Gig photos - Glovebox / The Minority

Last Thursday we went along to see local Melbournians The Minority again, as they were playing at Revolver in Prahran - I've stuck some photos up here in case those that were there want to see them ... Concert photography is something I've had an interest in for a while, but never really got round to doing it properly. Seeing as I'm trying to work out the ins and outs of my new SLR, I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to practice a bit more. I managed to get hold of a second hand 50mm prime lens, which opens up to a marvelous aperture of f/1.4 - thus letting ridiculous amounts of light in. Handy, because (in my opinion) using flash at a gig is an annoyance, both to the bands and to the rest of the audience (especially in a smaller, crowded venue). This really came home watching some of the gigs in Sydney - there were a couple of guys wandering around with huge zooms and powerful external flashes, all very impressive equipment wise but was it strictly necessary I wondered ? And were they really taking in the music at the same time ? No doubt the images looked quite nice, but if it's at the expense of some basic manners then no thank you. Anyway, it's quite a challenging environment sometimes, but I'm learning a lot from my mistakes. Experimenting with different metering modes and how to focus rapidly (auto focus modes seem to be a bit useless here, because everyone moves so quickly) - will hopefully get some other gigs in before we leave.

Support was from a band called Glovebox - a sort of funk, disco quartet (f/1.4, 1/250, converted to grayscale because of dodgy colour from the lights).

















Glovebox again (f/1.4, 1/320)

















As mentioned before, one of my favourite things about live music is watching the expression of whoever's drumming. A reasonably quick shutter speed helped capture the expression of Animelly from The Minority, who it has to be said moves around a fair bit. Perhaps a slightly slower one would have blurred the sticks more (I like that sometimes).

(f/2, 1/125)
















Wish I'd had a drumkit when I was younger :(

(f/2.8, 1/200)
















The mysterious Keg, guitarist of The Minority. The photos don't always turn out right - this one demonstrates quite neatly the problem with smaller venues. For some reason the lighting nearly always is skewed towards the magenta end of things. If you're not careful a lot of the images just come out far too red - I learnt to watch the light sequences carefully in the end. Perhaps using a narrower metering mode would probably have helped here too as his shirt is way overexposed compared to the hair etc.


















Eliza with Animelly in background

(f/5.6, 1/125)

















I always say you can tell how good a band is by how much they roll around on the floor. This is Ross, singer and keyboardist - a damn nice bloke offstage as well.

(f/1.4, 1/250)

















(f/1.8, 1/250)



















(f/1.8, 1/250)

















He just eats cake ! End of the gig, you can hear the associated song here.

(f/2.5, 1/1250)
















On the way home - I've included this because Dave just looks so happy to be on the tram. He loves 'em !

(f/2.5, 1/60)