Spontaneous Point-and-Shoot

Joshua Bassett, singing with hand of heart

The Golden Years Tour: Oakland, CA on August 30, 2024

Learning a new camera on the fly

I’m lucky enough to have a few mentors in photography who have been kind enough to offer some pointers on photography 101. As I was chatting with one this week, I mentioned I had a concert coming up, but the venue didn’t allow professional cameras (the kind with a detachable lens), which is what I use for my concert photography to get crisp images even from a far distance. My mentor advised me to bring a point-and-shot camera because those are often allowed at any venue. I found one with a high capacity for zoom and snagged it the day of my show. I had some other point-and-shoot cameras recommended to me, but they were all pushing $1k and we’re not on that kind of budget over here!

I charged the camera before I left to 2/3 full, since I had to leave soon after securing the new camera. I glanced through the instruction manual to get an overview of the major components and headed to the concert!

When I got the new camera, it was bigger and bulkier than I expected. I was afraid I’d be refused entry when security checked my bag. However, they didn’t seem to mind at all. At this venue, there was standing-only room on the floor and seats in the balcony. However, the floor had three levels and the closest to the stage was pretty packed by the time I arrived. I went to the side of the stage to secure my spot about 45 minutes before the opener went on. I ended up in the second row of the second floor level. I was a bit raised up from the section closest to the stage and I had a pretty sweet view for the show since most people flocked to be at center stage.

During the opener, I tried out a few different settings and found most of my pictures were out of focus and/or the coloring was all wrong. I spent some time between the performers to Google shutter speed adjustments on the new camera. This helped because I was able to take pictures after that which were more clear/less blurred.

I tried to vary the settings I used and take as many pictures as I could in the hopes that one might turn out okay in the end. I was happily surprised with some of the shots I got!

Joshua Bassett, singing into microphone while looking up

The Golden Years Tour: Oakland, CA on August 30, 2024

Inevitably, the new camera shut down at one point because it was out of battery. I’m kind of grateful for that in a way because I was able to spend the remainder of the show more ~ present ~ and take everything in.

Photography Learnings

1. With the new camera, I learned about the difference between RAW and JPG files. Here’s my oversimplification: RAW images are easier to edit after the fact and JPG files can have minor changes after they’re taken, but not as much as RAW ones.

2. Nikon takes RAW files with a .NEF and Limux uses .RW2. Both are forms of RAW images

3. Digital vs Optical zoom:

   1. Digital - zooming in and compromising the image quality. For example, imagine you take a group photo on your phone, upload it to Facebook and then zoom in on one person in the photo. They’ll likely be a little blurry / pixelated

   2. Optical - “true” zooming in without compromising the image quality. For example, with a camera, you can often take an image of an item close up and zoom in to another item far away without the one further away being blurry

Joshua Bassett, looking into camera while singing and playing guitar

The Golden Years Tour: Oakland, CA on August 30, 2024

Show Recap

I had seen some videos online before the show, so I knew to expect a few things. However, there were MANY highlights. Being a fan of lists, I’ll share some of my show highlights with you:

• The artist skipped back and forth across stage almost the entire time. How can you do that while singing??

• Audience members were invited on stage to teach a new dance to the artist and crowd. Then, they performed during a song, while the artist danced along—what a fast learner!

• The artist went into the audience to high-five and shake as many hands as possible. He even came to my section (second from the front on the floor)

• During one song, the artist said, “I’ll be right back” then skipped off stage and returned with a sick keytar. I have a special place in my heart for these keyboard/guitar combos because they’re used almost exclusively at live events to give the musician more mobility while playing a mini piano. It always adds to the experience because it allows the musician the freedom to engage more with the audience while playing!

Joshua Bassett, playing keytar and smiling

The Golden Years Tour: Oakland, CA on August 30, 2024

Overall, I was reminded of why I’m doing this. I always feel a sense of community and belonging when I’m experiencing live music with others. Somehow music is a universal language that can connect us all, even when words can’t. I left the show hopeful for a better future and I’m grateful to everyone who helped me feel safe and in a greater community.

Aperture Learnings

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a live music event and had the artist’s permission to take photos. It was a really fun experience where the artist invited other singers/musicians to perform with her. She knew a lot of common songs and easily took requests from the audience, singing in a variety of languages.

I played a bit with changing the ISO at the event. In my understanding, ISO settings will make the subject more in focus and the background blurry. I didn’t notice that changing this value had a large effect on the outcome of my photos, though, because the indoor environment didn’t have a particularly distracting background.

I struggled a bit to get as sharp of photos as I would have liked. I noticed that I either had the lighting imbalanced or the shots were a bit blurry. I was able to edit some that I was happy with. HOWEVER, this inspired me to get into the practical application of the last post: specifically learning about how to quickly & easily change the aperture on my camera to better account for particularly light or dark environments.

Knowing what I do now, here’s some advice I would have given to the version of myself walking into the event:

1. Don’t worry about perfecting manual today, you can shoot some pictures in manual and others in automatic to help with lighting imbalances and blurriness.

2. Use flash, if appropriate. At this event, I shied away from it because I didn’t want to disturb the artist as she performed or the audience in this intimate setting. HOWEVER, I was lucky enough to have time after the set to snap some shots directly with the artist. Side bar, this was one of my favorite parts because she was often looking right at me!

3. Ask the artist if there are particular shots they’re interested in. (of course this depends on the situation). I finished taking photos, but could allow the artist to share their vision with me as well!

Mariana Bonetti, singer

After the session, I checked out the images, edited a handful and shared them with the artist. Next, I searched up how to change aperture on my camera and practiced playing around with the settings at home. Hopefully, this will help me with the next shoot!

Here’s to learning & growing :)

Putting on the Concert Photographer Hat

I’ve always loved taking pictures of anything and everything. I have a particular interest in playing with lighting in photos. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to attend more concerts and I’m excited to announce that I’m starting on this journey of marrying my love for live music with photography.

If you’re reading this, you’re along the ride for the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens. I’ve been following some creators online who are photographers and give pointers about how to be successful. I’m very grateful for those folks and I want to give back to the photography community as I venture into the unknown.

I’ve been taking a lot of phone photos and videos at live concerts and events, but they simply don’t do the artist or event justice. I might share some phone pics with you, but the main goal I have here is to grow as a photographer.

In terms of tools, I have a Nikon D3300 and I primarily shoot in manual mode with a Nikon DX VR lens (for those interested, it’s specifically the AF-S NIKKOR 55-200mm one!). To start, I want to focus on the basics. There are a lot of things I need to learn. I’ve heard terms such as aperture, ISO, f-stop and many more. In full transparency, I have no idea what these terms mean, what a high or low value means for any of these or why you’d want to change any of these when shooting photos. For me, I mainly focus on shutter speed (how quickly the photo is captured) and I typically shoot in "sport mode” these days to avoid blurry photos as the subjects are moving. HOWEVER, I don’t think is necessarily the best approach long-term. Instead, I’m going to do a little research to understand these three topics and then can move on to how I can use these extra tools in my toolkit for concert photography specifically.

Now, it’s time for a mini PHOTOGRAPHY 101 lesson!

Let’s start with some vocab:

• aperture: this is the hole within your camera that lets in light. The larger it is, the more light that’s let in. Learn more and see image below from this source!

  • f-stop: this is the measurement of aperture, where f stands for “focal length.” Read more here.

• ISO: (aka International Organization for Standardization) helps determine how bright your images are. Use low ISO for taking images in a bright environment and a high ISO for taking images in a dark room. Read more here!

• shutter speed: this determines how quickly do you take the photo. I use a fast shutter speed to capture artists moving and dancing on stage. To better capture lights at night, a longer shutter speed provides more exposure. Read more here.

If you’re still confused about how aperture, ISO and shutter speed all work together in creating a photo when you click the button on the top of your camera, don’t worry, I’m right there with you! I’ll continue to share more with you as I experiment.

Aperture Scale measured in f-stops. Lear more directly from the source!

Now that we’ve both put on our photographer hats, I’d like to reflect on my first true attempt at concert photography. Today, I attended a free event near me with a local band playing at an outside venue. It was very casual and the crowd came and went as they weaved through the various booths from local artists and businesses that were also at the event. I was very lucky because this event was free and most other folks came for dinner or with other goals in mind, so I often had an unobstructed view of the band and was able to take some fun shots!

I didn’t move around too much while they were playing. I did watch one portion of their set from stage left and after their break, I stood mostly in the middle section. However, I didn’t take photos from a lot of different distances away from the band (I wasn’t ever very close or very far away). I was at a fairly close/medium distance for a majority of the time.

Noah and the Arkiteks, San Jose-based band

This was the first event I’d taken my camera to in a while and I was proud of myself for remembering to check the battery and charge it before I left home. I also made a small effort to check how much storage I had on the memory card left in my camera by checking many photos I’d taken so far. I realized I didn’t know if the number on my memory card would be enough, but it was all I had on hand at the time, so I thought it’d just have to do. Unfortunately, after taking about 10-20 photos, I soon ran out of space on my memory card. Now, I know to always carry an extra memory card when I’m on a shoot! I’d also recommend a spare battery (I’ve heard this as advice from some of the concert photographers I follow online). Right now, I only have one battery for my camera, so I’ll make an effort to charge it up before a shoot and turn my camera off whenever it’s not needed at the event.

Luckily, I was able to delete a few old pics that I no longer needed (back from 2018!). I ended up taking about 30 photos at this concert. Overall, the memory restraint was kind of nice because it made me focus in the moment on getting the shots I wanted. I usually review pictures after an event, so I don’t delete any on-site, but this time, when I noticed I had a blurry photo or a duplicate, I deleted it to make room for another photo that would better fit my vision. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this approach because it took me out of the moment a bit. Desperate times call for desperate measures, though!

I wasn’t familiar with the band before attending this event, but I’ve heard that’s good when practicing photography because you aren’t a sponge trying to soak up every moment of seeing your favorite artist and you can focus on the photography and technique. I had a good time and actually really enjoyed the band Noah and the Arkiteks. They all seemed to be jamming out with their besties and it was fun to see them almost challenge each other to conversations between electric guitar and bass. They all seemed to have a blast and just laughed while having fun on stage together. See the full set of images in my portfolio.

That’s all for now. Thanks for making it this far! I’ll keep you updated on the next steps in this concert photography journey!