Valero At The Oasis

After the rise of the super moon last night, I stopped over at the Oasis on Folly Road in James Island to catch a set from Clemson’s emo rock band Valero.

While I was somewhat prepared to shoot the moon over the ocean, I wasn’t prepared for a live band and I was really wishing I packed a f/1.8 prime lens with me because the lighting in the Oasis is just plain harsh. One side of the stage was red, the middle was green and blue, while the other side was barely lit at all.

I had my f/2.8 Tamron 17-50mm lens with me, so I set my auto ISO threshold to max out at 3200 (I usually have it limited to 1600) and varied between 100th and 125th of a second for my shutter speed, which was just enough to freeze the action. I did try to use my flash for some shots, but I wasn’t feeling it, and I didn’t want to annoy the band with a lot of flash activity. I tried to make the best of the lighting situation and get some low key shots such as these:

I also tried to play of the club’s Christmas themed stage colors which gave some interesting contrast to these shots:

Go ahead and check out Valero’s Bandcamp.com page to listen to their latest recordings, or check them out on their Facebook page. You can also check out the complete set of shots from Saturday’s show on my Flickr stream.