Tag: Bellatones

Shooting Musicians – Again

Hugh McManners playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Hugh McManners playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

On Friday 24th March 2023 I got back to something I have long enjoyed doing – taking photographs of musicians playing live at small local venues.

This was the first time I’d taken my camera to a gig since pre-covid days and it felt really good to get back to it. I headed down to The Soundhouse in Leicester where a variety of artists were performing that night (auditions for Leicester’s Western Park Festival this summer) . 

It was also the first ever time I’d visited The Soundhouse. I’ve been following the Leicester music scene for around 35 years so this seemed something of an omission. I’ve haunted The Musician and The Donkey frequently and go back to the days of The Royal Mail and the folk club upstairs at The Spread Eagle. I really enjoyed my visit to Soundhouse and I’m looking forward to returning.  

Ro Jordon playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Ro Jordon playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

I shot using my Fuji X-H1 and a variety of lenses. The 100-400mm to get right in close, the 90mm f2 for slightly wider shots (and I enjoyed using this lens in combination with the IBIS provided by the X-H1)  the 35mm f2 for something a bit wider and even the 10-24mm for much wider “whole stage” shots.

I love contrasty lighting so venues which employ spotlights make me smile. And at The Soundhouse they really put on an interesting light show for the size of the venue.

Daz Lynch playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Daz Lynch playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Why do I enjoy this so much? Many reasons. Of course, I love to hear the music and on an evening like this you get to hear a variety of styles. As I said, I like contrasty lighting. Not all venues employ a lighting rig like the one at The Soundhouse of course but when they do I like to take advantage of it. I’m also hopeless at posing people. When a musician gets up on stage they take care of posing themselves and then produce a variety of expressions invoking a range of emotions. Of course we no longer have smoke filled basement jazz clubs, but that’s the kind of venue I love to shoot. We still have the jazz clubs, just not the smoke filled ones since the indoor smoking ban came into effect in the UK in 2007.

I’m hoping I’ll be doing more of this soon. For personal reasons I’ve been absent from many things which I enjoy so much and it feels great to finally be getting back to some of it. I’ve added this post to several blog categories including “projects” as I see shooting live music to be an ongoing, life-long project.

More photos from the evening below. I ended up taking over 700 shots so just a small selection!

Hugh McManners playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Hugh McManners playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Hugh McManners playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Hugh McManners playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Ro Jordon playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Ro Jordon playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Daz Lynch playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Daz Lynch playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Paul, Olive & Sam of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Paul, Olive & Sam of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Olive of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Olive of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Paul of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Paul of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Olive & Sam of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.
Olive & Sam of Bellatones playing at The Soundhouse, Leicester. 24th March 2023.

 

Pi Bar 27th January 2017

The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 90mm, 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

Friday evening found me heading out through the cold and wet of an English winter evening to the snug comfort of Pi Bar on Leicester’s Narborough Road. It had been a while since I’d last shot a gig and it was time once again to crank up the ISO, select my fastest lenses and see what developed on-stage.

Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings
Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 55-200mm, 1/60 at f4.8, ISO 6400).

I started shooting with the Fujinon 55-200mm which has the advantage of giving me image stabilisation in addition to a good long reach. However, image stablisation is only half the battle when the light is low, you also have movement of the subject to consider and musicians have a tendency not to have their feet nailed to the floor (excepting Steve Rothery). After a little while I decided it would be better to break out the 90mm f2, trading the OIS and longer reach for some extra stops of light.

Bellatones
Bellatones performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 90mm 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

I did mention cranking up the ISO didn’t I? At many venues I’m often shooting around ISO 3200. Here at Pi Bar I started off at 6400 and soon decided that I needed to up it to ISO 8000. Dark? Hell yes, it was dark. So many of these small venues really could do with better lighting but I guess they’re not really too interested in making life easier and more interesting for photographers. A few well used spots make such a difference, giving me the kind of high contrast look I enjoy and making subject isolation easier.

ISO 8000 is maybe a notch higher than I would generally like to go and it does show in the graininess of these pictures. Having said that I do find the grain produced by my X-Pro2 to be more pleasing and reminiscent of film grain than that produced by my EOS  6D (or other previous Canon bodies). Usually I would much rather have a grainy photo than a blurry photo (unless the blur is intentional). Yet again I was very impressed at the low light performance of my X-Pro2’s APS-C sized sensor. If Fuji can make a sensor perform like this at APS-C then what is the new Fujifilm GFX 50S medium format camera going to be capable of? (Sadly I won’t be getting the chance to shoot with one of those unless I win the lottery).

Bellatones
Bellatones performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017. (Fujinon 90mm, 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

I have to say that in these murky conditions the 90mm f2 did seem to provide a superior auto-focus experience than the 55-200. This is probably only to be expected as the 90mm is the more recent lens by a good couple of years and it’s also a prime. What I lost in reach I gained in consistent results.

During the evening I enjoyed music from three different bands : Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings, Bellatones and finally The Whiskey Rebellion – all of them excellent. More photos from the evening can be found in this album on Flickr. I’ll be keeping an eye on future events at Pi Bar as it’s not far from home and I find it a welcoming, relaxing venue – even if the lights could do with turning up a bit on the stage.

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