Live Music Photography
Gig photography was one of the first photographic disciplines I learnt and can be one of the most difficult genres of photography as There is never enough light, what light there is is often a single colour blanket and your subject is constantly moving. It is therefore difficult to keep the shutter speed high enough to prevent movement blur and have the photograph properly exposed. Pictures can either become under exposed or they have too much noise in the shadows. Modern digital cameras are able to shoot at high ISO values, which determines how sensitive the sensor is to light, but they are very noisy at high levels.
Modern digital image processing does offer some solutions to these issues of live music photography but they mostly reduce the sharpness of the final image and so are not ideal. Photoshop work flows can get very involved using layers to reduce noise and luminosity masks and blending to reduce the impact on sharpness.
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