This photograph was taken by music photographer Ami Barwell during one of Foo Fighters' live shows. I am inspired by it because of it's high contrast black and white, and how it's worked well with the noise that has been created using the large ISO. I feel it links in to my aims when taking music photographs; the wide aperture in order to create shallow depth of field, a different angle (In this case, from below), and using the technique of framing and portraying many lines to guide the viewer's eye. The lines would include the guitar, microphone, arms. The strand of hair also indicates a sense of movement. The tones and shadows are much more striking in black and white, therefore it's interesting working with different lighting and equipment such as reflectors and diffusers aren't necessarily needed. I personally think unusually dark areas of the musicians' faces make the image a lot more interesting, and what also makes the image is capturing the raw, high-energy emotions whilst performing. In a lot of Ami Barwell's work, the background is underexposed, therefore created no distraction from the main subject. In Photoshop, you could do this by lowering the levels and lifting the Brightness and Curves of this image in order to allow your eye to go towards the face of the musician. Your eye usually gets led towards the brightest part of the image. She also creates images with overexposed backgrounds therefore creating a silhouette of the subject. Again, the noise works well; it gives you a documentary feel and links back to the use of film and grain.
Overall, I really like this photographer's work. I do feel the shirt of the musician is quite underexposed, and blends into the guitar a little too much, however it does allow you to look straight towards the brightness of the face which is where all the emotion is.
The grain and black and white something I'd like to produce in my own music photography, and she has definitely inspired me to create them with much higher contrast.
