Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/03/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> From: Jeremy Kime <jeremy.kime@bbc.co.uk> > Subject: RE: [Leica] RE: Leica Camera-Handling > > Jeff, > Whilst I would love to be close enough for a point and shoot to give me > interesting photos, the reality is that they won't unless you can get up to > that front rail, as I'm sure you know. Without a flash, and most concerts will not allow them, you need to get very close to the stage. I am not a big guy, so I have had to use social skills to elbow my way to the front and get complete strangers to cover for me. I tend to befriend girls, they're less aggro about my presence, and trade my business card for their addresses and a promise of a photo for their assistance. You'll be quite surprised how accomodating they can be with this sort of deal. I've shot over 400 concerts and probably close to a thousand bands/artists (a small handful of my concert photos, nearly all of them shot from the audience in a clandestine nature with an old Nikon snuck past security, is on my website, if anyone's interested.) I don't take too many concert shots any more, it gets too exhausting waiting up to five hours in impatient and hostile crowds for bands to take the stage after 2 am, then having them hit the stage with nothing but backlighting, and then getting kicked in the head by crowd surfers. It's happened more times than I care to think about. As an aside, I should mention that my decision to buy a rangefinder was made at a John Cale concert 5-6 years ago at a small club where he was playing solo accompanied by his piano. I was up close to him, and the Nikon mirror was making a clearly audible noise that Cale could hear, and I think it pissed him off. That nailed it for me. - ------------------------------------------------ DGF PHOTOGRAPHY http://home.golden.net/~tekapo