July 22, 2009

Alec Empire / Nine Inch Nails


"But all we know is how to learn"

~ Ursula Le Guin

In Concert
So here's one thing the 24-60mm lens was NOT built for: concerts. Unless you're backstage (or ON stage), if you want to shoot some nice "mainstream" photos in a concert, you need zoom. And when you're in the pit? Well, first of all, you need to zoom, focus and centre the picture around the artist(s). You also need to be either right in front of the stage, or tall enough to shoot past people's heads and raised hands. And last but not least, you need a goddamn battery in your goddamn camera. I failed miserably at all of the above, but at least I was able to shoot some photos. Until the battery died on me, that is.


Choosing ISO
Grain or blur? If you carry a lens longer than your arm, you can reliably say "neither". Otherwise, you have to choose and lose. I should have tried both, but this would require thinking! and deciding! - and I was too busy moshing. So I picked grain right at the beginning and stuck with it. Now, grain is a bad choice when you want to focus on a detail, small objects, or Trent Reznor's frontal vein. But since my zoomless lens already prevented me from such noble pursuits, I simply went for the hazy stuff. ISO-800, under the standard (erratic) lighting of the stage, results in grain which is just enough to make the classic smoke/spotlight combination look eerie, without fucking up the image's resolution beyond recognition. This was all well and good on paper (err... screen), until I came home and decided to do the unprecedented: crop the pictures.


Cropping
Cropping is harder than it looks, I realised in astonishment yesterday. It changes everything, and there's no "right" way to crop an image. There are millions of ways and you have to choose. This proved difficult and time-consuming. ("I'll cut here... No, wait, I should include the spotlight. Umm, no, I should keep the microphone at the centre... Oooh, I know, I'll have the amp and keyboard form a line right here... Er, what did I want to do, again?") Mix that with increased grain, and you have a problem. ("Hey,this cropping would be perfect! ...If you could make head or tail of what's left.") Because film grain is awesome: zoom in, and even if the shapes are less well-defined, the image overall is still great. But digital grain (or however they call it) is crap: zoom in, and you get noise.


Lessons learned:
1) Cropping is a pain.
2) Cropping is a wonderful tool.
3) Be very careful with grain if you intend to crop later.

Doesn't that make you feel better?


July 2009, Nine Inch Nails @ Vyronas

Starfuckers


July 2009, Nine Inch Nails @ Vyronas

Closer to god


July 2009, Nine Inch Nails @ Vyronas

My empire of dirt


July 2009, Nine Inch Nails @ Vyronas

"We're gonna play some weird shit tonight"
~ Trent Reznor