Music and photography are my two passions in life and I always jump at the chance to ‘shoot music’. Recently, a friend and fellow photographer, Ravi Panchia invited me along to a performance of a band I have not yet heard of, The Sick Leaves. The performance was for a live broadcast of MK’s Studio 1 on DSTV channel 324. Usually band photography is a tricky affair; the light is never good, the locations can sometimes be less than favourable, and the music is always two notches past the amp-overload level. In this case we had access to the show rehearsals, which meant that we had loads of freedom to shoot the performance and the sound was superb.

The Sick Leaves is the brainchild of Eksteen Jacobz, and their latest album, Last Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, is the band’s third. The sound can best be described as alternative rock with heavy influences by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Radiohead, Oasis, and beautiful undertones which are clearly inspired by The Beatles. Their MySpace and Facebook pages feature songs you can listen to on demand. Take a few minutes and check it out, you will be surprised.

The show also included a special guest appearance by Tamara Dey, one of my favourite local dance/soul/pop/jazz/kwaito artists, yip, she has produced an array of music styles. It’s well worth checking out her MySpace page for her latest singles. Considering Tamara’s previous collaborations, this one certainly showcases her versatility as an artist. The hard guitar sounds of The Sick Leaves’ performance blended well with her soothing vocals. Let’s hope there’s a single in the works.

As already mentioned, band photography can be tricky and I am still learning the tricks of the trade. I usually just crank up the ISO and shoot in Program mode. While this is an easy way to get reasonable results, photography just would not be fun if we weren’t inspired to learn more and try something new. So after a quick chat with Ravi I decided to shoot at 1/100sec and f3.5 with the ISO set to 800. I used the kit lens that came with my Canon EOS 7D, the 15-85mm f3.5-f5.6 IS USM, a kit lens I find incredibly versatile. I also used a Sigma 15mm f2.8 fisheye for some of the shots, not all of them featured here. The first few shots looked good but as the light changed so did my shutter speed, I dropped it down to 1/60sec at one point.I also increased the ISO when the lights started fading which explains the noise in some of the images. The only editing I did was to adjust the levels after I converted them to black and white. I also cropped a few images.

click for larger version

Thanks to MK and the crew for the rehearsal access. It was a great show.