Ambient Light Photography

Kamasutra, a 90's cover band played the Brickell Irish  Pub in mid-December.  An old friend of mine, Luis, is the lead guitarist and asked me to shoot it.  He's not the one shown in this photo, though.

Flash was out of the question for this shoot, partly because it would temporarily blind the musicians but also because it would just be lousy photography. 

A little over a year ago I shot another performance at Jazid's on the Beach.  I had been hired by the drummer. [more after the break]

Unknown to myself or the drummer, the lead singer hired her own photographer and he used a flash.  With all due respect to him, his shots were a mess.  The flash revealed all the cables, dust, and clutter found in most dive joints.  Frankly, there's a reason dive joints never turn on the lights.  You really don't want to see where you're sitting. 

My shots on the other hand were all high contrast black & white with the shadows being as important as the illuminated parts.  The shadows add atmosphere to the photos and isolate the subject for greater emotional effect.  

I knew I would have to shoot in ambient light.  The question was, Which camera?

I had just recently acquired a slightly used Leica M8 with a Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.4 lens.  I was really tempted to use the Leica.  After all, the Leica and the Nokton together are ideally suited to low-light photography.  Still, I finally decided that I just wasn't experienced enough with that camera.  No, I needed my trusty Canon, a system I've been shooting for over six years.  All the photos were taken with a Canon 1Ds Mark II and Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens at f/2, ISO 1600, 1/60th shutter speed. 

The photos all have a luminous and almost psychedelic quality to them as the stage light changed from moment to moment; sometimes they were red, sometimes blue, and so on.  They really capture the feeling of being there that night, the only thing missing is the music and the and booze. 

Flash and ambient light photography each has its own place.  Although I shoot most events with flash, I truly love shooting in ambient light much more.  The effect can range from psychedelic as in the Kamasutra shots to crystalline like in photos I shot of  Rafa & Rainer a couple of years ago. It can produce truly remarkable photos.

For those of you who are interested, Luis is playing with Rudy Gil at Tobacco Road on January 22. 

Click here to see the rest of the gallery.