Slow shutter has really dominated my camerawork over the last few months, originally from necessity because the lights can be so crap! I’ve posted a few examples of different shots, like The Radio, seen here on the launch night of their debut album.

Available light from the left would’ve rescued this pic for me. I like the composition but it was just too dark to expose faces without bleaching the highlights. The band were great about keeping still, the shutter was slowed to 15/sec on 800 ISO and I pulled the levels in PhotoShop afterwards so it is a bit grainy.

When the shutter is left open, light soaks through the lens like a sponge, exposing even the tiniest chinks of light. Unless there’s a strong source of illumination, motion will cause a blur. I used that method when the Perseides meteor shower occurred in August.

A few weeks back, I got a text pretty late asking if I was up for an impromptu shoot. It was a buzz to grab my gear and head down the road to North Wall docks, the handiest spot at 10pm on a Thursday to hook up with Karac Kennedy and his all-new StoneOcean. Our surroundings were pretty interesting. Deserted, new road. Intermittent light sources, thundering lorries. The culminating effect of a 30mph truck moving through the frame at a fifteenth of a second was just enough visual hooks to convince four uncomfortable men. Musicians and photographers share mutual motivation towards the creation of a memorable image. They want you to stop, stare, store.
In this picture, the lads lined up on the block and we practiced zen-like stillness between trucks. An orange streetlamp overhead allowed the ISO to be set to a measly 200, normally reserved for daylight and the reddish hue coupled with a tripod to steady the camera carved a clean focus area in the foreground. Using the law of thirds which splits a frame into three section for good composition, this pic is ‘made’ by the passing lorry, its wheel-space creating a perfect frame for the disembodied heads, upper stripe of cargo mirroring symmetry to the concrete block. The guys felt awkward posing like boyband members, but the flare effect won them over instantly and we went on to get some more, really edgy night shots which I’ll post in more detail in the next few weeks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 5:36 pm and is filed under Music, Photography, Photoshoots, Unsigned Bands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.