Photo of the week

I have been quite busy, so this is a shot from the archive.

I have taken many photos of this band (The Rivers of Sound) and they vary from being really saturated with colour from stage lights, to needing a flash to get a good exposure, and hence rather colourless, but this one is one of my favourites.The coloured lights are from the stage lighting, but I also used a speedlight 430 sat on a speaker stack to the right of the camera, pointing across the stage.

You can set the flash power manually, but as I was moving along the stage getting photos of each band member, and each was a different distance from the flash, and the stage lights were changing colours and brightness I went with the ETTL mode of the flash. This worked quite well, giving a correct exposure, and because it was from the side i did not wash out the colours from the stage. The next thing I want to try is some coloured gels across the flash and try giving some colour to that fill in light(probably whatever colour is missing from the stage). Of course having a few more speedlights would be nice too, but they aren’t cheap.

It is worth pointing out that there is a stage light right behind Matt’s head, which is giving a glow around his head and shoulders – depending on your taste you can try and get a shot with it on or off. Personally, I like the glow behind him from the stage light, and it also hides the ugly roof of the stage, which is littered with dirty lighting rigs.

If you want to see more photos I have a collection of gig photos and a tag for rivers of sound on flickr