We have come a long way since black and white film photography. Ever since colour films came in the market people have used it to create images that look and feel more natural. But in recent times we have seen photographers avoiding colour and opting to shoot or edit images in black and white. In this article we try to understand the implications of the recent spike in the use of black and white and why photographers should not refrain from shooting in colour.

Finding inspiration from legendary photographers who shoot black and white images is one thing, but trying to emulate or copy their style is completely wrong. Many amateurs today, due to lack of guidance end up following and imitating the masters, thus losing out on creating something new. Establishing one’s own style is extremely important and sticking to shooting or editing black and white photos is not going to help. There are many well-known photographers who shoot colour. Following their work closely can lead to a lot of ideas which can in-turn help a photographer develop his or her own style of shooting. One should always remember that drawing inspiration is one thing, but blindly imitating frames and composition is unacceptable. There is a fine line between the two and the photographer needs to perfectly balance himself or herself. 

Analysing images taken by other people is also an important task. Look at the colour schemes. See which colour gels well with which environment. Read about the colour wheel and learn about complimentary colours. Colours are very easy to handle and getting scared of taking colour photos will only restrict your photography. Colour photos make for much more appealing pictures and catches the viewer’s eyes instantly. The colour wheel will help you to mix and match colours in the environment or in a studio setting to bring out the best in your photo. Learning more about primary colours will help you look at your frame from a completely different perspective. Once you start shooting keeping the complimentary primary and secondary colours in mind, using colour in your photographs will become easier. Looking at images shot by other photographers will help in developing your eye to seeing and observing colours in your environment. The biggest challenge in shooting great colourful photos is actually noticing the colour. Since our eyes are used to looking at the world in colour, we take it for granted and do not notice the colours around us in everyday life. 

No matter what the surrounding is and what the frame is, if you are shooting JPEG images always shoot in colour. Even if you feel that you will want the frame to be black and white, do not shoot black and white in-camera. Shooting in colour will provide you with flexibility and a lot of scope to edit in post production. Do not restrict yourself to shooting black and white as a photograph might look much better in colour. Decide what you want the end product to be, once you have seen it on your monitor. There are times when you will change your mind about it and shooting in in-camera black and white will restrict you from changing it further. 

There will be times when you will see that the hours spent on editing one image has gone to waste because the photo looks completely different in other screens or even in print. Remember to colour correct your monitor if you want to see the true colours. Different monitors will show different shades of colours for the same image thus rendering your editing useless if your monitor is not colour corrected. There are various colour correcting tools and software available in the market. Spyder 5 by datacolor is one such tool that creates a unique colour profile according to your monitor’s display thus calibrating your monitor to display true colours.

Like any other fear, be it fear for driving, swimming or even fear of studying, practice helps with getting rid of fear. Colour is not scary at all if you know how to use it to your advantage. The beauty of colour is incomparable and if used correctly can make for astounding images. While it is okay to shoot black and white images and sometimes, undoubtedly it might work better than colour, it does not mean colour should be avoided. Human eyes love and are generally attracted to colour. Right from our childhood we perceive colour as something alluring and this holds true for photographs as well. So practise shooting colour photographs and you will eventually get things right.

 

The ideal way to get started into music concert photography is to begin with shooting in small clubs because in such venues you can easily get access to shoot the photographs without any press identity proof. So that’s why these are the best locations to experiment with your camera settings and getting used to being in front of the stage. If you have some of your friends who play in a band, you can ask them for their photo shoot to be done by you. Of course they would be more than happy to have pictures of their concerts. But the problems with such venues are the lack of light on stage. So the musicians look so horrible in such light. And because of such low light it is very difficult to get the sharp photos. So what will be the solution for this? 

Fast and prime lenses are the ideal solution for the above mentioned problem. In low light situation to get the sharper shots, using the fast and prime lens is the only solution unless your camera can support the higher ISO sensitivity without giving much noise. But as a beginner we would recommend you the 50mm F/1.8 prime lens because of its ability to shoot in low light at its lowest aperture. You can also use flash in low light situation but using direct flash can ruin the effect. 

One of the major things in photography is getting the correct exposure by measuring the amount of light. And during the live music concerts there are several sets of repetitive light. You should keep in mind the correct parameters for the different lights. You should always check your histogram and check for the overexposed points to ensure that your main subject is exposed properly. One of the worst things is to get back home with a picture that looks good on your camera screen but on your computer it looks overexposed or underexposed. So we recommend you to shoot in Raw so that you can compensate for the exposure if necessary. 

Increasing the ISO can cause noise, but it is better to take a bit noisy photos sometimes than missing the action totally or taking blurry photos. You can also reduce the noise later with some image editing software. Converting photo into black and white can be a better option for noisy photos. 

Choosing the right shooting mode depends on every individual, so you can choose whatever fits to your style. But still shooting on aperture priority mode (AV) and keeping the aperture value as low as possible (ex. F/1.8 or F/2.8 depending on your lens) will be ideal and fast. Some people also shoot in manual mode. Shoot on burst mode so that you will get variety of action shots rather than shooting on single shot. Also keep your metering mode on spot metering because the stage lighting always keeps changing and you will never know if the light will hit the artist’s face in the next second or not. Keep extra empty memory cards with you always. 

Sometimes when it’s too dark and you are so far from the stage and you can’t use the flash also from that distance, in such situation you can wait for the spotlight to fall on the artist. You might get very interesting results with those dark images that are lit just by the spotlight. It is actually looks better than the frame where everything is lit. Also when there is lighting changing rapidly in a usually dark place, we will recommend you to try for shooting silhouettes. Choose the silhouette that is very clear so that viewer can see and understand what the subject in the frame is even if it’s without light. These kinds of photos you can shoot when there is no light on subject and the only lights are the ones behind the band or the subject. 

Now that we have discussed all the technical issues to photograph a concert, we must not forget to discuss the composition as well. In concerts, it is not likely that every photo will be technically perfect, but you should capture the story and a good interesting composition. Sometimes it could be just a close up of an artist’s facial expression, or just the guitar, or sometimes whole band. It all depends on your artistic vision and equipment constraints. 

Concert photography is fun and exciting though it is not easy at all. The key to success is a lot of practice before you go to shoot a big concert. Try various tricks to help you if you cannot take a sharp photo at first. It can be hard to look around during the concert, but keep your eyes always open and camera ready.

Do a project or shoot by creating random restrictions to your shooting. Some of these limits can include using only a prime lens, shooting images with negative space, ensuring there are no people or structures in the frame, using only manual mode, shooting only b/w, over or underexposing your images, spot meter only etc. You can make these rules up. Once you start shooting with a restriction, you will realise how it is not the easiest task. However, it will force you to think creatively and improve your photography. 

Go back to the roots and grab a film camera and shoot a roll of film. When you start shooting with a film camera, you will realise that unlike the DSLR, you cannot simply fire the camera and click endless shots. The film camera will have a limit of images, so you will be forced to carefully analyse your shots before shooting. You will have to think of composition, camera settings, light etc. This exercise is definitely a great way to get you to think before shooting. Once you get the film processed, you will get the actual prints of your photos, and you can accordingly critique the shots. 

Select one specific subject and then give yourself a number, it could be 5, 10 or 15, and shoot these many images of that same subject. This exercise will make you think about the various different ways that you could capture the same subject. Make you think of composition, angles, lighting etc. However, make sure that the small subject does not mean your whole city! 

Think of different photographic elements like shape, form, pattern, texture, light, shadow, depth etc, and then go to a specific location and try to capture images that would feature these images. This little exercise will increase your observational skill, and make you think of different creative ways of shooting. 

This exercise is a tricky one, and there are two ways that you could do it. Go out and shoot the 26 letters from A-Z. While you can either go shoot images of things that would appear like the alphabet (for example a round manhole for the letter ‘O’, or else you can go and shoot objects or actions that start with that alphabet. If you are doing the first task, then do not shoot actual letters out there, and if you’re doing the second task, make sure you shoot images which clearly depict the action. 

This would probably be an easy project, but nevertheless can be very creatively fulfilling. Give yourself a single theme or a topic. This can be anything, from colourful window panes or vintage cars to street cats or babies. You are free to choose any theme you like and then you can go out and find these subjects and shoot them in an interesting way possible. You will start relating to the subject and discover much more about it. 

One of our favourite photography projects to undertake is this one. Find an interesting subject; this can be a policemen, your local tea-seller, the gardener, or simply your grandmother, and then accompany them around the entire day shoot them the entire day. Your images should capture the essence of the person’s day, and give the viewer a humanistic in-depth look into the person and their daily-life. 

One of most common excuses photographers give to not go out and shoot is “it’s the middle of the day, there’s bad lighting”. With this exercise you will be forced to step out in the middle of the day in “bad lighting” and shoot images. For a week or a month, everyday, go out in the afternoon, and shoot. At the end of this exercise you will realise that you have actually learned how to click images in such lighting conditions. 

Another very creatively fulfilling exercise, shooting the same subject at different times of the day is a great exercise in lighting. The easiest way to do this is to select landmarks, or historical buildings in your city, and then shoot them at different times of the day. You can then compare the different images, and you will see how light affects subjects, and how you can tackle it using different settings. 

While today selfies are very common, these are not necessarily self-portraits. Shooting a self-portrait will involve a lot of thought and planning. While you can simply put the camera on a tripod on a timer and capture yourself, that would be too easy to do. Plan a self-portrait that tells a story. A self-portrait that speaks about who you are, gives an essence of your personality.