• David Tort at Space •

There’s an interesting quality to the light on the Space Terrace this time of year in the morning. The skylights above the Terrace make the early morning sun almost a neutral color. Maybe it’s the weather, but the light itself cools down from the usual orange-red of sunrise fairly early on. It is like a giant softbox in a way. Oddly enough, before the invention of practical hot lights, and later, strobes, photographers and cinematographers alike had their studios equipped with massive skylights to use natural lighting as much as possible. They had no other option. 

Kind of goes back to my ethos of that ‘there is a lot of light around if you know how to use it’. Flash and strobes are wonderful tools and if used properly, can help generate quality images, but a lot of the fun is working with the light that’s there. In a nightclub, there’s plenty of light. The intelligent lighting, static lights, candles, screens, and indicators can all be used very effectively. And it’s a bit more polite than blasting your flash and blinding 500 people. 

• Victor at Space - ISO 2000 why not? •

Aaaaand I’m back. Sorry for no content this past week or so. You know how it is. 

I got into an interesting discussion the other day with a friend of mine. Obviously over the past couple of years, the commonality of the DSLR has skyrocketed. You can now get yourself a “kit” (body/lens) for well under $1000 dollars and use said kit to generate amazing images on both a technical and aesthetic level. 

It has led to the ubiquity of the “guy with the camera” in nightclubs around the world. Some good, some amazing, and some (well, a lot) just not worth talking about in the grand scheme of things. 

And it’s the latter whom I see lusting for the upgrade, when they barely push the boundaries of their current kit. Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting that 1-series body (hell, I want the 1DX when it drops in March 2012) but from a practical standpoint I think photographers have to really, sincerely ask themselves if they need an $8000 camera body. And, in the nightlife shooting world, the general answer is a big, fat, “no”, for most people. Including myself. 

I am by no means a well-financed-top-earning photographer. I make decent money shooting, but I still have to do other things (web development and testing) to afford the lifestyle I want. I’m fortunate that I don’t mind doing those other things, they are interesting to me. I think even when I earn the big bucks doing just photo and video work, I’ll keep my hands in the web development arena. Much like I used to do nightclub lighting, but I still stay current on the technology. 

But I’m digressing. Sort of. What I’m getting at is that I’ve always purchased the camera I could realistically afford, without having to eat cat food for a month. Like, way back when, sure, I could have gotten a 1-series body, but at a severe detriment to my lifestyle for a month. Plus I didn’t have the business to justify such a purchase. And also I didn’t do the type of shooting to warrant that kind of body. So of course I opted to stay to the “xxD” line (Canon’s midrange) of bodies. 

And I pushed them to the limit. From my 10D to my 30D to my 50D, I explored the limits of what each body could do. High ISOs? They are there for a reason. Canon determined that the performance at those levels was something useful, and left them in there. So I worked with them and worked with them well. Modern DSLRs, even the cheap ones, have amazing capabilities, and it’s sad to see people barely touch the limits, and even worse, treat the gear as a glorified point-and-shoot. Then suddenly through whatever mechanism, they step up to an MK II or a 1-series, and it’s the same point-and-shoot aesthetic. Run-and-gun, flash flash flash, god I’m blind!

I never balked at putting my 50D to ISO 6400. Sure it was noisy but if it meant getting the shot I wanted, I could deal with it. I read and hear today’s crop of photographers whining about noise. I’ve stated this before, but the noise is nothing compared to fifteen years ago. And my MK II at 6400 is amazing. Last month I lived dangerously and did a few images at 12800 and 25600. Noisy yes, but nothing I couldn’t worry about later. I got the shot, people liked it. “Color Night Vision”, one person termed it. 

What I’m saying is that gear lusting is fine, we all have it, but just look at whatever body you have now. It’s an amazing little piece of engineering. Turn the flash off, put it in manual mode, and push that ISO up to 3200 and beyond if you need to. The best camera in the world is the one you have on you at any given moment, and that’s half the fun. 

And if I see someone with a 1-series body using it as a glorified point-and-shoot again, well, we’ll probably have words at that point. 

Rant over. I’m hungry. I’ll be at the Publix on Biscayne and 48th if anyone wants to take a swing at me. 

• Steve Angello at Space •

I played around with a rented 85mm 1.2L at Space this past Thanksgiving weekend. It’s a tricky lens to use in a nightclub environment and, frankly, quite impractical, but for certain shots it actually is quite useful. Would I purchase just for club shooting? No way. But it’s a great portrait lens overall. I’ll drop some samples under normal conditions later. But check out some club results by clicking through to a few sights from Steve Angello’s performance at Space.

• The Spice Must Flow •

Hectic weekend with Thanksgiving going on, Steve Angello at Space on Thanksgiving Eve, and the Martinez Brothers Saturday night. Oh, and I squeezed a friend’s wedding shoot in there too somehow. And got slightly sick.

This girl’s eyes are blue-in-blue. Makes sense at Space.

Click through to see some sights from the Martinez Brothers’ performance on the Terrace. The kids did well. They have great musical taste for their age.

Mark Knight gets it. No musical pretension, just a good soundtrack to an evening out at Space.

• Sebastian Ingrosso at the 2011 Back In Black event in Midtown Miami •

Back in Black was a special event for me. As I was on tour in 2010 and part of 2011, I missed out on the first two Masquerade Motel parties that my friend Emi threw. Well, I was there in March for the Beach one, but it was in an unofficial capacity so even though I shot, I kind of crashed the party unannounced that time. So, it was actually really cool to see people I knew and “came up” with, put together this huge production, conveniently a few blocks from my apartment. With Sebastian Ingrosso, Erick Morillo, Bob Sinclar, LA Riots, Patrick M, and locals like TKO and Jason Vernau on the decks, it was a rocking Halloween event. The theme was obviously more S&M-oriented, and the crowd turned out in style. I had the fortunate pleasure to see the event executed from build-out to teardown, and the execution was to the letter, by my watch, and I think I’ve seen a few massive events in my time. Torrential downpours be damned, I couldn’t think of a better massive Halloween event to be at. Congrats to Emi, Alex, Omar, Jules, Marcus, Robert, Eric and the rest of the Go Big crew. I think I’ve got something in my eye…(sniff…)

Musically, all the guys were on point. Erick’s one of my favorites, and he delivered. He’s got a full-blown visual element now that is on par with anything Tiësto is doing. I’m biased, but Patrick M set up the second half of the evening perfectly. And from a pure visual perspective it was great to have a top-notch lighting system to work with. Clay Paky is back from the dead, apparently. 

Click on through to See Nightlife to check out the galleries from “BiB”. I split them up into three for easier navigation.