Before / After - Old Crow Medicine Show

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THE STORY

ne of the things I always tell new concert photographers that I meet is to pay attention to what each musician does during different parts of a song. For example, if the song has gone through two choruses, there's a good chance that there's a solo of some sort coming next from the lead instrument of the band. Anticipating that and making your way toward the part of the stage where the solo is likely to take place can mean that you are in the right place at the right time to capture a great moment while others are waiting until the solo starts and by the time they get into position, the moment has passed.

Being proactive rather than reactive and being able to predict where the angle will be at different moments during a show is something that comes from experience. It’s more of a feeling of what’s coming rather than any sort of empirical knowledge. Sometimes, though, there are bands where every second of a the set is an action packed moment. Whether that’s because they are particularly active on stage, or have amazing production, or a large number of members… there’s always something amazing to point your camera at. In those moments, it’s about following the energy and the flow of the set. Old Crow Medicine Show is one of those bands. Every time I have photographed them I walk away satisfied that I got some killer shots, but also knowing that I missed a ton of opportunities because there are simply too many for one person to capture.

Thankfully, bluegrass music has the tradition of always singling out and introducing members of the band and highlighting them when it’s their moment to shine. That’s one of the few moments during an OCMS show where I know exactly where to point my lens. For this show, one of my favorites shots is this great moment when Mike Harris trotted across the front of the stage with his tongue out as he tore up the banjo.

THE EDIT

As with all photo edits, I started with my base preset for color concert photos. This preset includes a boost in highlights and contrast, significantly lowered black levels, a bit of texture, clarity, and dehaze as well as adding a bit of red to the shadows. Since the light was pretty straightforward for this show, that got me in the ballpark of where I wanted to end up, but it still needed a few tweaks to take it up a notch.

The photo was a little underexposed as Mike’s location at the far front of the stage meant that he was in front of where the primary light was and I didn’t have time to change my settings in the short time he was up there. So I had to push up the exposure in Lightroom a bit to compensate. Then just setting the white balance for natural skin tone and a little lowering of the highlights a smidge and removing the dehaze because there was minimal smoke on stage and we were good to go!