silver concert photography : my little story
Most of 2018 readers don’t know a thing about slides, negatives, night shot, live concert photography and so on. Since the invention and development of digital camera and the digital format to display them (screens, web, smartphones etc), photography evolved a lot. It could be considered by many as an obsolete subject. Consider for yourself.
Conditions and drawbacks.
In France, Paris, in the 80’s - 90’s where all the major concert used to take place (apart from summer festivals) : no photography is allowed without an authorization, called : accreditation. I think it’s pretty much the same right now.
Some photographer are picked up or else, named on a list by the production with their respective, editorial company, title they work for. These accreditation were difficult to obtain on big names, unless you have some kind of entry... For small venue, artist, club, small scene : it was much easier. I used to call the production myself and I testify that sometimes it was really hard. It is a hard job if you don’t have a network of good friends here and there and soon a name of your own. Saying certain words were like key to open vault. Only 2 or 3 photographers were on the list.
Concert photography is just the most difficult activity in photography. (Silver, argentic photography. The film you charge, expose to light with you camera, take the films to the lab to develop them). The light conditions were bad if you are used to natural day light like I was. You can have without notice a very dark stage to full light with lots effects. It is probably good for the audience not for the photographer of my time.
Photographer lightflash were forbidden by the production... (they used to tell me that artists on stage didn’t like flashlight ...). That makes the technic of films difficult to handle. High sensibility films were rare and expensive so I often used 400 asa asking them to push in lab. The result was pretty much the same : lots of post-production work.
Moreover ´the don’t’ of the production put a pressure on me and the way i projected my 15 minutes, first 3 songs allowed. At the beginning I was shooting 1 or 2 films working like an artisan. Until I understood : ´shoot the max’, you will select later. This later is now !
