Relient K and The Almost

Photography

Jul 21

As the summer heat rolls on and outdoor concerts fill the calendar, by the time the middle of July hits, everyone is looking for a good show in an air conditioned space. For the most part, that's what Hilarie and I found in a Relient K concert up in Joliet, Illinois. Relient K, The Almost, and The Rocketboys were playing at Mojoes in front out a packed house on a steamy summer night. While the show was indoors with pretty much no windows to the outside, the shear number of people in the small space brought the temperature up to a comparable level but without the air movement. While this may seem like a no win situation, there is a price to pay for good music, and it's more than the price of admission at the door.The room was very dark (...remember no windows), and house lights were non-existant. All light came from the DMX lighting on stage, which while really sweet looking did not help the photographing situation. While I love colorful DMX lighting for its ability to provide amazing backgrounds when blurred out by an f/2.0 aperture, it makes for a terrible source of fill light, that is unless you like your musicians looking like an alien or a person who has spend the last 48 hours baking on the sun. Every situation comes with teachable moments and this was no let down as I spent the night constantly changing up settings to try and balance the crazy colors, get decent exposure, and keep my shutter speed high enough to keep the crazy antics of musicians from being blurred into oblivion. All in all the show was great with it being the drummer's birthday we all got to sing, ice cream drumsticks with candles were brought out, and Aaron Gillespie of The Almost came and joined Relient K for a song and totally got the crowd into it!My success, while limited, gave me some photos to share with you all and here they are below. Though I did not have my camera ready to go for The Rocketboys, I was however,able to snag photos of the other two bands. So here is the best from over 1,000 images, hope you enjoy!