Billy Talent

Now for something a bit different..

Billy Talent – O2 Brixton Academy, London
November 1, 2009

I was lucky enough to obtain a photo pass for Billy Talent’s London show last night. A photo pass basically allows you to take pictures from the photo pit (bit in between crowd and stage where security stands) – exciting stuff!

The supporting act (Cancer Bats) had just come off, and preparations were being made for the main band:

In the photo pit..

.. and the band are on!

I discovered the power of RAW mode.  In all the time I have used an SLR camera, I have never once shot RAW.  Most of the situations I shoot in (outside in natural light) don’t really need it, but with funky lighting, it’s *really* useful.  I’m still learning how to edit properly, so some of these pictures aren’t all that great in terms of their colour.

Black and white..?

Or colour?

This is what I mean by funky lighting – ouch:

Slightly better lighting:

Frontman Benjamin Kowalewicz is a really dynamic performer and even with a fast lens, it was hard to get great action shots with this kind of lighting.  Flash isn’t allowed, so you have to really know what you’re doing with the camera, and try to read the angle of the light hitting the subject.  It’s not so easy!

(If you screw up, you can always convert to black and white.)

At one point he sang straight into my lens, but I was using Auto Focus and the light was too dim so it didn’t focus in time – boo.

Loving the eye:

Before I knew it, 3 songs were over, and we were promptly ushered out of the photo pit.  The staff at Brixton Academy were great and said I could stay for the rest of the gig, but just couldn’t take any pictures.  I suppose you could technically sneak in a few, but with a 24-70mm, that’s a little hard!  Maybe next time I’ll take the Nikon F3 and shoot some film from the back so I get the crowd in.

There were obviously opportunities to shoot the crowd from the front but I spent all my time focused on the band itself.  Something to remember for next time.

As for the music itself – absolutely fab. \m/ (<– haven’t used that emote since I was around 16).