Birmingham Artsfest 2010 – Elliot Minor

ND – Hot Sunny, Blue

Following up on my…
…Birmingham Artsfest 2010 Opera piece recently, I’m going to be posting more articles from this great annual event that happens in the second weekend of September in Birmingham UK.

Elliot Minor – Alex Davies 1 BW

Nikon D700 'FX', Nikkor 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G AF-S VR @ 250mm, Exposure 1/200 @ F5.6, ISO 1600, Outdoors at night under multicoloured flashing stage lighting, I dropped the distracting artificial colours and focussed on tone and contrast in post-processing, and also had to lose surrounding 'features' (like the guy in the bottom left corner) by adding very strong vignetting

On Sunday 12th September the main Centenary Square stage was taken over by a number of rock bands, culminating with Elliot Minor, Young Guns and The Twang.

These images were taken during Elliot Minor’s thirty minute set, and also from out in the crowd. Just like with the Opera shots, I didn’t have an advantageous position, but unlike the opera work, things around me were a little “less controlled” and these images were made whilst protecting my camera (and my head) from thrown beer and lit cigarette butts.

This shot of Alex Davies (above), the lead singer, is a favourite of mine right now and worked really well in black and white…

Elliot Minor – Alex Davies 2

Nikon D700 'FX', Nikkor 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G AF-S VR @ 250mm, Exposure 1/200 @ F5.6, ISO 1600, Outdoors at night under multicoloured flashing stage lighting

…though some of the colours I found were pretty good too. It’s actually pretty difficult to shoot this type of concert scenario as the lights are flashing randomly and in all sorts of different colours, so many shots are bathed in excessive green or blue light that is difficult to overcome later on during post processing…

Elliot Minor – Ed Minton 1 BW

Nikon D700 'FX', Nikkor 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G AF-S VR @ 220mm, Exposure 1/200 @ F5.3, ISO 1600, Outdoors at night under multicoloured flashing stage lighting, brought the subject central with strong vignetting during post-processing, and dropped to monochrome because of the mad rich yellow light that the subject was bathed in

…which is why it is sometimes better to go monochrome!

Elliot Minor 1

Nikon D700 'FX', Nikkor 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G AF-S VR @ 260mm, Exposure 1/200 @ F5.6, ISO 1600, Outdoors at night under multicoloured flashing stage lighting. Post-processing: cropped the shot to bring the three guys together, but depth of field was too shallow causing the lead guitarist (left) to be out of focus. The shot still works though with the central subject clearly the focal point given the action, central brightness and added edge/corner vignetting

Have fun,
ND

(c) Nakedigit 2010