that I have found to be incredibly useful is to shoot in burst mode – at least during the more energetic parts of the performance.

Respect the Audience

Finally, although you might be working when you’re shooting a concert and feel that you have a job to do, it’s worth remembering that everybody else is there to have a good time, and unlike you, they have paid for the experience. I’ve seen some rather self-important concert photographers continually blocking the view of the audience to get their shots and even pushing their way in front of people to do this.

I think it’s very important for a concert photographer to be considerate of the audience. Shoot quickly and move out of the way whenever possible. Being the “official” concert photographer doesn’t make you more important than the other people in the audience, or give you the right to be a jackass just because you think you’ve got a job to do.

State

Zip Code

Country

State

Zip Code

Country