Splendour in the Grass Music Festival 2005 - 8 photos + story

As some of you may recall, I was asked to shoot at Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass music festival on 23-24 July 2005 by www.fasterlouder.com.a​u.

It was an amazing and exhausting weekend for me. All photos were taken with my mighty Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 and Canon 20D. Any constructive criticism offered is much appreciated. I know they ain’t perfect, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

I also learned some valuable lessons. I hope you enjoy this selection of photographs. The rest of the photographs can be viewed at either fasterlouder when they are published (next couple of days) or alternatively at my website Rocksluts.

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How was the lighting? What sort of shutter speeds do you manage? What ISO? They look a little soft but composition and timing are excellent.

ISO ranged between 800 (rarely) 1600 (most common) and 3200.
Shutterspeeds were as low as 1/50 but I did get some 1/320 during the better-lit bands.

The lighting was not as good as I was expecting. The lead vocalists tended to get almost enough and the lighting on the rest of the band was quite ordinary. Most often the bands were back lit, particularly The Living End and Interpol.

Thanks for your comments, Dwight.

Angus, I thank whatever powers exist (probably the Chumash Tribal Council) for the excellent lighting at the casino every time I shoot! It is the single biggest factor in Live Performance shooting and can present almost insurmountable obstacles ... I wonder how you would do with one of those 50mm 1.8 or 1.4s? Again, good job!

Yes, Great timing. Lightings for concerts could be very challenging but i think u managed to capture them well. Nice work. I like the Moby one.

Hey Angus, well done mate! That's one thing makes me shudder about doing gigs, crappy lighting. To get there and find it inadequate would be very frustrating. Looks like you did very well under the circumstances, framing and timing are excellent. What equipment were other photog's using?
Roger.

Thanks Guys!

Dwight - I have a 50mm f/1.8 but didn't feel it was quite long enough for the location. I probably should have pulled it out though. I am regularly jealous of the lighting the you are fortunate to work with. It does make all the diference.

Roger - That's half the fun! As for equipment of others.... Canon was the best represented brand, with a lot of 300Ds and 350Ds. I saw only 2 x 1 series, one used by the Associated Press photographer and the other by the Courier Mail photographer. Lots of consumer glass which suprised me, but the L glass was well represented too especially 70-200mm (including its predecessors). I think i saw a 200mm f/1.8 in the pit at one stage also. The film users were mainly Nikons. There were also a few Nikon dSLRs, mainly D70s.

Very nice work! (Now get paid)!

You do get paid, don't you, Angus?

I do [get paid] on occasion. Most of the money that I see comes from the bands themselves, when I provide photos for their publicity purposes.

As for this kind of work, I need to start accessing the money, but even the local street press is hard to get in with and pays little. I was asked to submit photos to "Drum Media" a year or so ago, which is Sydney's most prestigious street press. The editor asked me to invoice them for AUD$30. This was for a international touring band (Covenant) of which I was the only person to capture publishable photos.

So, um yeah. Rock'n'Roll! I'm mainly shooting for portfolio filler and experience at the moment. Fasterlouder does not [at this stage] pay, but it gets me media pass access to shows that I would not otherwise be able to shoot and I retain full copyright to my images, with minimal restriction on publication. I'm still building a reputation and contact network from which I intend to turn this into a lucrative sideline, if not a career.

Thanks for your comments and votes of confidence!

Unfortunately, I can relate all too well to that financial picture. For a while I was a stringer for the local paper in Santa Barbara. An example shoot would be to drive 20 miles to a bicycle race, shoot for two hours, drive home 20 miles, process the images and email the good ones ... all for the Princely sum of USD$40. And most everything else I did was "Pro Bono". But I built a reputation, did a lot of favors, never got uppity and I finally made it. Now I am putting all funds back into equipment so that I will have all state-of-the-art equipment in a couple of years. I will also start to take on an occasional new project, for money, to expand my abilities. I'd love to learn glamour and shoot stuff for adverts. But I'm not giving up my day job probably for another seven years!

Nice shots. I can imagine the lighting giving you tough conditions. Interesting note on the second photo... The guitarist is wearing a US Navy working blue uniform shirt of an Intelligence Specialist second class petty officer. Interesting.