Bella Tones

Ian Harmer of Bellatones picked out by spotlights.
Ian Harmer of Bellatones picked out by spotlights.

Bella tones : beautiful sounds! And Bellatones are a Leicester band I’ve been following and shooting for many years now. And they do indeed create beautiful sounds.

I went to a couple of their gigs in December, one at The Donkey on the 3rd and the other at Soundhouse on the 15th. I thought I’d share a few images from these gigs.

I only shot during the first of two sets at The Donkey as 1) I felt I already had plenty of photos and 2) I always feel like I’m getting in the way of the rest of the audience enjoying the show.

I was quite pleased with the shot at the top of this post of Ian Harmer picked out by small circles of light. He (as usual) was positioned right at the back left of the stage so it took a bit of careful aiming. I was quite surprised how well the autofocus managed to lock on to him given the low light and other members of the band moving around in front of him. I’ll share a colour version of this photo below, along with more from that night.

The multicoloured lights at these venues are one of the reasons I produce many of my live music photos in black and white, trying to get white balance right for somebody’s skin tones when the lights are shifting colour all the time is tricky. And then of course I do also just love black and white. As I’ve probably said several times here before : I love the timeless quality of black and white, I love the way it adds another layer of abstraction from reality and I also like the way it removes the distraction of colour. Anyway, on with the photos. There will be more from the Soundhouse gig further down this post.

All photos taken using my Fujifilm X-H1 and a variety of prime lenses (90mm f2, 35mm f2, 18mm f2) and also the 10-24mm zoom.

Ian Hamer of Bellatones on the keyboard at The Donkey, 3rd December 2023.
Ian Hamer of Bellatones on the keyboard at The Donkey, 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (forground) and Sam of Bellatones at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (foreground) and Sam of Bellatones at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (foreground) and Paul of Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Olive (foreground) and Paul of Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023.
Bellatones playing at The Donkey, Leicester. 3rd December 2023. I went with a very extreme contrast rendering for this photo. New bass player Nigel “Waldo” Underwood is closest to the lens and was lurking in the shadows throughout the gig so I got around the side of the stage to try and capture something. The spotlights made the contrast high anyway so I just went with that look.

Having taken way too many photos at The Donkey on 3rd December I was back to see Bellatones play again at Soundhouse on 15th December. And I need to learn a lesson here. I said above “way too many photos” – there were hundreds. And it being a busy time of year all I’d really done was pick out half a dozen favourites from those in the two weeks before this next gig at Soundhouse.

When I shoot at a gig I’ll start off in “single shot” mode on the camera. One press of the shutter release equals one photo taken. As the gig progresses I’ll find myself switching into “continuous” shooting – keep the shutter release down and keep firing off photos at a rate of many per second. Why? Because with musicians moving around the stage you can find that you’ve slightly missed focus or slightly missed a good pose / expression / moment of action. Great, continuous shooting can help with that but it leaves me with quite a daunting number of photos to work through. I might only process a couple of dozen of those photos but I still have to look through all 400 to find the ones I want to process. I might have a burst of between 6 or 10 shots of pretty much the same scene and I might use one of them – or none. I need to be more disciplined and not take as many photos.

At the Soundhouse gig Not My Good Arm played before Bellatones so I got a few shots of them. There should have been another band playing too, Code Switch Theory, but sadly they had to pull out due to sickness and Not My Good Arm were down one member of the band for the same reason. This becomes significant later in the story, honest.

Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Not My Good Arm playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.

And then Bellatones came on and played a great set to finish off the evening. I was right down at the front and having to work hard to avoid the enthusiastic dancers getting into shot. This harks back to what I said earlier about trying to make sure I don’t get in the way of the rest of the audience enjoying themselves. These places do not have “press pits”.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself that night, took way too many photos (!) and heard some great music. However a couple of nights later I started to feel a cold coming on. I don’t remember anyone coughing or sneezing in my face but this is the most likely place that I will have picked up that virus. By the Monday morning I was feeling so awful, every part of my body was aching, every movement felt like I must be 100 years old. And this thing was persistent, it really knocked me out of action for a couple of weeks all through the Christmas and New Year period. I managed to get done what I had to do but it took me a couple of weeks to reach the point where I felt up to working through the photos from that night. It wasn’t Covid-19, I did test myself several times at various points during the illness – all negative. I did find myself reflecting on mask wearing. I was back to wearing one when I went into shops because I didn’t want to spread whatever nasty bug this was to anyone else. If only others felt the same way I might not have caught this.

Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Paul of Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Paul of Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Bellatones playing at Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute, Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.
Sam of Bellatones on flute, Soundhouse, Leicester. 15th December 2023.

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.