Here’s a little tidbit for those of you who aren’t familiar with the process of concert photography. Generally, you get to shoot the first three songs in the photo pit before you’re edged out by security, and the common etiquette is to avoid using flash. With these rules in place, you can imagine how difficult some bands may be to shoot when you factor in how sophisticated (or otherwise) lighting can be. Strobe lights come with their own challenges, but what about near-total darkness?

In case you haven’t caught them live recently, instrumental trio Russian Circles perform their set in the dark, with small lights under each member at best. Sometimes you can get away with “bouncing” a flash behind you to get some illumination without blinding the band performing up front, but that often won’t cut it, and you’re probably limited to a couple of attempts before people start getting pissed.

Keeping all of this in mind, you’ll have to forgive us for not delivering photos of Russian Circles on their current headlining tour. Photographer Maclyn Bean was able to capture tour support in Inter Arma and KEN Mode though, and you can catch the photos of their set at Underground Arts in Philadelphia below.

KEN Mode

Inter Arma

You can view original high-resolution photos from the show by visiting Maclyn Bean Photography on Flickr.