Australian rock band INXS on stage in Canberra – lead singer Ciaran Gribbin (right) and original member Tim Farriss (left).

Behind the scenes
There’s two things I aim to capture when photographing live music, the energy of the performer and the atmosphere in which they perform. For the latter, I look to capture the smoke in the air and striking juxtapositions involving performer and lighting effects.

In processing this image, I was inspired by older era images from Rolling Stone Magazine. For this aim, using a higher ISO (as required for the limited available light) was actually beneficial for the noise it introduced into the image, which when converted to monochrome is similar to the grain of classic film images.

Canon 1Ds mkIII | EF 24-105mm

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