Clear The clutter

along with the tricky lighting conditions the big challenge on a shoot like this is the framing. The aim is to get a clean, uncluttered frame, but in small venues there’s often lots of clutter, like a rather annoyingly placed sky sports sign. Look for opportunities to get up close to the performers as this’ll help throw the background out of focus. Try framing up with band members in the foreground and background, and keep in tight to minimize the clutter. The right timing helps - our main image on page 44 was captured during the sound check, when we could move around freely.