On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of shooting Houston locals, Gato Guapo for their performance at Alley Kat (formerly The Mink.)
I recently rented out a Canon 5D Mark III with a 50mm lens from Photo Rental Source, a company opened by my old photo classmate, Carl. I've been wanting to purchase one for a while now and figured I'd better photograph in as many settings as possible to see what the camera could do, especially since I'm sometimes photographing bands when covering a show for Houston Press.
That's why, when I saw Gato Guapo would be playing, I jumped at the chance to shoot them live. Alley Kat is one of the harder clubs to shoot at in town, coming in third behind House of Creeps and the cavernous downstairs room at Fitzgerald's. I knew that if I was going to really test out the camera, this would be one of the best ways to do it.
I first saw Gato Guapo play over the summer at a warehouse in Houston's East end. It was noisier, grittier, and I was taking it all in quietly -- the way I normally do when I see a band perform for the first time. Since then I've listened to their debut release, Foolish Mortal, a number of times, but even still I'd forgotten how much movement there would be on-stage.
In terms of shooting a live band, getting to photograph a band like this is a bit of a dream. There was a lot of emotion displayed, and it's always interesting to see how well some bands communicate on-stage. Simply put, it's not every day that you get to be behind the lens when a band like this is performing .
I've got some more photos I really love below, but if you like them, please make sure you check out Gato Guapo on Facebook, give their music a listen, and maybe even come out to a show or two.
