Hilltop Hoods @ The Thebby, August ’09

I had shot the Hilltop Hoods a few times earlier this year for various covers but up until tonight I had never seen their live show.

What stood out from the onset of their performance was that this show was going to be hard to shoot due to the amount of movement on stage!

I like to shoot wide open at f/2.8 as this usually allows me a shutter of between 1/60 (down to 1/30 with center point AF) and for most shows, that cuts a nice balance between blur and clarity. Not tonight!!

The guys were so fast on stage a good number of my shots were not as sharp as I’d like. A lot of smoke on stage was another challenge. Smoke looks rad if it’s behind the subject, but once it spreads across the whole stage it becomes tricky to shoot with.

Having an AAA pass and shooting for the entire show certainly helped me get some different angles that would have otherwise been impossible from the pit and 3 songs, so in many cases I lined up the shot and just waited for the smoke to dissipate before shooting.