Blog #27 - Learning in the Dark: A Night of Rave Photography

On the Night

I spent Saturday night in a warehouse where the fog machines never stopped, the lights kept shifting from one colour to another before my eyes could make sense of the previous one and the bass felt like it travelled through the floor. This was Bassline Festival. I had AAA access, which meant I could walk almost anywhere, but you still have to make yourself use that freedom. It sounds simple when you say it out loud. You have permission to be here, so go. Yet I found myself standing at the steps that led up to the stage, trying to convince myself to take them.

It caught me off guard, because I have worked on more stages than I can count in my past life. Hundreds of faces looking up, bright lights, cues, pressure. I walked onto those stages without thinking twice, yet here I was with a camera in my hand feeling unsure. I did eventually climb up, but it reminded me that confidence changes shape when you try something new. It does not matter what you used to do. It matters what you are doing now, and this was unfamiliar ground.

I went for one reason, to learn... and practicing rave photography seemed like the ideal deep end to jump into!

I knew the night would push me harder than anything I had done recently. I had decided to try back button focus for the first time. I brought an off camera flash and trigger I had barely tested. I knew LED banding would be an issue. I knew the lenses would struggle. I knew the light would be difficult. I knew the night would catch me out more than once. And somehow that encouraged me to go even more. I did not want a perfect set of images. I wanted to see what happened when the environment pushed back.

I packed the Fujifilm with a 23mm (35mm Full frame equivalent) and the Sony A7III with the 70 to 200, the 20mm and the 85mm primes. Normally that selection covers everything without too much thought. It did not take long to realise that nothing behaves normally in a venue like this.

The Learning Curve

The first challenge arrived within minutes. Back button focus felt nothing like the calm tests I had done in daylight. My thumb sat on the AF-ON button and the camera reacted differently depending on where the light fell. Sometimes it snapped into focus. Sometimes it hunted. Sometimes it refused to find anything at all. The fog softened edges. The colours kept changing. The contrast was almost non-existent. The movement was constant. It was the first time I had been in a space where the camera struggled as much as I did.

A group of three people asked if I could take their photo at one point. I tried, but every frame missed focus. They were standing there smiling, waiting for something usable, and all I had were soft faces and nothing sharp. To make it worse, they asked for my social media so they could find the photo later. I knew nothing from that attempt would ever make it online. It summed up exactly how the night was going.

There was a moment where I stood still, staring at the viewfinder, watching the lens pulse back and forth, and wondering why I had put myself through this. I had chosen the hardest possible environment to try something new. It felt like I had created my own obstacle course before I even began.

The lenses followed the same pattern. The 85 is usually the most reliable lens I own for anything involving people, yet it hesitated more than I expected. The 70 to 200 was steadier, but even that slowed when the lights dipped into deep colours or when the haze thickened. The autofocus was not failing. It simply had nothing clear to work with. The room hid half of what the camera needed to understand a scene.

Then the LED banding arrived. The projection screens behind the performers ran at their own refresh rate and my shutter speed drifted in and out of sync with it. One frame looked clean. The next had a dark bar slicing through it. Then it cleared. I tried slower shutter speeds. I tried faster ones. Every change fixed one thing and created another. It became a balancing act between movement, sharpness and whatever the screens decided to do.

Working the Room

There were other photographers, videographers and techs moving around the room with familiar confidence. They drifted between the crowd and the stage without hesitation. They seemed to know where to stand before anything happened. It was easy to look at them and feel several steps behind. Imposter syndrome has a habit of appearing exactly when you do not need it, and it nudged at me more than once.

Moving through the crowd was its own challenge. I tried to weave between people, but the camera bags made me clumsy and I probably knocked a few without meaning to. Nobody reacted badly, but it added to the feeling that I was still working out how to move in a space like this. The more experienced photographers had a way of sliding through tight gaps without touching anyone, mainly because they just had a camera in their hand, not a studio on their back!

One moment eased that feeling. A videographer stepped in front of me while adjusting his angle, realised it and turned to apologise. I nearly laughed, because I did not feel important enough for anyone to apologise to. It pulled me back into perspective. Everyone there was just trying to do their job. Nobody was keeping score.

I did eventually step onto the stage. The hesitation disappeared once I was up there. The view changed. The lighting made more sense. I could see the performers properly. I could read the room from a different angle. It made me wish I had gone up earlier, but sometimes you need a moment to adjust before stepping out of your comfort zone.

Using the Flash

The off camera flash was its own experiment. I did not mount it or attach it anywhere. I held it in my left hand and lifted it as high as I could, tilting it depending on what I wanted to light. There was no bouncing anything off a ceiling in a warehouse. It felt clumsy at first, especially when the Sony setup with the 70 to 200 and trigger weighs over 2.3 kilograms. Holding that in one hand while the other hand kept the flash in the air was far from elegant.

When the focus landed, the flash changed the shot completely. It cut through the fog, lifted faces, highlighted textures and separated the performers from the background. A few images looked far better than anything I would have managed using only the ambient light. It was encouraging to see what it could do even while I was still figuring out how to use it.

Of course, there were plenty of moments where the flash fired and the subject was still soft. The light was right, but the focus had not settled. I kept a few of those frames because they tell the truth of the night. You can see exactly what I was trying to do and exactly what got in the way.

Close Calls

The only real scare of the night had nothing to do with focus or lighting. The imitation Peak Design Clip from Temu kept loosening itself on the Fujifilm. I tightened it once and added a leash (made of a real PD Leash) as a backup connected to my belt. Five minutes later it failed completely and the Fuji dropped. The leash caught it. Without it, the camera would have hit the floor. It shook me up more than I let on and made me check every strap and clip for the rest of the night.

Taking a Break

By the middle of the night I felt worn down. My legs ached and my attention wandered. The heat in the venue had built up and the constant movement had taken its toll. I found a set of steps backstage and sat down for ten minutes. No moment of reflection. No neat thought. I just needed to stop for a short while.

That small break helped more than I expected. When I stood back up I felt steadier. The camera felt more familiar in my hands. The room felt easier to read. I went back into the crowd with a clearer sense of how to move and what to look for.

What I Took From It

By the end of the night I knew this had been the toughest learning experience I have had since I started taking photography seriously. Everything came at once. Lighting. Focus. Movement. Positioning. Timing. Confidence. Decision making. All of it pushed me harder than anything recently. It was messy in places, frustrating in others, but exactly what I needed.

Back button focus needs more practice. Off camera flash needs more confidence. LED banding needs constant attention. My hesitation around other photographers needs some perspective. My tendency to question myself needs a bit more patience. None of these things will improve without putting myself into more environments like this.

I checked the cards afterwards and realised I had taken 159GB of images. It sounds ridiculous written down, but it shows how much I was trying to understand the place and react to whatever it threw at me.

I did not leave with a flawless gallery. I left with strong frames, imperfect attempts, mistakes worth understanding and experiments worth repeating. I left with a clearer picture of what I can do and what I need to learn next. That feels more honest than pretending everything went smoothly.

I walked out with tired legs, a quieter mind and a memory card full of lessons. For where I am in this journey, that feels right.