Photographing Bands > Part Five
Part Five: Positioning and Focusing. ( August 7, 2000 )
So, one of the really important things about photography is the angle of the subject that you photograph.
One major thing to avoid is standing behind people and taking photos. I notice in a lot of photos of bands that the person taking the photo didn't get up front, and was behind people, and usually you see many heads. Get up close, and sometimes get on stage. A personal preference of mine is stay in the front row rather on stage, because this is usually the vantage point that most people see the band, right? However, a nice change of pace is to take photos on the side of the stage or from behind. My favorite photos come from venues that don't have stages, it removes that upward angle that comes from the photo.
Another thing to try is to focus on something in the background with things in the foreground, it provides a nice effect. There are other options that you can try with your aperture. Apertures are measured as the fraction of the amount of the shutter that is open. A large aperture, such as 1.8, will leave less of the background in focus, while smaller apertures, such as 16, will have more of the background in focus, with more detail. Larger apertures can have an interesting effect, the foreground will be in focus and will be well defined, but the background will be present, but kind of blurry, not distracting from the main subject.
Positioning is a major factor in the quality of the photograph you get. Don't be shy, take some kung fu kicks, and get up front, and you'll be happy you did. And never forget that focusing on different things can really add to the photo.