I have a small business shooting concerts. I set up multiple cameras - some operated by myself by hand, some fixed, some remote controlled, one by a second operator. On this particular occasion, I had seven running. My main location, I was sitting behind my main close-up camera with the 20x lens and my medium camera with the 12x lens, my wide camera with the 10x lens and a camera aimed at the keyboard player (10x), and a monitor showing a split screen of 4 of these cameras including a remote pan-tilt head and an Android tablet showing the remote “Drummercam” mounted just above the snare drum.
In the dark. One man, 7 glowing screens.
This person then decides that, since all these cameras are here, this must be the perfect place to shoot from. So she parks her ass not five feet from me, and proceeds to shoot WITH A FLASH one photograph every five to ten seconds for the entire length of the concert. RIGHT in my peripheral vision!
I have no problem at all with her shooting photographs. No, that is not a problem at all. Just turn off the fucking FLASH! The stage is 40 feet away! None of that flash light is getting anywhere near the stage! All you’re doing is illuminating the room and driving a fucking ice pick into my brain!
The way my technique for shooting concerts works is this: I watch and enjoy the concert, paying close attention to what everyone on the stage is doing, anticipating who is getting ready to solo, etc. I pre-visualize the edit that will happen, making sure I get a shot of every musician on the stage, following the flow of the music, tracking anyone moving around the stage. It’s a job that requires a lot of attention. I joke that I’ve managed to find a business model for ADHD, paying attention to many different things at once.
Works fine, as long as some evil bitch isn’t FIRING OFF A STROBE FIVE FEET FROM YOUR HEAD!
Oh, and by the way people - Just because there is a camera in your phone, that doesn’t make your phone a camera. For a tiny amount of money, you can buy a real damn video camera, with a zoom lens, stereo microphones, manual audio controls, manual exposure, manual focus and a 3 hour shooting capacity.
And you people holding up an iPad? Just don’t.