Live Music Photography - Stellenbosch early 2000’s
In the early 2000’s I moved to Stellenbosch, a small university town just outside Cape Town. I really loved the slower pace of life and the amazing live music on offer…Stellenbosch is well known in South Africa where a lot of musicians come play as part of their tours and where many performers have launched their careers. Every evening in the local bars and live venues, you had an amazing choice of live music and performances to choose from. The audiences where young and full of energy, always ready for a few drinks and catching up with their favorite bands or discovering new talent.
I was lucky to be working at a photo lab and retail shop which gave me access to cheap film and processing. I made it a regular occasion to frequent my favorite spots, bringing my old Pentax me Super 35mm with a pocket full of film. I quickly learned to use high speed black and white film (Kodak T-Max 3200 iso) and push processing to increase the iso to 12800….great for shooting with available light. I fell in love with the beautiful grain and texture of black and white film, something I miss and try to emulate in digital.
The stages and venues lighting were not designed primary for performances so you really had to follow the existing available light and the movement of the bands in the shadows and limited lighting, for the first time I began to develop my style as a photographer (no flash, use the shadows and appreciate the grain and feel of the images created). I learned to understand and break the rules to get the images I was after.
The unpredictability and energy of a live performance was magic, a lot of the bands were new and still learning their stuff, sometimes they were a bit shy and would hide in the shadows, or offer very muted stage performances…but there were always moments of magic where an image would develop for a few seconds, and then be lost.
I met and became friends with many amazing artists who generally appreciated the images I would offer them after their performances, sometimes leading to further gigs and even shooting some album covers and inserts. The experience and images I managed to shoot led me to defining my style as a photographer, and my skills with working with light and movement.
