Unholy Goatf***er (local death metal), Harvard Sq., 9/19/08

I've been meaning to shoot these guys for a while now. I'm not much of a metal guy myself (heck, I was wearing a Morrissey t-shirt at the show), but their shows are more punk in character, while being ridiculously over-the-top brutal death metal musically. Just tongue-in-cheek enough to pull off the whole thing, as evidenced by the name.

Check'em out. (except replace the asterisks in the link with the actual letters, as I can't figure out any way to get around the board's anti-obscenity filters)

Anyways, I got a few pictures I'm happy with. Yeah, they're dark, but that's pretty much obligatory for such a band. Also, this is the first band shot I've been happy enough with to post here, so I think I'm ready for some C&C.

#1

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/21898718@N00/2​878287720/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/21898718@N00/2​878287696/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/21898718@N00/2​878287684/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/21898718@N00/2​878287668/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/21898718@N00/2​873643687/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/21898718@N00/2​873643679/

I really like the second last one.

Jim G wrote in post #6355826
I really like the second last one.

That one definitely worked out really well. At first, I was annoyed at cutting off the top of her head and thought it wasn't worth saving, but it grew on me when I looked at it on the computer and played with it a bit. I also like cropping everything to a 5x7 ratio (whenever possible), and decided to go for cutting off her elbow to include the pentagram and keep things closer to a rule of thirds composition. It took a bit of agonization over it, but I think the end result has everything in the right spot to make it all work.

I also made this version of that picture, just for the fun of it.

I see no evidence of lighting whatsoever, so I expect there was not too much there?

Anyway, in a situation like that, I'd try to bounce the flash of something (anything), to improve the quality of lighting.

Use higher ISO to capture at least some ambient at a reasonable shutterspeed

Some of the captured moments are good, but the straight on flash kills the atmosphere...


I get a "you must be signed in" message on the link you gave...

René Damkot wrote in post #6359403
I see no evidence of lighting whatsoever, so I expect there was not too much there?

Anyway, in a situation like that, I'd try to bounce the flash of something (anything), to improve the quality of lighting.

Use higher ISO to capture at least some ambient at a reasonable shutterspeed

Some of the captured moments are good, but the straight on flash kills the atmosphere...


I get a "you must be signed in" message on the link you gave...

Thanks. Yeah, you can see a chandelier in #4, which was fully 1/4th of the total lighting, and they were dimmed down while the bands were playing. I didn't try experimenting too much, but it was looking like I couldn't get the needle to move into two stops down with a shutter time under a second. I did use the Lumiquest 80/20 for some of the shots, having a nice white ceiling for once, and some without. And of course don't know which is which now, but I'll definitely be looking through the original RAWs to evaluate its performance more closely.

There was originally more background visible, but boosting the contrast dropped it back down, and I liked that better. I think my monitor might be a little bright in the low end, since I often find mine to be darker than I thought when I put them next to other people's. I'll chalk it up partly to artistic choice and partly to incompetence. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

For a completely different take on the same show, here's a friend of mine's pictures: http://www.flickr.com …y/sets/72157607​419312359/

Not that much different, except you used the flash better, used color and, oh, yours are in focus