One for the music photographers ?

NeilMc

NeilMc

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Have one of you boys slept with a soundmans woman recently ??

Been to a couple of venues of late and the use of red lights has been overpowering, I normally only shoot mono at gigs but recently people have been asking about colour and the last few gigs I've been to have been totally wiped out by over use of red lights. To the point its affected the mono stuff too.


How do you guys get round this either on the night ? or in post processing ?
 
It can be a right PITA - the blues can be over powering too. LR, desaturate reds and blues, can give a lighter, more natural look if you want to keep them colour.

The singer's face was a blob of red in this one before I took reds down a fair bit in post:


Y&T, Pick flick by Cagey75, on Flickr

ISO 4000 on that one too, so bumping the contrast and blacks, reducing noise luminance and reds did the trick, for me at least. The band , Y&T, used it on their FB page too.
 
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Brilliant, thank you for the tip and awesome capture with the pick just leaving his hand.

How was it in mono ?
 
Wasn't me!
But they sure love red.....

Here's Colston Hall 2, 18 months ago....
This is as far as it will go in PP except full desaturation.
20110205-222805-IMG_1466-M.jpg


If you go there now it still looks red, but I've persuaded the guys to mix in enough blue to give the cameras a fighting chance without compromising their 'look'.
This image, the original looks almost pure red, but it scrubs up OK.
Buy the guys on the desk a beer and hopefully it will stay this way :D
20120505-214517-DSCF9727-M.jpg


and no...
Blue lights behind the stage don't count........

Edited to add....
The sound and lighting guys aren't photographers.
If you catch them at the right moment they will listen and where possible, will help.
It's worked for me at other festivals.
Its all a question of timing (they have busy jobs too) and phrasing it right :)
 
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I shot a gig on Tuesday, and the second band for the first two songs had nothing but strong red lights from the front. With greens and yellows down from the back of stage sometimes.

I meddled with various ways of processing but in the end the mono conversions worked best. Sometimes you just get that a lot :(
 
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