After my last show of Eluveitie, I had kind of been cursed and did not manage to get accreditated for a couple of shows I wanted to shoot. The curse had finally been broken and I had the opportunity to shoot Life of Agony and Sick of It All at Studio TD. They were supported by Deadbolt.
It was a crazy hardcore night. The moshpit was pretty crazy. It has been a long time since I saw that much energy in the pit. The absence of a barrier was a bit of trouble for me. I had several crowd surfer having their foot almost in my head, but I survived! And it allowed me to take some really nice shots.
Deadbolt
Sick of It All
Life of Agony
Photographer’s Corner
Shooting Deadbolt
I will not lie, Deadbolt was hard to shoot. They have really quick songs, like 1-2 minutes max. So if you are limited to 3 songs, you will need to be efficient. Do not try to change the lens during one of their songs, it will be too much lost time.
As often with the opening band, their lighting is not great, so it is a bit hard to have enough light. I would recommend your fastest lens possible, F1./4 would be the best.
Still, the band is really cool to shoot because they are really energetic on stage. Their front woman is interacting a bit with the audience, and moving. Their guitar player is a beast and is constantly jumping around. You can not go away without at least one shot of him in the air. But it is hard to get a clean one with poor lighting. Those are the two best clients for photography in the band. The drummer and the bass player are more quiet but far from static either, so do not forget them.
Shooting Sick of It All
Hardcore band. I think that will sum up everything. They are always a real pleasure to shoot because there is always action. You will not be able to capture everything as it is happening a bit everywhere.
Again the two best opportunities for a photographer will be the guitar player and the singer. The guitar player has an awesome look, is interacting a lot, and jumps from time to time. The frontman is mainly interacting with the audience making them sing with him, if you are close to the stage, without barriers as we were, you would have really cool shots to do.
The bass player and the drummer are a bit quieter, but again, we are far from the static musician that we often saw in other kinds of metal.
It is a really cool band to photograph, but it will be a bit of a fight if you do not have a barrier as the moshpit quickly goes crazy. Also, I would expect kind of better lighting for a band like that, but it was not that bad just too much red.
Shooting Life of Agony
Life of agony was similar to shoot compared to Sick of It All. I would not say that one of the band members is a better client to photograph than the other, except maybe the singer. They all move kind of the same and interact with people.
Again a lot of great opportunities for killer shots. The only downside is that the lighting is still a bit minimal for a headline band. But at the same time, it is kind of the punk/hardcore vibes. It would not be the same with super clean lights. Too bad for a photographer, you will have grain in your photos!
Gear used for Life of Agony and Sick of It All at Studio TD:
My gear for Tiesto at Igloofest:
This kind of venue is not the best for a two-body setup. No protection from the moshpit squeezed in the front row with people bouncing around. I am sometimes a bit scared about what could happen to my second body that is not in my hand. I try to protect it by putting it on my bag in front of me, but it is not perfect and it can still smash the stage if the moshpit starts to be too crazy and I am projected toward the stage.
Definitely, for a Hardcore concert in a small venue, I would recommend you one body with a 24-70. It would be better. The 14-35 is also a nice choice as you will have an awesome wide-angle shot. But you may miss a bit of reach to shoot the drummer for example. It will depend on the depth of the stage.
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Thank Thorium Mag, who allowed me to get to Studio TD to shoot the event.
Let me know what you think about the photos!
You can find the rest of the gallery here.