Grid show and computer judo

In the middle of working on my shots from Saturday’s modernsextrash CD release party, Photoshop decided to stop saving JPG files. Anyone who knows much about the Internet knows that that is a severe pain when you want to make web friendly files.

But I have overcome! Even after restarts, reinstallations and hours of struggle, I still can’t save JPGs. However, I had an ace up my sleeves: PNG files. PNG files are supposed to be better quality than JPG, anyway. So maybe this is beneficial?

Anyway, the show was fun, but a huge challenge. (That’s becoming a theme here …) The club they were playing was indeed very attractive, but you could tell they don’t normally pay attention to traditional stage lighting. In fact, the band was split into two parts of the room. Complicating matters was the short set they were playing: Not even 30 minutes. I wouldn’t have much time to figure out how to shoot this thing.

The beginning of the show started with some minor relief, as they turned up some lighting, and I didn’t have to worry about flashes or anything.

Alas, that was short-lived. What followed was the equivalent of turning off the light in your room and using a small blacklight to see. It was accordingly brutal. However, I did think to arm myself with a secret weapon, one modified to use with knowledge that the club would likely frown upon flash photography. I brought my longer snoot.

When I reduced the power on my Canon 580 EX to 1/64, and zoomed it to about 70mm, the flash barely made an impression. But it was still very visible in my shots. However, focusing was still a nightmare. I was trying to fire it off camera to avoid nasty shadows, but I was also having trouble getting my remotes to work. I wasted too much time trying to get things to work.

But I finally realized I should just stick the flash on my camera and use the focus assisting features to grasp anything I could, and just struggle with the location of my spot the best I could. The results were all I could have hoped for, though I barely had time to fire off a handful of shots. But hey, I got a few frames!

These are probably my favorites of the night:

So that’s it. Next time, I’ll know just to give up and go on camera, or I’ll never get a shot in focus. Darn this weak eyesight! ha ha. Anyway, I need to pass out after all that Photoshop drama. Have a great day!

SEE THE REST OF MY SHOTS FROM THE NIGHT HERE!

Watching: Feasting on Waves