Music photography is about conveying the feeling of being at a live show, and when a band is energetic and moving around on stage, that can require more than just freezing the moment with a bright flash and fast shutter. This shot of the band Goes Cube was taken at Magnetic Fields in Brooklyn. I used a Canon Rebel XTi, a Canon 450 EX flash, and an EF-S 10-22 mm lens. The ISO was set to 400, the aperture was at f/3.5, and I had a 1/2 second exposure time.

The streaking light effect was caused by a combination of four elements: the camera-mounted flash, the movement of the camera, the subject’s movement, and the lighting in the background. I set my flash to second curtain sync flash (also called slow sync, or on a point-and-shoot it’s sometimes called the “night portrait” mode) and started the exposure as the musician began to move closer to the camera. The first flash fired and the initial light streaks were created, with the second flash firing just at the point where his guitar was closest to the camera.

[Bryan Bruchman is a Portland, Maine based photographer (bryanbruchman.com) and music blogger (hillytown.com)]

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