So I went through and looked at some photos that were taken by a colleague of mine (meaning that this person is a concert photographer), and looked at her recent concert photos. Yes it was a show that I wanted to do but didn’t (I had another shoot that day, and I HATE to double book), and all of this photographers were dark, not interesting at all, and just looking flat and not something that I, as someone who loves music, especially live music, and photographing it (and the lighting was just one of the issues….).
So what do you do as a photographer when you are taking concert photos and you might not know what you are doing because it might be the first time that you are shooting a show, or maybe it is your second or third show, and you are still a little confused on what to do.
My suggestion is to go back to the beginning principles of photography. I cannot say this enough that in this field, LIGHTING is everything. What sucks the most is the fact that in concert photography/live music photography, YOU as that person who is holding the camera and taking the photographs, cannot control the lighting. This means that you are at will be at the mercy of the lighting engineer of the house or the tour (yes, the bigger tours do bring their own sound and lighting people with them).
You have to understand how lighting works. If you are someone who does senior portraits or wedding photography and are looking at getting into this field, great. I say welcome to the club, it is a pleasure to have you. BUT you must understand light and how it works. I know you will be the one who is taking these photos outside because you know about golden hour and you think that that is all you need to know, but it is not. You need to know how artificial light, especially LEDs that have 1,000,000 different color choices on there, works and how it works with people moving. Hell, if you are working out doors, how the natural light that you constantly use for your couple photos, works during a live show. It is completely different.
One thing that you can do if you want to get into this field from another like Engagement photos, then study what light is. One good way is to go back to still life photography, by either doing food photography, product photography, etc.
I know you are thinking…hold on…what??? But really. This is a great way to go through and be able to take your time and really study how light and shadow works. You don’t have the “First three songs rule” where you are flying by the seat of your pants for 15 minutes and be looking like a chicken with your head cut off, obviously not knowing your ass from your elbow.
While working with things like still life photography, you can take your time (as I said above) and set up your lights the way that you want them to be, from different points around the subject, and maybe a different gel and light modifiers, and see what happens. Move the object and turn it around so you can shoot it from different angles. You will be able to really understand light and what will do to your subject, and how shadows will also play tricks in the image that you are shooting. It is something that I do constantly to help me with my work, since during a concert shoot you light will be coming in from every which way that you can and change in a split second, from being bright/hot/and red, to soft/cold/and blue; first shining from the back then changing to the front.
Honestly, without doing exercises like this to better understand light and how it works at the basic level is KEY to this line of work.