I knew that I will be sold with anything involving a bunch of men in black suits, and so was I with the Young Sinatras yesterday. I warn you ladies, this band consists of 10 beautiful men, three with trumpets, three with saxophones, one pianist, one drummer, one bassist with an Elvis’ hair style, and not to mention a singer with a soulful voice.

Their music is of course Sinatra’s, taken from their new CD; ‘This Day’. Meanwhile this band has built a solid reputation with their energetic live performances. Combining a diversity of influences they play daring swing, intimate ballads, jazzy grooves and latin beats. The spectacular sound of the band will thrill your soul and make your body move.

No wonder, it was a full packed performance. In fact people were even picking out from the windows, just because they couldn’t get in. The policy was that only when one person left the venue, they would allow another one in. Luckily, we entered during their last song right before the break, so that we could sneak in and be exactly at the front row during the last part of the concert.

I arrived at the venue after finishing taking pictures at the Winkel van Sinkel. Again I’d like to mention how lucky I was to be able sit at the front row, so I can shoot from a good distance. Because the lighting was quite bright, I decided to stick with the auto ISO, hoping I could get as low as possible.

But it was almost sunset and the band was actually facing their back to the sun, creating a shadow kind of view. Here, I really need to work on my focusing techniques, each time I didn’t aim my metering to a correct spot, the pictures would definitely turn into silhouettes.

Thus, regardless the brightness of the venue, I was still stuck with ISO 800, 1/160 speed and 1.4 to 1.8 openings, but I applied -0.3 EV to overcome the highlight problem. For my Photoshop processing I used the daylight white balance and a bit adjustment at the brightness and the contrast.