Sean Na Na @ the Middle East [boston, 30OCT06]

[narlus]

these were the openers for the Hold Steady, and cranked out a very good rendition of catchy power pop (think stuff like cheap trick, etc). plus, leader Sean Tillman (also of the Har Mar Superstar, as his alter ego) had a quick wit and was pretty funny. hope you enjoy (this is also my 1st attempt at watermarking, but during the process (used photowatermark) the jpgs seemed to be about half the original file size even though the pixel dimension was maintained, so i'm not sure why they were saved at a lower quality rate).

#1 sean lurching towards the crowd



#2 this is pretty dark but i like how it turned out better than the blended exposure


#3 a pensive moment? or just trying to come up w/ another one-liner?


#4 rhythm section, locked in


#5 obligatory hairy/sweaty drummer shot


#6 an exercise in red...tried something new here by boosting the shadows considerably.


#7 denver, before he really started drinking


#8 guitar strap noose, anyone?


as always C+C is welcomed.

[johnstoy]

these are great narlus,

How do you get those dark exposures...they are so representative of the venue lighting...that's what the intimacy of the shows is all about...

I don't suppose you would share your secret regarding aperture and shutter speed on those sharp dark shots...(I know, I know, if you tell us this one time, every body will know,)...

[narlus]

thanks john...there's not much of a secret for my shots. here's my usual MO:

shoot aperture priority w/ a fast prime, mostly under f/2
ISO 1600 pretty much all the time; sometimes drop it to 1250 or under, or boost it to 3200, depending on the light, and what shutter speed i want to achieve.
spot or partial metering (depends on the scene, and the lens i use)
wear earplugs.

for post-processing, i use ACR and adjust exposure until there's no clipping (usually; sometimes i don't mind clipping). i also play w/ the temp/tint for the white balance (this will affect yr exposure setting, so it's a bit of trial and error), and also adjust the brightness a bit. most of the time i leave the other settings alone (shadows at 0; saturation at 0, the other tabs also left alone, but sometimes i do adjust the contrast).

then i launch PS with a 16 bit file, where i may do a variety of things. when i am happy w/ the finished file, i save as a 16 bit PSD file. from there, i re-side to ~1000 pixel at the longest side, apply sharpening via unsharp mask (good values per scott kelby to start at 300/0.3/0, but this is trial and error too), revert to 8 bit and save the jpg.

hope that helped explain my strategy and workflow.

[DwightMcCann]

Pretty good, Narlus, but they don't have the snap some of your images get ... maybe because of the dark. I like #2 a lot.

[taygull]

The composition is very good, I agree with Dwight they seem to be lacking a little pop. Maybe a little more contrast or curves?

[narlus]

hey taygull, thanks for the recommendation. sometimes i don't do much in terms of brightness/contrast or saturation after i take the RAW file out of ACR, and it would probably be a good idea sometimes to tweak this. here's a re-worked version of the 1st pic, w/ adjustments of the channel mixer, brightness/contrast settings, and curves (probably redundant w/ the B&C).

[simonSE15]

hey Narlus,
the last image you posted is by far the best.
I went to the Middle East when I was in Boston a few years back, its a great little venue!
Simon.