Techie stuff:

I'm neither anti-digital nor anti-film. I like both technologies. Sometimes I feel like shooting one, sometimes the other. Film takes a little more work and can be more stressful(no do-overs), but there's something neat about taking a photo, developing the film and pulling the film out of the developing tank and seeing little pictures all over that film. On the other hand, it sure is nice to be able to pull a memory card out of a camera, stick it in the computer and start working on the photos right away.

As you may have guessed, I prefer to work with more of a natural style as opposed to processing things to the point of over-exaggeration. I like to use techniques like HDR from time to time, just in a more subtle manner. My end goal is to make the photo look the way it looked to me in real life as opposed to cranking it up to 11 just for the sake of cranking it up to 11, which admittedly can be fun, but isn't always conducive to making photos that will stand the test of time.

I prefer shooting concerts without flash, but sometimes the situation demands the use of a flash, like when I want to capture fast motion or the lights are so dim that there simply isn't any alternative short of putting the camera on a tripod and having the performers stand perfectly still. Even when I do use flash, I tend to use it at low power more for assisting the existing light to get a usable shutter speed rather than overpowering it.

Shooting concerts on film isn't really much harder than shooting digital. Most of the variables like shutter speed, aperture and composition still apply, it's more of a matter of having confidence in your own abilities to fly without a safety net and patience to wait for the right shots instead of blazing away since you only have a few rolls of film to work with instead of memory cards capable of holding thousands of photos. The tricky part is the developing of the film where many more harder-to-control variables come into play. You can take the perfect photo, but if you develop it too long or too short or agitate too much or whatever, it's all out the window, but that all comes down to experience.

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All black and white sets are done on film. Most colour sets are done on digital, with a few colour film sets where noted.

My main digital camera is a Canon 40D. My main medium format camera is a Mamiya 645 Pro for moving things and a Graflex Century Graphic for still things. My main 35mm camera is whatever I've got in my bag at any given moment, though I am partial to Olympus SLRs.

I usually like using a Canon EOS A2E for film concert shooting.

If you're looking for details on a certain photo, I try to put tech info in the photo set descriptions, but by all means feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

And yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that I do post-processing on my photos. Post-processing is like booze, you have to know when to say "when".


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