shooting the Download Festival
I haven't been to a concert in a while, mostly due to lack of time and money when I decided to go back to school. But when Dan, the photo editor at the Spartan Daily, mentioned they needed a photographer to shoot the Download Festival, I took one look at the lineup and leapt at the chance. Okay, to be sure, I had to think about it, because I thought I had three midterms this week (although it turns out I just have one, and in a class I'm finding pretty easy). Of course, we weren't able to send a writer, but I said I shouldn't have any problem writing up something myself.
I've never shot a concert before. Well, I've taken shots at things like the San Jose Jazz Festival for my own personal use. This was different, so I was both excited and nervous. I'm always a little nervous at an assignment, especially when it's at a kind of event I haven't done before. Usually it's not too bad, but this was also the first time I was shooting something where there were other photographers also shooting. Professionals. It's a bit intimidating.
I was told that they'd start handing out photo passes at 1PM, although the gates didn't open until 1:30, so I showed up at the gate at 1:15. Nobody was there, but there were two other photographers waiting, and some of the staff said that Kaari, Shoreline's PR person, would be back in a bit. So I chilled out for a bit while surreptitiously checking out the other people's equipment. I was a bit worried because I had forgotten to check out the 80-200 lens from the equipment room, so I was planning on relying my 24-70 zoom and possibly my 50mm and 85mm primes. I didn't have anything more telephoto than that, but when I had asked Danielle for some tips (she's shot a lot of concerts), she said that I'd be close enough that I wouldn't need a long lens. But I was still worried. I'm such a worrier.
It didn't help that I'd resolved to stop smoking for at least a week (for reasons that would be mostly TMI to recount), so I didn't have that crutch to calm my nerves. It was doubly difficult because listening to music is one of many things that I love to enjoy with a cigarette (photography is another one). Not to mention that there were a lot of smokers there, as that's one of the main advantages of an outdoor venue. Dangit.
Anyway, Kaari finally arrived, and the two other photographers handed her a signed form. Apparently it was a release form that I hadn't received. I struggled to keep down the panic, since my worst fear was being turned away at the gate for some stupid reason, like not being on the list or something, but she said she'd just go get me a copy. Apparently, Beck makes all the photographers sign an extremely stringent waiver where he retains the rights to all the photographs and we aren't allowed to use them for anything other than the publication we were shooting for. I was a little bummed, but was mostly glad that he was the only artist who was doing that despite the fact that there were plenty of other pretty big names on the bill.
There were a lot of photographers there by this time. Some of which were carrying fold-up stools, which of course just made me more nervous, not having known to bring one. I wasn't very social, feeling self-conscious and irrationally afraid of being outed as a woefully unprepared newbie. But most of the photographers didn't seem to socialize with each other that much either. I know photography is a pretty competitive field, so I wondered whether they all saw each other as the enemy.
I got my media badge, which made me very happy, but no ticket, since they don't give them out to photographers. That was kind of a bummer, because the badge is only good for the first three songs of every act. But hey, I still got in for free, so I shouldn't complain. They then led us to the photographer's pit of the second stage. It seems cooler when you're not allowed in it. It's nothing but a fenced off area. Kinda disappointing. Not a lot of room to maneuver, either, and as the stage was much higher than the ground, we weren't at a great angle to shoot from. Of course, that's exactly why some of the other photographers brought stools. Still, there were some raised platforms near the stage. I started to climb up on one to see what the sightlines were like from them, but I got yelled at by someone holding a video camera. Apparently those were only for video. They didn't have to be so rude about it. It's not like anybody explained any of this to me, so how the heck was I supposed to know that?
After that, it was just a matter of waiting until the first act went on at 2:30 PM. As we had been escorted to the pit area, I had no idea whether we were allowed to leave it or not, and since I was feeling rather intimidated by everybody, I was too nervous to ask and just cracked out some of my econ reading. Of course, we weren't actually trapped in there and were perfectly free to move around the grounds. But I had a lot of reading to catch up on anyway, and part of me kinda relished the opportunity to show that I wasn't planning on going into this line of work anyway because there were other things I was better at. That's been a long weakness of mine. When I'm feeling inadequate at something, I have a tendency to try and demonstrate superiority in other ways (and given my myriad interests, there's always something). But I don't think anybody noticed because they all had left to do other things or something.
Anyway, once the shows started, I did my thing and got into a groove, and the nervousness just melted away. Shooting musical acts actually isn't much different from shooting anything else in photojournalism. I was a little worried about only being allowed to shoot for three songs, but it turned out that this was plenty of time. Indeed, I found that I almost always had all the shots I needed within the first two songs, as I ended up taking mostly redundant shots during the third one. I was also trying to make sure I shot at least some of each artist in RAW format. It takes up a lot more space (and thus a lot longer for the camera to write to the memory card), but is a lot more forgiving in post-processing. However, given that I had ten acts to shoot, there wouldn't be enough room on all my memory cards to shoot everything in RAW. It also took me a while to switch between modes, which always got me nervous that I might be missing something important.
As it was, I did fine and didn't need to adjust the shots too much in post-processing. There was no need to adjust the white balance, as daylight is perfectly fine, and stage lighting that isn't white is intentionally colored for a reason and thus doesn't need to be corrected. And I was careful to make sure the exposure was correct, upping even to 1600 ISO when it got dark (in the past, I would mistakenly avoid 1600 ISO at all costs because I had heard that it sucks -- upping the ISO decreases the light you need but results in more grainy pictures). But it wasn't so dark that I couldn't use the 24-70 (although I did try using the 85mm for a little bit, I found switching to be more trouble than it was worth). Also, I did eventually see quite a few other photographers with the exact same lens I was using.
Also, the main stage was a lot easier to shoot, because it wasn't that much raised from the photographer's pit, and so nobody used stools. It was a bit tighter quarters, but everybody was good at staying out of each other's way. There wasn't any fighting or jockeying for position that I had imagined. I got plenty of shots from all the angles I wanted, and indeed, would go out of my way to not take up a good spot for very long so that the real photographers with real jobs could take their turn there.
And so I was able to relax a little bit and enjoy the show. I'll write up my thoughts about the show, but I'll wait until I'm done uploading all the photos to Flickr so that I can include them along with the post. I even loosened up and chatted with some of the other photographers. One guy, Tim, seemed kinda eccentric, and kept talking about his construction work where he had some sort of accident with a drill bit that ended up with shards of metal in his eye which had to be removed in an emergency room (no permanent damage, and it wasn't his shooting eye). I also chatted with another photographer who it turned out shot for Spin Magazine. I thought that was a bit intimidating, but she was pretty friendly (I think her name was Stephanie?), and I think a bit glad that I had chatted with her because she had seemed pretty bored before that. I also chatted a little bit with Dai Sugano who shoots for the Mercury News but is a SJSU alum who'd given a talk to the SJSU NPPA about the rise of multimedia in photojournalism. He also seemed glad to chat with me (and waved to me several times when we ran into each other later -- although I don't think I remembered to tell him my name, so I'm sure he has no idea who I am), which surprised me cuz he seemed a bit aloof from everybody else. Maybe all the photogs just think all the other photogs are out to get them when they're all just thinking the same thing?
Anyway, that was most of my weekend. I took over a thousand shots (more than necessary, as it turns out, due to the many redundant ones), so it took a while to process and winnow them them down to the seventy that I showed the photo editor (I'll upload a bit more than that to Flickr -- you can see some of them now, the rest'll be uploaded over the course of the next two weeks). But that doesn't feel like work. I wonder whether that's a sign that I should go into photography instead of economics. I still don't think I'm good enough to do that well, and I still don't think it's where I can make the biggest difference in this world. But there's something to be said for having a job that's fun. I guess I'm shooting a wider variety of assignments for The Daily this semester, so that'll give me a much better idea of it.