Phil Anselmo and The Illegals

The stage at PNC Arena is always going to be big. The acts are big, the stage is big. The act spreads out, to cover the stage. And the photographers run, from one side of the stage to the other. Run to stage left for the bass player, run to stage right for keyboards, get to the center for the vocalist, get lead guitar, percussion…don’t forget the drummer.

We were running. Running to catch the light and gesture. Often you get there and the lights go low. So you change your settings, then the lights blast, you check your exposure, and fireballs explode on stage before you can get your camera back into position.

That was the experience this night. Well half of it anyway, as security was ramming into us from behind as they jostled with the crowd that were flowing over the barrier. All in good fun of course, but if they weren’t caught by security and fell headfirst onto the concrete floor they would break their neck. Good times had by all.

Phil Anselmo and The Illegals were lit moderately well so we could get a few decent shots. Ministry was dark and smokey but offered a few windows of light here and there for our benefit. Primus was dark. They must not want quality images, sad. So we just did our best under the circumstances. Slayer wants to be remembered, so they gave us some great light to work with, which helped in getting few primo shots. Settings were as follows:

Phil Anselmo: 1/200 sec;   f/5.0;   ISO 2000

Ministry: 1/250 sec;   f/2.8;   ISO 3200

Primus: 1/160 sec;   f/2.8;   ISO 6400

Slayer: 1/320 sec;   f/5.0;   ISO 2000

Ministry

Primus

Slayer