Playing to the crowd

I haven’t yet posted images from Siren’s gig at the Grand Hotel in Malahide last weekend because I haven’t yet had an opportunity to process them.  But one I did process quickly last Sunday before my sister went home was this shot – in colour, but I did a quick colour to monochrome conversion last night to post it here.  The Siren gig – they being an all-female electric string quartet – was short and sweet, lasting for 15 minutes in the middle of a Coca Cola-sponsored private party.  Such as short time on stage is, I’m sure, challenging for the quartet in many ways, as it was for me as photographer on the night.

Photographing something over a short period of time can be quite intense – especially if there are certain key shots that you have to get.  I’ve experienced that before – for instance at a registry office wedding in December, or when I climbed onto the top of a car park to photograph the Volvo Ocean Race village before Sharon Shannon finished playing back in Galway (one of these photos is again in this week’s Galway Advertiser, for those of you who live in that direction).

Thankfully last Friday night I didn’t have the pressures of “must-get” shots.  It was more a case of: “would you like to come and take photos at our gig?” and: “if you get any nice ones we might use them.” That if is a nice cushion to have when the whole shooting match (pardon the pun) is over in 15 minutes.

That said, I do think I got some nice ones, although I’ll see what falls out of the post processing over the next few weeks. This shot of my sister Úna was taken during their third piece by which time I had switched to my 50-150mm lens to get some tighter shots of the girls.  What little pre-planning there was for this photoshoot was to decide that I would shoot with a wide lens for the first two pieces, and with a telephoto for the last two.  Úna informed me that the first two pieces had more choreography so these were better suited to a wide angle lens to take in the entire group in a single frame.

The lighting here is all from what stage lighting there was in the room, and while bright, still pushed me to ISO 1600 to get a handholdable shutter speed – I could have probably dropped to ISO 800 for this particular shot, but in general the shutter speed at f/2.8 was hovering around the 1/125s mark at ISO 1600.

A mono conversion suits this shot best because there was the ambient room light was a strong purple colour, and getting skin tones looking good under that light is a little trickier – something that a mono conversion solves easily.

Incidentally, if you’re ever looking to book a string quartet that can do a classical and/or electric set, and that are as entertaining as they are talented, check out the website of Siren (which I built as it happens) at sirenstrings.com.  And tell them Rónan sent you!