Two of my favourite things are photography and rock music. I rarely get the chance to mix the two so when an opportunity shows up, I try my best to grab it. Such was the case on Sunday night, as I and a couple of friends found ourselves at the
Théâtre Corona in Montreal to see a show by
The Darkness. The main problem I face when attending shows is that there is no way that I can get into the building with the Canon camera that I use. Promoters and artists don't look kindly on outside sources taking photographs of their events, and I can understand this. Which leads to my second problem. I am nowhere near 'well placed' enough to be able to score the photography credentials
necessary to find myself in the photographers pit during the show. The 'pit' is one of those places I hope to find myself one day. If you're ever at a concert, you'll notice in between the stage and the fans that there are a bunch of people running around, usually during the first three songs, trying to get as many photos as possible for their newspaper, magazine, blog or for the band themselves. I didn't find myself in the pit for this particular show, but the great thing about the Corona Theatre is that when you're standing on the floor, you can pretty much put yourself within a foot of the stage. I wasn't that close, but I was about six rows of people from the stage, just close enough to use my less than trusty Kodak Easy Share C180. Yes,
it's a cheap camera, and I had to actually clean a layer of dust off of it before leaving for the show, but you use what you have and as I've already mentioned, there was no way that I was going to be let in with my usual camera. The show began, and I was already beginning to think that I'd blown my shot. The camera doesn't have a Manual Mode and the closest thing I could get to a setting that would accomplish what I needed was to use the 'Sunset Mode'. I waited for the stage to be lit as bright as possible and shot away. With no controls over the camera, I had my fingers crossed that something nice would develop. If I had some control, I would have put the ISO up as high as possible (in my case 1600) and shot in AV mode at f/2.8 so that I could get the fastest shutter speeds possible to avoid motion blur in such a lowlight situation. I'm happy that I came away with two nice shots of the show, but I've never been so tempted to buy a cell phone than I was during the show. Not to use as a telephone, but rather to use as a camera. I saw some of the shots that were being taken by others in the crowd and the quality put my little Kodak to shame. On the other hand, while those people were taking pictures and filming their little videos, I was having a good time listening to the music. I guess there's always a little give and take. Speaking of which, if any of you out there have any ideas to give on how I could find myself in a pit someday, I would be more than happy to take them. One last thing. If the fine folks at the Corona happen to find my voice, I would appreciate it if they would return it to me. I think it was stolen by The Darkness.
it's a cheap camera, and I had to actually clean a layer of dust off of it before leaving for the show, but you use what you have and as I've already mentioned, there was no way that I was going to be let in with my usual camera. The show began, and I was already beginning to think that I'd blown my shot. The camera doesn't have a Manual Mode and the closest thing I could get to a setting that would accomplish what I needed was to use the 'Sunset Mode'. I waited for the stage to be lit as bright as possible and shot away. With no controls over the camera, I had my fingers crossed that something nice would develop. If I had some control, I would have put the ISO up as high as possible (in my case 1600) and shot in AV mode at f/2.8 so that I could get the fastest shutter speeds possible to avoid motion blur in such a lowlight situation. I'm happy that I came away with two nice shots of the show, but I've never been so tempted to buy a cell phone than I was during the show. Not to use as a telephone, but rather to use as a camera. I saw some of the shots that were being taken by others in the crowd and the quality put my little Kodak to shame. On the other hand, while those people were taking pictures and filming their little videos, I was having a good time listening to the music. I guess there's always a little give and take. Speaking of which, if any of you out there have any ideas to give on how I could find myself in a pit someday, I would be more than happy to take them. One last thing. If the fine folks at the Corona happen to find my voice, I would appreciate it if they would return it to me. I think it was stolen by The Darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment