Julie White at The Water Cafe in Fall River

Event lighting continues to be vexing to me, but at least I think it's because there really is a fair challenge here and it's not (solely) because I suck am no good. Every time I try, though, I learn a little bit more.

Just how do you get the right balance when the front half of the stage is in a warm light and the back half is in cold light? I gave it my best shot by grabbing a handy sheet of white paper off a nearby table and photographing the blank back of it while held in my hand in vaguely the lighting of the front of the band. Then I used that as my custom white balance reference. I probably should have laid it on the floor though, since the print from the reverse shone through when held in the air. Ah heck. Anyway, I went with that – except for a few shots where I set it back to a warm pre-programmed white balance mode (incadescent lights), just to compare.

The net result was ... not horrible for Julie, Brian and Crystal, but it looks like Chris and Scott are in Blue Man Group. A bit chilly in the back row. Heck, Chris is yellow on one side and blue on the other, like the crazy bi-colour dude from the old Star Trek series. How do you work with that?

I'm starting to think I should just shoot this sort of event in RAW mode and then set the colours afterward. Unfortunately I'm not keen on post-processing, as is evident by the vast bulk of pictures at my site. Still, it's worth experimenting with.