How would you meter for jazz club, small venue music shots?

Some people must live in the NPR world of pc. Jazz musicians come in all colors...black, white, and every other color of the human race. The challenge has always been when the band is made up of very dark skin and very pale skin. Years ago my daughters violin teacher would do a group picture with his students. Either perfect exposure of very dark black kid and washed out pale blond kid or perfect exposure of pale blond and a dark blob with only white teeth. Add harsh lighting of jazz club is additional challenge. But that is what makes photography interesting. Digital capture (I refuse to call it photography) shows results right away. Under the conditions discussed a lot of guessing and intuition comes into play. Don't be afraid to use very slow shutter speeds...can ptoduce interesting results.

guangong said:

Some people must live in the NPR world of pc. Jazz musicians come in all colors...black, white, and every other color of the human race. The challenge has always been when the band is made up of very dark skin and very pale skin. Years ago my daughters violin teacher would do a group picture with his students. Either perfect exposure of very dark black kid and washed out pale blond kid or perfect exposure of pale blond and a dark blob with only white teeth. Add harsh lighting of jazz club is additional challenge. But that is what makes photography interesting. Digital capture (I refuse to call it photography) shows results right away. Under the conditions discussed a lot of guessing and intuition comes into play. Don't be afraid to use very slow shutter speeds...can ptoduce interesting results.

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Actually if negative film is being used the only "challenges" in camera work are: getting enough shadow detail, controlling motion blur, appropriate focus, and composition.

The violin teacher's group shot challenge isn't a camera problem if one is using negatives, set exposure to get enough shadow detail and control motion blur, focus well, compose and shoot.

At that point the latent image has everything you need, and you have applied all the controls you have at the camera.

Everything after that is a printing challenge. The dark v pale, black v blond stuff are all printing challenges, not shooting challenges.

How you develop the film, is a print control. It is the first contrast adjustment.

Choosing paper grade refines that contrast adjustment.

The no detail black skin and washed out blond issues are a localized subject placement problem, burning and dodging when printing are the appropriate tools to fix that. The only other way subject placement issues can be fixed is to use artificial lighting when shooting with the camera, things like fill flash or by compromising the contrast adjustments when printing.

I thought the topic under discussion was shooting jazz musicians in a dimly lit bar as a patron and not under studio conditions. The example I gave about the violin students were pics by a "professional" photographer shooting color who was not about to fiddle with printing. Having photographed in jazz clubs there is only so much that can be done regarding metering, lighting, etc unless you have been invited by the owner or manager. Take some educated guesses about exposure and hope for the best. Use a quiet camera and try not to be a nusence for other patrons. If a small club and musicians notice, they may help.

With any negative film guangong, someone must fiddle. Sometimes that someone is a machine.

With negative film that is simply the nature of the beast.

rpavich said:

I'm trying to figure out how to meter (spot meter) for a scene that's mostly dark like a stage with spots highlighting band members faces/hands/instruments etc.

Specifically, where would you meter? (shadows or faces?) and where would you place that value (faces on zone 6 or shadows on zone 3 or what?

I took some photos recently of a swing band and though the pictures printed ok, and my negatives weren't horrid, I just winged it and got lucky for the most part.

For next time, I want to have a game plan and know what I'm doing.


This is an example of what I have in mind as the finished product.

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I think that is a pretty good photo taken under difficult lighting conditions. When I shot in nightclubs, I always metered the faces. If each musician is lit by a spot, you are already ahead of the game. The faces will look good, even if surrounded by a sea of black Zone I. As for the difference racial skin colours, they are all within a few stops of each other, say IV to VII. That is not a big deal, especially with spot lighting.