I’ve written about AM Taxi before; they’re one of my favorite bands. They’re just plain good. They’re real, they’re amazing performers, and Adam’s voice is fantastic. Add AM Taxi to JBTV, which is so iconic in Chicago, and you have one heck of a show.
I highly recommend watching this episode of JBTV when it airs, which will be sometime in June, soon after AM Taxi’s release of We Don’t Stand A Chance (which releases on June 8th). If you’re in Chicago, JBTV is on Wednesdays at 11 on WJYS 62. If you’re not in the area, the shows are on iTunes and on JBTV’s website soon after airing.
(Kevin Manno intro’ing)
Shooting Notes
I never shoot film at concerts. Never. I think I’ve done it four or five times in the eight years I’ve been shooting concerts. There are several reasons for this. The main one being that the venues I shoot in are just plain too dark (usually I’m at 6400ISO on my digital, and usually push the exposure in post even more). Another factor is that I adore old film cameras, so my cameras and lenses are all manual focus, which is hard to do with the fast action of concerts.
But, this time, I had my Canon TX with me from something earlier in the day, and a roll of 800ISO film, so why not shoot a roll? I had the whole set to shoot, so I wasn’t being rushed, and I knew that JBTV has great lighting. I’ve shot AM Taxi several times, so I could anticipate their movements, which help with the manual focusing issues.
Basically, shooting film was no different than digital, aside from the manual focus and my lack of light meter (but hey, I usually just eyeball the light anyway, so it was fine). The interesting thing was in post – I couldn’t recover highlights, I couldn’t get rid of the noise, I couldn’t clone offending mic stands or random bits out of the shot. What I got was what I got. I shoot a lot of film for portraits or just personal stuff, but when I’m shooting film then, I have a chance to move things out of my way or adjust the light or exposure settings, but not so with concerts, obviously. So, these are not perfect, but that’s okay. It’s something different.
These are scans of prints. The only Photoshop done was some added contrast (mainly because my scanner is bad and I was scanning prints, which isn’t the best way to do it).
Also, these were all shot with the Canon TX, Kodak 800ISO film, and a 50mm f/1.8 FD lens. Most of the exposures are around f/1.8 and 1/60-1/125.
Keep an eye out for the digital photos, which will be coming up soon!
