Live Music Photography in Perth

I find live music photography to be a great challenge but very rewarding.  Venues are often very dark with harsh spotlights directed at the bands.  This can create really contrasty scenes which i find quite conducive to live band photography.  These shots were taken on a Canon 5D MKII at 1000 ISO with aide of a mono pod.   The Canon 5D MKII handles high ISO's extremely well so i had no qualms about the noise that could creep into the photographs.  Most exposures were around 1/60 second and all were taken on a fabulous 50mm F1.4 prime EX lens by Sigma.  I love the clarity of this lens when paired with the full frame MKII.

These shots taken as part of a commercial job for Voyuer Magazine which is the inflight magazine for Australias Virgin Blue Airline.  The brief for the photography was to capture a series of gritty images from some of Perth's cool, underground bars, cafes, and shops from around the Perth metropolitan area.  It was a really enjoyable shoot spread over a full day and a couple of nights. The first night consisted of visiting Northbridge to capture the nightlife with particular reference to Chinatown with all the restaurants and cafe strip.  As well as Northbridge i called into the buzzing Jazz Cellar in Mount Hawthorn.  You know as soon as your required to enter the basement venue through a red telephone box that your in for a different experience than your typical night out.  And what a night it was.  The venue was packed to the rafters with an eclectic mix of people jammed in sardines that were there to have a great night listening to some amazing musicians. 

In post production in photoshop i have applied an action that gives the images a retro, aged feel by softening the colours but highlighting the lighter tones of the photography and softly vignetting the corners to draw more attention to the key subject matter.