As part of the brief around photography of musicians from BIMM in Birmingham we were to shoot a set of candid shots in the rehearsal room at the BIMM campus, then a set of photos in the Wolverhampton Uni photography studios before following it up with a shoot at a live gig. The band had a gig planned for 22nd March 2025 at a pub in Soho, London, called The Spice Of Life. My plan was to get down to London early do some street photography then meet up with the five piece band before their load into the venue and then during soundcheck and the gig after that.
We had been communicating thus far on WhatsApp and it had been working well, with the group answering and asking questions, allowing us to meet at the venue later. We’d used it to plan the previous two shoots also and
Research
Looking at the photos, beforehand, of the venue online I could see that the venue was a bit dark with some awkward , but not much lighting. This was possible using the image search in google using the search string “The Spice Of Life Soho Gig” and looking at the images brought up.
My plan was to take my Canon 5D MkIV with two lenses, a 16-35mm f/2.8 and a 24-105 f/4, as well as my little mirrorless Leica Q3 with its built in 28mm f/1.7 lens. I had a flash unit for each camera too, a Jessops Speedlight copy for the Canon and a Good Lux Jr for the Q3. I thought I’d need them to fill in the foreground and overcome some of the light coming from the big round, red sign on the rear of the stage.
Day Tripper
I had already spent the day wandering around Oxford Street, Regent Street, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square taking pictures of random people that I found interesting. I had also visited three exhibitions which were a nice surprise as neither was planned. There was a graffiti exhibition in Piccadilly showcasing the works of artists/vandals TOX, 10FOOT and FUME. They had produced works on canvas and board as well as creating a couple of zines, I’ll discuss this in another post.
The second exhibition I went to was called Iconic Images, just off Piccadilly that I had wandered up to trying to find Leicester Square. https://iconicimagesgallery.com contained many wonderful images such as those by Eve Arnold, Terry O’Neill and Kevin Cummins to name but three. I can see why they are called Iconic Images, but I wasn’t feeling flush enough to splash out on a print… The photos were of models, movie stars and musicians and are a different level.
The first exhibition I went to was off Oxford Street by the BBC Broadcasting House and was downstairs in a small coffee shop called Brityard, a show by Scarlet Page: “30” is hosted by Behind the Gallery and was many images of musicians that she had made over the 30 years of her career, again there were some classic shots here that all seemed to be adding up to this day being a musician photography based day.
Soho Bound
Once I’d finished messing about and emptying three batteries in my Q3, whilst still carrying the 5D and equipment in the backpack I headed over to Soho and had a pint of Guinness Zero so I could use the bathroom of the O’Neil’s pub, it started thundering and lightning whilst I was sat outside but the rain held off mostly. Then at around 6pm I headed to the venue and grabbed a Heineken Zero prepared to wait for the band to arrive, when I saw Luca at the bar and he showed me there was George by the door with some supporters that had travelled to the show from the Midlands.
I had a quick chat and went to cool down outside as I was starting to warm up and start feeling the pressure of the shoot to come. George & Alfie’s grandad, Alan, came out and we chatted for a bit about how impressed we both are with them all as a group, he’s a lovely fella and it was a pleasure chatting to him. Then Drewe and Ben came outside had a small chat before they made their way in to the soundcheck, I followed them and used the opportunity to unpack my bag, fit the straps to the cameras and do a couple of flash shots to see if I was going to get any decent shots using the flash.
Camera Concerns
It became apparent that I was struggling with the flash on Canon and it was either overpowered pr underpowered, leading to wildly-over exposed or dark underexposed shots. I left the flashes on the cameras and tried with them switched off to see what it was like using a higher ISO, it was good and I felt like I probably didn’t need the flashes. I took the flash off the Q3 but left one on the 5D in case I needed to try it once the gig started proper.
The 5D is really good at high ISO photos and it’s the reason I choose to use it for night shoots and poor weather images, the Q3 is a bit poor on some high ISO photos and I don’t generally tend to like the output once it is over 2500 ISO. The 28mm f/1.7 lens is super quick though and lets a lot of light in quickly which negates the need to go too far up the ISO gears.
During the soundcheck I banged off a few images and then met Elaine from @emdphotographic who is friends of the band Bin Weasel who were following Wooden Dog. We had a chat about gear after she asked what I was using to shoot the evening, she turns out to be using a mixture of Sony and Olympus gear and had three bodies and lenses upon her person. We chatted a short while before moving around the stage area avoiding getting in each others shots (for the most part). If I saw her aiming the lens at the area I was, I would duck down out of the way meaning less editing for her later to get rid of the massive bald lummox from her images.
Lighting
The lighting in the venue was ok, with the large neon type sign behind providing some good backlighting and also around five spotlights in front of the stage pointing at the musicians. There were some issues with an Emergency Exit light above a door in the rear of the stage that was always behind Alfie, the lead singer, when shot from stage left area. These would need some editing in Lightroom and Photoshop to remove and downplay the effects of the light.
There was an abundance of different coloured lighting illuminating the band members and whilst the colder blue and green colours were helpful, I found the reds difficult to deal with both in the shoot and in the editing.
Settings
Shooting, once the gig had begun proper, was mostly on the 5D with the shutter speed at 1/125 and a high ISO on Auto of between 5000 and 50000 depending on the 24-105’s focal length. I shot 300 photos with this lens for the extra reach it gave me with the 16-35 being used for only 30 photos mainly the soundcheck. The distortion from the 16-35 was also very noticeable from the rear of the camera so I stuck with the longer reach lens, even though it was a little slower. At some point during the shoot, possibly between hanging the camera on it’s strap and picking it up, I’d altered the shutter speed to 1/25 which is a little slow and ended up ruining a few images. I noticed it after a while and upped it back to a 1/125.
I was using the Q3 with a shutter speed of 1/125 at f/4 and an auto ISO between 6400 and 25000 but even these higher ISO photos have come out well, I think. The 28mm f/1.7 lens was manually held open at f/4 to give me a bit of a depth of field, but f/8 was too much and the camera was really struggling to produce anything without excessive noise at this aperture.
The band were animated but pretty stationary on the stage, they were loving the experience and I found them often sharing glances with each other and laughing, thoroughly enjoying it I think. It might be a strategy that they are taught in university to keep smiling to engage the audience but it looked real to me and I found it lovely to witness.
It was trickiest getting images of Ben on drums and Drewe on bass guitar as they were stood behind their fellow bandmates, Ben behind the singer and Drewe behind the keyboardist. I was moving around stage left and right to try and capture a few different angles, Elaine was spending a lot of time kneeling on the floor and taking upwards facing images which I bet looked great. I didn’t do these as I didn’t want to fall over in front of the band and I felt like the ceiling was a bit messy to have in the background.
I turned around a couple of times and captured images of the audience and the rest of the venue but it was too tightly packed to get up and to the rear of the venue to capture photos of them from behind the crowd. This would have likely made the photos too noisy also and not added a lot of detail or context to the shoot. I shot many photos of the whole band from the front to gather some context then concentrated on a couple of bandmates together then some individual photos.
I also tried to grab a couple of shots of the instruments being played in a more abstract nature before moving behind Luca and Alfie to capture back lit photos of them with the spotlights in front of them providing a halo of light around them, even a couple of lights acting like flares.
Editing
Editing the images was something I started last night and I found it relatively easy to pick out the images that I should bin off due to serious motion blur or poorly positioned subjects. Some of the images of twos ended up with one being in focus and the other being blurred out due to depth of field but I quite like a couple of these. I found that I can also use the Lens Blur in the Develop module of Lightroom to simulate an even narrower depth of field, thus taking out the distractions of the blurry facial details.
Selection Of Images
On a couple of images where the lighting messed up and discoloured everything I found that setting the white balance helped normalise the colours within the image but in some cases the colours are better off being left as they came out. Some images of the musicians come out well with their instruments but I still found it tricky to make the guitarists and singers look dynamic like they were really working as hard as they actually were. Ben on drums was helped out by my 1/25 slip and I captured a couple of images where his sticks cane seen strobing through the image, probably by the strobe-like nature of the LED lighting in the room.
One shot I was pleased with was at the end of the gig once they had completed their encore and received a great round of applause, then they started packing away all their gear, I stopped them and asked them for a group shot before they took everything apart and put it away. There were a few different versions of the image due to the lighting colours still cycling and some facial expressions altering.
I found that the images of the band from the front aren’t that interesting and full of clutter but the individual portraits that I can pull from the set are interesting. I’ve shared many images with the band and I’ll wait to see which images they choose from the set of selected images. I’d be interested to share all of the photos with the group and see if there are others they like that I do not find worthy.
After finishing up with the shoot I had a quick chat with a couple of the band members and Alfie and George’s grandad Alan. The time was around 8:15pm so I headed off with my 5D around my neck, as my Q3 was out of batteries. I headed through Leicester Square and a bit more of Soho before getting on the tube and heading to Green Park to change to the Jubilee for my trip to Stanmore tube station and the 3.5 hour long drive afterwards. It was a great night, the band played exceptionally well and the audience in the pub was loving it too. They did themselves proud and I’m sure it’s done no harm to their prospects of getting a gig there again in the future.
Social Sharing
Between the band and ourselves we’ve got a good communication channel going and we are mutually respectful about the photos that we are sending their way. They ask if they can share them on their social channels and we ask if we can share them on ours also. Technically they’re my photos so I don’t have to ask permission but I understand that some artists want to control their image online and don’t need me usurping their communication strategy. They find it comfortable to ask me for changes such as reverting back to colour from black and white and asking for higher resolution copies for their use.
I have shared some online and tag them into the posts to ensure that they can see them and ask me to take down if not a fan… I endeavour to tag or mention the artists individually, the band and also their university as well as my own uni. I don’t tend to use hashtags that much for this type of event as the band can post their own versions and include whatever hashtags they want. I’ve only got a small following on Instagram so I don’ expect them to get much traction, I mainly use it to document my shoots and trips out rather than trying to build a huge brand.
Reflection
I’m not normally a people photographer unless street photography counts. I don’t usually do posed portraits and find it stressful to be in a studio or even in a scenario such as a wedding or gig where the photos are anticipated by the subjects or whoever commissioned me. Gig photography fits more into my street candid shooting style really, the band members are usually focussed on and concentrating on their tasks and not worried about the old fella with the camera. As a result, the photos I make at gigs are usually the candid style where the artist is not looking down the lens and therefore I don’t feel the same pressure. Occasionally I get an image of a band member looking at me, and I’ve found drummers and bass guitarists to be the most gregarious when it comes to this.
The other photographer with the three cameras on her was also doing a great job of shooting the group and I’m looking forward to seeing how her pictures come out. She, like me, works full time in a job unrelated to photography so uses it as a hobby and a possible future income stream. I have taken music pictures of my brother in his band, other local bands with friends in and enjoy trying to get an odd angle in the set but often I mess up the settings and one time I was photographing a band called Ego Friendly I forgot that I’d set up my 5D with back button focussing, due to only having used my Leica mainly for a month or two before. This is known as an ID 10 T error in my job.
I wasn’t as stressed here as I was in the studio back at our university so I’d much prefer to take photos in this environment and deliver the results. I wonder if the leeway you have because of the lighting and conditions is a good excuse where in a studio there are no excuses to be found, the whole system and location is set up specifically for the photographs to be taken.
On using the flashes, I need to spend more time practicing this as I never felt at all comfortable when using them and I’m pretty certain that they could make my photos pop with even more fill light helping out. Time to look into some YouTube tutorials and if that’s no use I might have a chat with Dan and Sam.
Elaine said she tends to overshoot at gigs rather than a controlled tempo and finds it a lot to go through post gig. I’d also prefer to do this as some of the images I’ve shot one frame of, I’ve found a blink or a turned head. So for me this multi frame style fits the bill better. I’ve stopped using so many frames when doing street photography and have my Q3 set to 2 frames per second. If I was using a larger number of frames I found I was getting lazy and “spraying and praying”, whereas I find it more thoughtful when there are fewer chances to hit it correctly. I think more about the gait of someones walk, the rhythm of their head turning as they talk to a friend and even the way a long coat flows out behind them as they walk.
In total I think I had 400 frames shot on the 5D over the course of the evening, reduced by a quarter to around 300 once I’d done an initial purge of blurred and rubbish images. The Leica had seen around 500 images captured up its 28mm eye throughout the day in and around the city. I’ve yet to properly go through some of these and filter out the better ones from the crap ones, but with some of these I often find if I go back to the images a bit later on I find new reasons to like some images that I thought poor the first time around.
Now I need to continue editing the images and put together a powerpoint slide set for the overall project brief, going from the very start until this gig. There is also an opportunity to photograph Wooden Dog again at BIMM Live on Thursday next so that may be a possibility of getting some more images of the band and some of their course mates too.
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