Taken at the Cambridge Pink Festival. I don’t know who the singer is – I just happened to be in the vicinity of the stage and saw how expressive she was so took a few shots.
Actually, this isn’t a concert at all. I had photographed Helen Webb giving a live performance some weeks earlier and she invited me to an open mic event she was hosting where I got this shot. The difficulty with such shots are usually the stage lighting casting shadows and the singer being too close to the microphone and obscuring some or all of the mouth. Here, I was lucky – there is separation between the mic and her face and the shadow from the mic falls across her chin rather than her mouth. I still wish it wasn’t there though…
I find images of groups on stage to be quite cluttered and messy. They seldom work well. I try to home in on individual band members. I was pleased with the shot of the saxophonist and like the complementary rim lighting on his hair.
I just happened to be at a party with a live band and a DJ. The DJ doubled as the lead singer. I took a few snaps for fun but was amused by the interesting expression that I had managed to capture.
The Cambridge Folk Festival provides many opportunities for stage photography. The only limiting factor is getting close enough to the stage and having a fast long lens to fill the frame. Image stabilisation also helps as the light levels are low and shutter speeds tend to be low. Tripods are out of the question and even using a monopod in a crowd can be quite tricky.