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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Photography Culture

Thibault Maestracci Snaps Beautiful Moments in His Best Concert Photography

Chris Gampat
No Comments
09/22/2022
3 Mins read
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“Sometimes, when I shoot…the result is due to chance; I wait for a special effect in a specific place in burst mode and fingers crossed,” says Thibault Maestracci about how he captures his best concert photography. “For me, concert photography is not only a portrait of an artist on stage its also a report of the instant, the ambiance with the lights, and the audience. Of course, this approach is very feeling-driven.” He continues to state that the moment and the music give him the idea, and then he does his best to capture it quickly.

This is the second time we’re featuring Thibault. We previously did so in our old black and white e-zine, La Noir Image, which now lives in The Phoblographer’s archives. He started his career as a sound engineer with various French artists. In his free time, he started taking his camera with him to take photos of the crew and everyone around. Eventually, his artistic skills transferred over to capturing great moments during a concert. 

More than ever, Thibault’s best concert photography conveys a sense of mysticism akin to a book that gets better with every reading. Yet his photos also lean towards simplicity, which is part of why he loves black and white so much.

Years ago, Thibault shared with us that he shoots using a Sony a7 II and an Asahi Takumar 85mm lens. This combination of using vintage and modern gear together helps him get his look. It’s a fairly common process, too! Look at the work of various YouTubers masquerading as photographers and you’ll see a lot of film-inspired looks. It surely puts a smile on every single couple getting married across America. Nostalgia is an undeniably great thing in photography as it constantly brings us back to better times. Stuffing those emotions into images as a single layer truly helps us earn that double tap on social platforms.

Concert photography is very feeling-driven. For starters, when you look at a scene in front of you, it’s lit and staged with the intent to give you a larger-than-life experience. So capturing that on camera is sometimes tough to do while also focusing on critical elements. That’s part of the reason why Thibault tells us he loves black and white photography. “BW could make the picture easier, more understandable,” he explains. “but not all the time; colors tell stories too.” 

Admittedly, he also states that sometimes the LED lights are just not so great; so converting to black and white can save the image. For years this was a stigma in the photo industry that has gone the way of the fax machine. Today, it’s understandable that the colors in a scene aren’t necessarily important. So when they don’t matter, why have them to begin with? 

So what’s Thibault’s process like?

  • First, he removed images that are out of focus. But he also removes photos from the queue that are just not suiting his technical or artistic tastes.
  • Then he applies his custom presets as a starting point. If he doesn’t like that, he edits from scratch. He looks for edits that bring out the details and works to further refine those adjustments.

And sometimes, he’s just given a good surprise.

All images by Thibault Maestracci. Used with permission. This interview has been edited for better grammatical English. Be sure to visit Thibault’s website and Instagram to see more. Want to get featured? Click here to see how.

black and white color concerts feeling lenses presets sony Sony A7 II sound engineer Thibault Maestracci vintage
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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