Recently my wife and I went to an intimate concert held in Oxford by a Brazilian singer named Leonardo Gonçalves who happens to be old friends with the Pastor of the Portuguese Language Adventist Church in Oxford. When he came over to visit on the way back from Switzerland he gave a small concert. I have his current CD and really love his music, as does my wife, so we where both excited about being there to see him perform up close.
I took my normal camera bag which I take everywhere when I don’t know what is going to happen which consists of my D80, my 18-55, in this case I decided on my 55-200 rather than my 70-300, my 50mm f/1.8 and my flash with one light stand and two brollies (one shoot though, one silver) plus the normal load of small things, like the StoFen, gels etc. Quite portable and not much bother to carry around. Upon arriving, I did my normal thing for interiors which is pull out my 50mm f/1.8 on Aperture priority and have a go. The results were quite pleasing, although nothing special at all. I was almost resigned to just ‘recording’ the event rather than creating any art, when I remembered an article from David Hobby over at Strobist where he explains how to light a gym with two speedlights, which I modified to suit the locale (and the single speedlight in my camera bag). I set up the flash stage left, in front of where he would be singing from, pointed up to the far vaulted ceiling some eight metres away and further backstage which was conveniently white and controlled the power using Nikon’s CLS from the back of the camera. With this setup, the live portraits from the concert had a lot more punch in them with the double effect of hard light coming from stage left and soft fill bouncing off the ceiling coming from stage right. Add in some ambient as well and I can control the contrast with the flick of my shutter dial. So when it comes to live portraits, this setup allowed me complete freedom to move around and get different angles at different distances keeping exposure completely consistent in full manual mode. This shot was ISO 800, 200mm, f/5.6 at 1/100s and I believe the flash was on 1/2 power:

As you can see, the harsh light coming from behind him, camera right and the nice wash coming from over my left shoulder filling in his face. To get this level of contrast and therefore interest in this portrait without the flash would have been impossible. A couple of other people where there with newer and flashier cameras than me with better lenses than the 55-200mm VR however when afterwards comparing our shots, it was clear that the photos I got were much more than just a recording of what happened but a moment of true art which is something I am always striving for. It is amazing what can be done with a little light - David Hobby has really created something amazing with the Strobist movement and I have really integrated these simple tools into my portrait repertoire. Now, whether natural light, reflectors or small flash, I am flexible to solve the problems that come up. With any luck I will be able to add big lights into that mix later this year as well... but that really depends on what jobs we get and whether we will need to overpower the sun much in our portrait work, or end up doing much more studio style stuff like I did with our first Boudoir Session and like I will be doing this coming weekend for a Maternity Session.
During his set though he introduced his wife of nine months, Daniela Araujo, which was a real surprise as I had never heard of her, but she sang a couple of really emotional songs that I really loved. She is releasing her first CD this summer which I will definitely get hold as soon as it comes out. You can hear some of her music on her MySpace page.
She really put herself into her songs, and the simplicity of the backing tracks added on top of the emotion she displayed really came over beautifully. The following photo was during an instrumental section of the first song as she was meditating on the music (same EXIF as above):

I love her expression, and indeed she has a face that moves all over the place with her emotions throughout the songs.
I really enjoyed seeing both of them and look forward to new CDs from both of them soon.
Coming up I have an interesting article on why you should always have your camera with you, and in fact how to go beyond your simple camera phone to taking photos worthwhile. My day job might be up for some changes soon which could mean I will me travelling a lot which will change the way I am doing things quite a lot as I will explain.
I also have some interesting shoots coming up, including a Maternity Session coming very shortly, and some voluntary work with some community groups in Swindon involving more portraits which I can’t wait for.
So plenty to look forward too... sign up on RSS or keep coming back manually, but don’t miss out!