Shoot (Contacts): Jane Haze’s Gig

During the shoot, I had some challenges navigating the crowd without being obstructive or distracting from Jane Haze’s performance. The venue was so small that I had to position myself on the side of the stage and use my zoom lens to capture close-up and wide shots of her alone and with her supporting band. However, the downside of this was that I was unable to capture many different perspectives of her performance, which was a huge issue for me given the variety in the lighting design. To make up for this, I tried to get more creative with my shots by experimenting with different angles and compositions. I also took a moment to speak with Jane Haze before the gig started to get a better sense of what she was looking for in the photos, which helped me to focus my shots on the purple lighting that she was most excited about.

Unfortunately, I experienced some technical difficulties during the shoot as well. My face-tracking focus kept getting unsynced and not focusing correctly on Jane’s face due to her spinning around or facing towards the other performers. To resolve this issue, I used the touchscreen on my camera to recalibrate it each time by pressing on her face to make sure it tracked properly. Additionally, I noticed that the calibration on my camera’s viewfinder was off, making everything look blurry through the viewfinder. I had to take a break to adjust my eyesight and make sure everything was in focus.

Although I faced some difficulties, I managed to stay concentrated while using manual mode to capture shots at the concert. I had a set plan for the type of settings I wanted to use, such as shooting at a 2.8 f-stop to create a shallow depth of field and a shutter speed of 1/125 to freeze any motion. However, I did run into some difficulty when trying to use a slow shutter speed to create a blurry effect while she was dancing. I was too cautious about the image being completely blurred, resulting in the effect looking like a camera shake and poor focus. In hindsight, I should have been more daring and gone for the effect I wanted.

Lastly, I wanted to capture the audience’s reaction to Jane Haze’s on-stage persona. But, there were some challenges with this as well. The exposure difference between her on-stage performance and the crowd in near-total darkness was too much to handle. Additionally, my lens wasn’t wide enough to capture both her and the audience in the same frame. In the future, I will make sure to bring my wide-angle lens to events like this, so I can capture everything I want without any issues.