I See Beauty All Around

Please see second photo and text below.

Last month I had the good fortune to attend the Grand Ole Opry at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Of course I had my camera! Aaron Tippin gave a very spirited performance during the show. These photos were taken from the floor seating in the Ryman.

I have learned over the years that when photographing a concert from regular seats, it is a help to choose a seat on the left or right side of the stage. These vantage points allow you to compose your shots without having to worry about having microphones growing out of the singers’ faces. It also is a good idea to either shoot manual exposure or use a tight spot exposure reading on the singers faces. Otherwise you can end up with a perfectly exposed dark background and the performers’s faces are extremely over exposed. The further away you are from the stage or the wider angle lens you are using the more important this approach is.

If your camera does not have a fast lens or does not provide great quality at higher ISOs, you might end up having to shoot at lower than ideal shutter speeds. The solution to this is to photograph your subjects in peak moments as shown in the photos above where Aaron Tippin is raising his hand for a few seconds while singing so the slower shutter speed will not result in a lot of blurry motion.

If you are a music fan, especially a country music fan, you have to add seeing a concert at the Ryman to your bucket list. Please look for more photos of different performers from this concert in upcoming posts.

Thanks for stopping by! Rob