Key to good photos: Point your camera in a different direction

You go to an event and if you are like everyone in the photo above you are all pointing your cameras in the same direction and at the same time.

By all means still get the "obvious shot." What I want to encourage you to do is look beyond the main stage of an event.

Before this middle school orchestra concert all the students arrive early to get their instruments tuned.  Here I went to the area they were tuning and got really close.

Seth Gamba is the music teacher and the last time I saw someone tuning something like he is doing was early in my career. I watched the NASCAR pit crew use a screwdriver touching the block of a running engine to tune it by adjusting the timing.

Doesn't this photo make you want to know what he is doing.  This is quite different than the obvious conducting shot.

Warming Up

While the students are getting their instruments tuned and warmed up, I roamed around and got in close for some photos that you have to look really close to see if this is the performance or practice.

All the photos above are taken before the performance. Occasionally you can see in the background things that wouldn't be going on in the performance.  But look at how many look like a performance shot.

The hardest part during the performance is getting a good photo due to the angles you are limited to. Hey before hand I am walking all through the orchestra and taking photos.  Can't do that during the performance.

During the Performance

One of the things that I notice in the performance shots is the musicians are looking for the conductor as compared to before he wasn't around.

What will the 8x10 look like?

I get a kick out of seeing the iPad being used as a camera. I keep seeing and and thinking they are already seeing the finished 8x10 print.

But how did it sound?

Dorie Griggs, my wife, operated the video camera from the bleachers while I was down front shooting. If you have read this far you might as well enjoy hearing them play. By the way my daughter does the first "scream" in the performance.

Color correction

I used the ExpoDisc to get a custom white balance for the best skin tones.  Here is another blog post on how I use it.