Last month, The excellent UK rock band The Rifles paid a quick visit to Eastern North America. I’ve been listening to the band heavily for at least a year now and was really looking forward to seeing them perform songs off their new album “Great Escape.” I decided to go to their first, early night show at Mercury Lounge in NYC. I shot this show for Prefixmag.com.

To check out my full concert review, visit ReadJunk.com! To see photographs of the opening band Useless Keys, click here.

I haven’t been to the Mercury Lounge before so I liked that I didn’t need a photo pass, even though I was granted one. I guess that’s good to know in the future but just have to be wary of the lighting. The lighting is limited and you’ll definitely need some prime lenses or a flash. I don’t like doing flash so I avoided that. I just don’t like to bother the audience and the band with flash going off every 2 seconds. I was kicking myself for leaving my spot I had when I first got there, but I wanted to sit down instead. I was still up close but in the wrong spot because I couldn’t get a shot of their bass player Rob. Luke was in front of red lighting so it was tough getting shots of him at times. But I got the most photos of him of the night.

Honestly, I’m not happy with the photos I got but I tried to capture the show as best I can. I probably would have given up if I wasn’t shooting for Prefixmag.com. I like clubs that don’t have a security pit but if you’re not the first one by the stage, it gets tough to shoot unless you’re a giant…and I’m not. For this show, I used all three of my usual suspects. the 18-70mm f3.5-4.5 for wide angle shots, and 50mm f1.4 and 70-200mm f2.8. I only used the telephoto once or twice just to get some closeups.

Here are my favorite shots from the Rifles set:

To see all the photos, please visit the gallery set here.

Tags: 18-70mm f3.5-f4.5, 2009, 50mm f1.4, 70-200mm f2.8, Concert Photography, Great Escape, mercury lounge, mod rock, music photography, nikon d300, nyc, prefixmag, rock, september, the rifles, uk

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am and is filed under Concert Photography . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.