When I think of “Nightlife,” this weeks PhotoFriday theme, I think of music and dancing. I have quite a few images of live music but perhaps the best I have that emphasises the “life” in “nightlife” is the above shot from our holiday in Canillas de Albaida, Spain.
Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Cleanliness.” I’m entry number 158.
Photographing concerts is hard. This one of Blackroom at the Water Rats in London was no exception.
It’s dark and with fast movement, which is a bad combination in itself. Low light implies longer shutter speeds; movement implies the exact opposite.
But just in case you managed to figure out how best to cope with low light and animated performers, there’s the added bonus of bright, flashing lights. This throws off the automatic metering that the camera performs, leading to a dark blur or a white blur, neither particularly appealing.
After some experimentation I settled on under-exposing by two stops, using AI focusing and rattling off a few frames at a time.
Back on my Mac, I decided against removing the purple cast seen in most of the images. It’s both a fairly faithful representation of the lighting on the night and quite fitting for a band with dark themes.
More images can be seen on Flickr.