Concert photography is addictive. Everything is colorful and expressive and deliberatelly part of a show. It is so simple to make an attractive image that making a good photograph is hard work. I like that this frame is only partly a concert photograph. Maybe a third of the frame is an actual performance. The rest shows you some context, but not enough. The yellow and blue are both a grapic and a contrast between the purposeful stage lighting and the practical street illumination. Two versions of the same night, of the same life.

It is very easy to get caught up in the technicalities of this kind of photography. The light keeps changing, you’re never where you’d like to be, it’s hard to keep anything in focus, and any shot you miss seems to be lost forever. It is not uncommon to finish the night without anything you really like. This shot is from a venue I photographed many times and that helps a lot. It eliminates a bunch of uncertainty and frees you to do some actual photography.

The balance between photography as a technique and as an art in fast-moving situations is only properly struck when the technique becomes second-nature and all the conscious fire-power is spent on building meaning, or beauty, or whatever makes the image a photograph.

See this photo (and more) in my flickr stream
(Written on 28 Apr 2010)