Stop taking photos at gigs (or tips if you’re going to!)

I’m talking to you. Yes you. The person that stands next to me throughout an entire gig with their sweaty pit in my face, out-stretched arm clutching a £50 point-and-shoot digital camera who then elbows me in the head to inspect every blurry, incomprehensible picture.

Just give up, you’re NEVER going to get a good photo swaying around in the darkness of any venue. At best your gonna get a memory card full of blurry coloured lights. Not one worth keeping. Not one worth your arm ache or my head ache. Just enjoy the gig for gods sake.

However, if you do insist on trying to capture the image of someone on stage, 30-40ft away in near-on darkness, here’s my tips:

1) Keep still. You’ll never get a good shot if you’re jumping up and down. Also, get as close as you can to the stage.

2) For the love of god don’t use a camera-phone! Idiot!

3) Turn your flash OFF! You’re never going to light up the entire stage with your 1-watt flash, at best you’re just gonna light up the heads of the people in front of you!

4) Any digital camera worth its salt in this day and age will have an ISO setting. You’ll probably want something around the 800 mark if you’re far away. Any more and you’ll have a real grainy photo, any less and it’ll be too dark. If you’re lucky enough to be up front closer to the stage lighting, lower your ISO.

5) White Balance. A really important feature that all digital cameras should have. I often shoot in ‘Cloudy’ ‘Shadowed’ or the ‘Tungstun Bulb’ setting. Try a couple of shots with different settings until you get a result you like best.

6) Last but not least, try shooting in black and white mode. It’ll calm all those crazy colours from the lighting