Altar Club: Echo Boom Generation

Salisbury Art Centre's monthly rock outing, back after its summer break.

Six bands, starting at 8pm and ending about 11.40.

No break between bands - two stages, one each end of the adapted old church - when one band finished one end, the other started. So no break for me!

I share duties officially photographing this event with my friend John. He was elsewhere. By sharing duties, I mean he does one month, I do the other, not the both of us together!

It is hard work, a true physical workout. Access absolutely all areas but that comes with a huge responsibility - I am not a technician or a member of Arts Centre staff, so you really have to watch where you are treading and what your head, arms, and camera (& long lens) are potentially getting tangled up with. I'm SO glad that I don't drink alcohol any more!! (I bet they are too...)

Headlining was Bristol based Gaz Brookfield. The place was sweltering by the end and he swore many times just how much he was perspiring. He and his band are like a folky 'Levellers', with a fiddle clutched by a huge bald bloke and lots of jaunty tunes and urbane lyrics.

However, my pic is from band no 4, Echo Boom Generation, a two girl - and male drummer - rock outfit from London. They had specifically asked the organiser for photos to be taken, so I might have tried harder....! I'm not biased but all the other groups were mostly men and mostly men that didn't look like Justin Bieber or George Clooney. The two girls bounced and jumped about and made a lot of noise for just guitar, bass and drums!

I liked many pics that had them sparring. But the lighting at these events are never designed for the photographer. Red, mauve and purple can look hugely impressive in the flesh but trying to edit, you end up with almost no tonal depth and thus no shadow detail. At least this one, she is at the microphone, so is in the spotlight. I didn't use flash, I don't even take one.

Camera is the D7000 and just two constant f2.8 zooms: Tamron's little and cheap SP 17-50mm f2.8 (non stabilised) and my old Sigma EX 70-200mm f2.8 (heavy, also non-stabilised).

Out of the thousand or so shots, all were manually focussed, aperture (almost always) at f3.2 and camera set to manual. The lights change so quickly and often down the lens' barrel and the meter gets swamped and erratic. So, I quickly worked out that exposure was roughly 1/125 at f3.2 iso 2500.

I set the shutter speed slower for the wider lens and stuck to 1/125 for the long Sigma, though, with an equivalent of up to 300mm (in 35mm terms) and not being stabilised, most would have upped the iso and gone for 1/500 sec. F3.2 was used as these two are NOT expensive Nikkor pro lenses, that cost between £1200- and £2000 each! The Tamron was £200 new and the Sigma was about £500, some time ago, admittedly. The jump in quality is surprising, just from stopping down that extra one third of a stop.

Thank you for reading this far. I hope it shows how gigs are professionally photographed and the many problems encountered.