In January 2016, Red Handed Denial booked the biggest show they ever played to date—they opened for Trivium in Kitchener at Dallas Night Club. It was a cold and snowy day.
Soundcheck
There was a photo pit… I don’t usually get photo pits at the shows these guys play, so I was pretty happy, but more about that later.
The Show
I always try to get at least one good photo that has all the members in the shot.
Fact: Concert photographers don’t like red lighting, but I’m happy about the moody lighting in the following images because I think it works for the band and their sound!
The above is one of my favourite cause I remember waiting for it—waiting for the right moment when her emotion and posture lines up! Lauren uses this as her profile picture and says she initially overlooked it but found it again and was like “WHOA” ;)
A little behind the scenes on how I edited the photos of Tyson:
got a washed out drummer on ur hands? RAW and Lightroom to the rescue! @rhdband @tysondang #RHDteam pic.twitter.com/1rhcbgtMfp
— JESSIE LAU (@thejessielau) January 20, 2016
Merch Hangs
Extra Credit
Occasionally I take videos of the band, and I had a request to film the last song of the set “Collector“.
I spent the whole song in one spot in stage right. I didn’t know how the band would use the video and there was only me shooting so it wouldn’t be smart if I film close-ups and do more artistic thing. For me this assignment was about documentary than artistry… so I just had to make sure not to miss the important moments. I stayed in one spot because the photo pit was super tight, there were these bars for the barricade on the ground as well. I could easily step over them when I’m taking photos, but they are a little hard to cross while keeping the footage steady. And that side had the best angle—I think at one point the security guard tapped me and let me on the stage stairs to get a better view. Here’s a 15-second clip the band posted on Facebook of the part where Lauren would ask the audience to sing back to them, so I knew to pan the camera and get the audience in frame.