The Aylesbury Concert Band celebrated their first concert of 2019 at the church of St. Mary’s, Eaton Bray, and as Roadie for my daughter I first drove to Quainton to pick her and the Tenor Sax up, then after a short wait as she collected her outfit and some snacks ‘n’ Sax we set off to Eaton Bray, where we parted, for her to join the Band and set up, and for me to get an idea of just how much light I would have with which to take photos, and also choose which lenses would be suitable. I also had a chat with the Lay Reader, Gordon Gray, who is the de facto head honcho, and asked whether I might be allowed to get up into the Organ Loft to take some high level shots of the Band, because it gives me a chance to have a clear view of every member of the band, and later a good proportion of the audience.
Gordon very kindly unlocked the door to the narrow spiral staircase that winds its way to the Organ, with its even narrower space, between the back of the organist’s bench seat and the balcony, from where I hoped to get some higher level shots of the event later. I took with me two lenses to check the angle of view with each, the 35mm f/1.4 and the 24-70mm and they seemed a good choice.
I returned to terra firma, and took a few shots to decide what ISO I would be using and realised to have a decent shot of sharpness, I would be using 3200 or 6400 for the darker shots and 1600 if I was blessed with more light and little movement, or needing only a narrow depth of field! Fortunately, using the EOS 5D MkIII Body I know I can keep control of the noise level, provided I do not have to crop too tightly.
By the time I had ascertained all this, most of the Band had begun testing how well their instruments were tuned; they perform a rendering of “Cacophany in C” for this purpose as more and more of the company arrive and set up their stands and music sheets, amidst small clusters of those more ready, chatted; and numerous helpers prepared the church itself for the onslaught of the audience and distribute programmes and arrange seating. Having found a suitable seat from which to operate, I was fortunate to have an adjacent seat to place the three most likely lenses within easy reach.
Because once the concert is in progress, I will be operating from a fixed location, I spend the Rehearsal constantly on the move, so I can capture every member of the Band, so everyone basically is given equal prominence in the subsequent gallery.
I hope that I have captured the atmosphere of the rehearsal in this gallery, and whilst these images are up on the blog, I will once again put my head down to create a gallery of the Concert proper with slightly less pressure, and since there will inevitably be fewer shots because of my limited view of individual members of the Band, hopefully it will not be long before those images are prepared. there will be two Conductors for this Concert, Rob Wicks and Chris Doyle.
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