Loud, distorted, and predictable Shock Rocker Rob Zombie and band connected with the pre Alice Cooper aware crowd delivering a well received moody and thunderous set with highlights including “Thunder Kiss 65″ and “Dragula”.
The presentation of the performance and associated shooting conditions should earn photographers a PhD for concert photography. It truly has never been more challenging than this.
Shooting Notes:
Arriving at Mayhem 2010 I checked in with the tours publicist in the accommodating media area to get the days agenda and discuss any shooting restrictions. To my surprise both the tour publicist and the venue’s media team both confirmed 3 songs for Rob Zombie’s set. SCORE. Discussions with photographers who had already shot this tour had set my expectation at 2 songs. As such, I was quite excited by this news and spent a good part of the next 6 hours working through my approach to the set in my mind.
We were escorted to the pit 10 minutes prior to the set and I again asked about the shooting restrictions. “3 Songs. No Flash”. Tour production then entered the pit and corralled the now 20 or so photographers and a 3 man video crew to the side of the pit and informed us we would need to wait midway through the first for the kabuki to drop and be removed. This now meant “2 1/2 songs. No Flash”. Fair enough. I should also mention the 6 man security team in the pit. It is getting crowded in here.
Stage height at the venue is approximately 5′ 8″ giving me with boots about 5″ of stage clearance. The addition of a another foot of monitors running the length of the stage was a challenge throughout the day on the mainstage. As the kubuki dropped and my adrenaline shot to 11, I was concerned to see triple 3′ risers across the stage with crowd facing video screens. This effectively left two 4′ foot gaps across the front of the stage which were occupied by the video crew. Thus, forcing shooting angles to be 45-60 degrees up and/or downstage with waist up compositions to avoid the monitors, video crew, security personnel and other photographers in the packed pit. Conscious framing was as well out the window. Rule of thirds? Clean backgrounds? Altering shooting position to get rim lights from stage lighting? Forget it all and just shoot.
As the lighting program started running I was reminded of a cheap neighborhood hunted house filled with blacklights and day-glo paint in orange, red, green, and blue. All LED style like those found in local clubs. My equipment with all its intelligence and all my personal experience with it was completely faked out in white balance and metering. The shoot became pure instinct, finesse, and a bit of aggression with the gear in hand.
Midway through the second song all media was pulled from the pit by tour production after approximately 5 minutes of shooting. Ouch. It goes that way sometimes.
All said and done, this performance was a total rush to shoot with the conditions admirably handled by the Nikon D700 system. Exposures were dialed in at 1/400 F2.8 ISO3200-ISO5000. White balance is as captured which speaks volumes to Nikon systems ability to deal with the most demanding stage presentations. Somewhere between Nikon and myself, we made it work.
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Allen,
Great account of your experience. It makes my issues with the Adler’s Appetite show sound like small potatoes! LOL
Great job as usual on the pics.
Mark
Thanks for the comment Mark. All assignments are challenging in their own ways. This one was particularly so and makes the keepers that much more satisfying.
I hear ya. I know what you mean Allen.
AWESOME…what else is there to say?!?
Glyn
Nice.
The Zombie set was the toughest to shoot but we knew that going in.
Did you have the giant robot entrance or is that done with?
Nice job with the 5 minutes…
This seems to be one of those situations where practice really does help and the more you shoot, the better you can handle these types of issues.
Thank you Glyn. It was a beast to shoot particularly all the surprise timings. I’m really tempted to build a bit of fill flash into my cowboy hat for situations like this ;-).
You know Alan – I was really hoping for some bragging rights after your account of the tour from a previous assignment. We had the giant robot but we were held off house right while all the curtain handling went on. I think they missed a cue as he was out of the robot and onto the riser by the time they let us in the pit.
-A
I have to say, you took some killer pictures! I had press/photo passes for the Mayhem show in Camden, NJ. The rules were generally the same (no flash, first 3 songs). I’m 5’6″, so like you, I had some difficult shots as well. The only difference between you and I? I’m an amateur *haha* I have never gotten the chance to do something like that before (press/photo pass); and the Mayhem Festival was one heck of a way to get me hooked!
Anyway, again, nice pics!
Rik -
Thank you for taking the time to comment. Festivals are always challenging as you never really know what to expect even more so than a single artist package. Glad you had a great time and had some exposure to the world of concert photography. If you’d like, I publish a series of tutorials which you can find here: http://www.artistxposure.com/concert-photography-tips/
-A