Shoot the audience.

As someone who makes part of my income from shooting live music I notice that one of the most common requests I get from bands and promoters is for crowd shots. In many ways, it’s in the audience that the popularity of a band and the quality of their music is most apparent.

I’m a person who loves almost all forms of music, has thousands of LP’s, CD’s and MP3 albums; and has been regularly supporting live music and DJs for close on two decades. Nothing is more disappointing to me than a crowd that doesn’t react to the guys on stage. Therefore, as a photographer, I always make sure I have one eye on the crowd in order to capture their reactions when a favorite song is played, a DJ drops a beat or a lead guitarist launches into a solo.

Quite often, the crowd are going to be moving as much as, if not more than, the band. You want to make sure you have a shutter speed fast enough to freeze that movement. In a dark club, that’s often not possible, so a flash bounced off the ceiling can work wonders.

Here in Taipei, most venues have an open camera policy. We don’t really get many international touring bands here which do have photo restrictions, so it’s quite easy for most people to take a camera along and get some photos. For those of you who don’t have the advantage of open camera policy in your local live venues, you might be able to go out on a quiet night midweek and be able to take a camera with you, or you could make friends with someone in a band and have them okay it with the club management. No matter which approach you take, make sure you turn your camera on the crowd for a change.

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