Chuck Espinoza Photography

I love music and in-turn love shooting bands. I don’t do it as often as I used to but last week I noticed on Army Navy’s facebook page that they were playing locally and I didn’t have anything planned for thursday night or friday morning. I contacted the band and they said the venue would most likely be pretty lax in regards to photography and that I was welcome to come by. I have shot at the Silverlake Lounge on one other occasion and I remembered it being small.  I had forgotten just how small. I’ve found that the best band pictures I shoot (the ones I like the most) are the shots that have great stage lighting and the shots where I have access that photographer’s don’t usually have. I also tend to favor shots that I have a personal relationship with the band. Be it that they are friends of mine, or in the case of Army Navy a band I really enjoy.

I’ve found that the two most important items when shooting live bands are – ear plugs and fast lenses. Luckily I had some ear plugs and a F1.2 lens.  With my 50mm I was shooting at ISO 2000 and 2500. I swapped out for my 70-2000 F2.8 IS and had to crank the ISO 4000 to get anything usable. In other words it was dark in their.

Silverlake Lounge - Army Navy

I also shot video during the last song of their set. The audio quality in an environment like that on my 5D is shite so i dubbed in the album track. It worked out that the band sang pretty close to the album version. So if you want to hear what I saw, check it out.