Separating Subjects on Stage

One of the things I appreciate in live music photographs of musicians, whether it’s a picture that I've taken or by another photographer, is separation. What I mean by that is isolating the subject from other objects or band members in the photograph. Microphone stands, speaker cabs and lighting rigs are all static on-stage objects that are easier to shoot around than other musicians. And to me separation is especially important in photographs focussing on singers faces’, when they are singing into microphones.

In this instance I like to see the singer’s mouth, and if there is space between the microphone and the mouth, even better. Some musicians have skilled microphone technique, and this can help us photographers when taking photographs of them. This is because the singer will generally follow a pattern in a song when they are close to the microphone, and when they move away from it. We can anticipate these moments and ready ourselves for when it comes around again.

It’s a difficult shot to get right because the singer is normally at their most expressive when singing at full volume into their microphone, and expression is one of the main things that I'm looking for as a music photographer.

Sometimes, if you’re patient, lucky, or both, the singer will move away from the microphone when singing. Or, in the case of Ty Taylor from Vintage Trouble in the photograph, the singer will completely back off the microphone and belt out an enormous yell at full force showing the full extent of their expression.

Danny Wilson and Dandy & Rose

I don't normally publish colour images of my photos; I'm a black & white photographer predominantly. But I made an exception when Janet Aspley contacted me for a colour version of a photograph of Danny Wilson from Danny & the Champions of the World.

Janet is a bespoke shirtmaker and her company is called Dandy & Rose. Danny was sporting his new Dandy & Rose shirt at his Louisiana gig in Bristol last week when I took this photograph.

Dandy & Rose make beautiful, western style shirts in bold prints. Janet's shirts are worn by many musicians including other members of the Champions, but they are available to all. She has many customers in one of my favourite places: Nashville - Music City. Take a look at the Dandy & Rose web site here. www.dandyandrose.com

One of Janet's missions is to rid the world of check shirts, and since she told me that I can't stop spotting check shirts everywhere, including in my wardrobe.

I'll be organising a fitting very soon.

Incidentally, I think black and white photographs of bold prints are also quite striking. But obviously if one wants to promote a shirt print, colour is the way forward.

Catch Them Before They Turn Into Crosby, Southport, Formby and Heswall

The Montgomerys played the Totterdown music festival outside the Oxford pub last Sunday and it was a belter. Sam Whitlock - lead guitar and vocals, Philo Sinnett - rhythm guitar and vocals, Thomas Murdoch - bass and vocals, Ko Ristolainen - drums.

I've been following the band for yonks, since they started. They're a great bunch of lads and fine exponents of West Country Rock.

Catch them soon before they turn into er.... English north west coastal towns.

Glastonbury Tor BST -1

So, with next week's Glastonbury festival on my mind (1st time for me), I remembered this film I made 3 years ago on the day before the clocks went forward to signal the beginning of British Summer Time (BST).

I drove with Woo to Glastonbury Tor from my home in Bristol. It was the first time I'd been there. I took my time-lapse camera and home-made tripod mount (see photo - more on this soon), with the intention of catching the sun rising over the Tor. We didn't get there in time to see the sunrise - we were about an hour late. But it was still early enough to catch the low sunlight rising behind the Tor. It was a beautiful morning.

It's difficult to tell that the film is a time-lapse at the start; it looks like a standard rotational pan shot. However, if you look carefully at the sheep in the field, you can see them scuttling about at speed. The Tor makes an early appearance in the form of a shadow in a distant field and you can see it move ever so slightly as time passes.

The highlights in the film for me are the two labradors that came bounding over to see what all the fuss was about, and the large dog that showed up right on time at the end with its owner. I slowed this down in the film to add effect.

The music in the film is by Phillip Henry, who I saw play with the fantastic Hannah Martin at the Priddy Folk festival in 2011 and bought all their albums. Strangely enough I have a connection at the festival this year and hopefully I'll get to meet them both and pay Phillip for using a small piece of his song - Snow Dove, in the film.

The Elusive Available Light

After photographing bands indoors for a few months, it’s a relief to have an abundance of available light to play around in again. I have to work harder indoors because I'm always struggling for light to keep my shutter speed high enough to avoid motion blur. I don’t like using flash because it ruins the mood for me and blinds the band.

Conversely, bright sunshine is equally difficult to work with because of the high contrast between bright highlights and dark shadows.

The light on Saturday in St Werburghs was perfect for me if not for the crowd. There was enough of it, and it was really flat which meant I didn't have to keep messing with my controls and could just focus on the action. High shutter speeds allowed me to freeze the action as you can see in this photo of Toby Bang which was shot at 1/250th sec at f2.8. Indoors, I’m lucky to get 1/60th of a second even with the ISO boosted to 6400.

Despite all the light, it's still difficult to freeze those sticks.