Todays Shoot - Snoop Dogg (live)

To say I was excited to shoot Snoop Dogg for the first time, would have been a vast understatement.

Despite three days of randomly changing precipitation (snow, sleet, freezing rain, slush, DEATH RAIN) there wasn't much traffic en route to my 3 day in a row venture at The Webster Theater in Hartford.

Today however was a bit more hectic with increased security, and more lax band crew (i.e. groupie hunters).

About 30 minutes before Snoop took the stage, about 50 people were pulling one another into the photo pit area - basically the groupies pulled their friends, who pulled their friends, who pulled their friends... and that area became a freaking disaster.

So when Snoop came on I was in a photo pit that would have been large for three photographers (which there were three, including myself) but VERY small with the ladies dancing in the photo pit, and their friends dancing, in the photo pit..

I had to overshoot a bit because I was getting alot of hands in my shoots from the girls dancing in front of me... needless to say they werent very kind in terms of not being in my shots, etc.

Anyway, the lighting was pretty solid, for the most part there was a white front light with some green and purple backs and side lights

his mic not only had a mic shield with his name on it (in diamonds, obviously) but his mic also had his name in diamonds just below the mic screen... AMAAAAAZING

check it out - i made sure to put up shots of them

everything was shot iso 400 - f2.8 - at a 90th - 180th

5 unedited photos below

Todays Shoot - Flogging Molly/Frank Turner (live)

Todays show was at the webster theater in hartford.

Now, I've been hearing ALOT about Frank Turner via Mr. Matt Pike, who has literally been jocking this dudes music non-stop

and suffice to say, I found out why, first hand.

Anyone who hasn't heard of or listened to Frank Turner... take the good advice of my friend, and check him out.

todays lighting was actually a bit better then normal for the webster, as you can see in the Flogging Molly shots, they had some lights scrimming their backdrop and in turn it bounced off the ceiling and created a great back fill for the angle the photographers are shooting at, which added alot of awesome purple and greens to the shots

shot at F8 - a 15th-30th - ISO400

Unedited shots below

Frank Turner


























Flogging Molly

The Webster Gallery (my super huge mega awesome announcement)

(this really means alot to me, but i understand if you dont want to read this lengthy little thing i wrote up - just scroll to the bottom to see some images if youd like to skip it)


I have been a patron of Hartford’s Webster Theater since I was about 12 years old, then quickly found it to be a place where I worked as a photographer. I tend to spend most of my time at my home away from home which is The Palladium in Worcester.



Over the years I went to The Webster a bit less and less because my work mostly had me in mass, but It’s always held a special place as its one of the venues where I really started my career.



Recently, the company I’ve been doing work with since I was in my teens, took over The Webster Theater, and thus again, I am constantly there yet again.



I’ve shot easily 100-200 shows at the venue, and have a pretty vast library of images from its last decade of history, which is awesome to sometimes look back on and see where bands were then, and where they are now.

Some become legendary (like Hatebreed. AFI), while others break up, stay at the same level, pass away, and fall into the annals of music history, never to return.



Anyway, the very unique opportunity came up where they were re-doing the venue, trying to make it look nicer (and they did!) fixing up A LOT of the venue, painting it, etc.. So they also wanted to add to the visuals. I got a call asking if I would be interested in having some of my work displayed inside the venue.



Now, to me, that is the biggest honor I could ever think of… to have my work hanging inside such a historic venue where I’ve spent the better part of building my career.



So, we collectively decided on a good variety of images that include legendary bands (motorhead, slayer, black label, sevendust, social distortion, the misfits, green day, pantera) as well as some of the pop punk bands (new found glory, the used, good charlotte) and even the hometown heros (hatebreed, shadows fall, all that remains, the acacia strain) and some of the Webster favorites (static-x, lacuna coil, lamb of god, rob zombie) and some others in there as well.



This is officially my first out of studio gallery/installation. All images are black and white, live images, taken over the past decade, printed in large format (24x26 I believe) – and are all around the first two rooms at The Webster.



So please, next time you are there, take a look.



I would never have imagined my work would one day be hanging in a venue… its such an unbelievable honor,



Thank you Chris, Scott, Gina, Sylvia, John for turning a dream into a career, and SO much more!



Here are a bunch of photos so those who wont be at The Webster, can see what it looks like

Todays Shoot - New Found Glory (live)

This was one of those rare occations where some of my really good friends were actually in the bands crew (rather then in the band, weird right?)

This show and tour was celebrating the 10 year anniversary of their self titled record, so the fanbase was the biggest age range I have seen at a pop punk show, maybe ever.

Hung out with some of my friends for a bit, and watched Chad destroy everything on modern warfare 2 (i suck at that game, dude seriously had an 8:1 kill to death ratio..)

Anyway, for the show, the webster always has weak front lighting, so i used a 580EX flash with 80/20 lumaquest with diffusion - shot at a 15th-30th at F8 (dropping to f5.6 and up to f11 depending on distance)

Here are a slew of the unedited live photos

Todays Shoot - Aly (NSFW)

Today was a shoot with a model I haven't seen in about 3 years. We reconnected on model mayhem, and decided to do an in studio shoot for many of my projects.

The best shots of the day were from the top secret one... so... sorry - you dont get to see those yet. but once i announce it and post some photos it will be excellent.

Anyway, if you've been victim to this blog before, this shoot is nothing new to you.

Goth/Fetish/Fashion project - shot with split lighting 2 3x4 soft boxes at full power - profoto compact 300s pointed in toward each other.

Three unedited images at F16 - 125th ISO160

























































Fine art project - Shot again with split lighting 2 3x4 soft boxes at full power - profoto compact 300s pointed in toward each other. however the model is about 3 feet in front of the soft boxes in order to get the very heavily shadowed look with scrimmed lighting

unedited image - F22 125th ISO160

Todays Shoot - Legend

New to Rise Records is the mighty LEGEND from Michigan.

This shoot took place at around 11pm-1am so I had very little to work with due to how cold and dark it is for any on location shooting

So we started in studio on white, I started by giving them a really fashion-lit type of look - using two hair lights at half power (bare bulb) (sans the hair, obviously) and a boomed soft box at full power shot F14 at a 160th iso 100

see unedited raw photo below



















Then I wanted to play with strong directional lighting so i boomed a beauty dish up high and pointed it straight down which i knew would give them a creepy look - eyes dark - and make the white background go a bit grey or black with a circular halo of light splashing behind them as well - which ended up making the white go almost black and look like there was a background light behind them - which there wasnt - this is just one light - beauty dish above them - pointed down

see unedited raw image below - F16-18 160th, iso100













After that, we did some with more full lighting on a black background - again using two rim lights above them pointed in and down (behind them) - and this time using a boomed 1x4 soft box for more selective soft lighting.

see unedited raw photo below - F14 160th iso100













Last we went into the basement and I wanted to do something more spread out and open with different lighting.

SO, I set them in a diamond type of shape.

I put one umbrella directly to the left of the guy all the way on the left and pointed it toward the far back member, which would half light the left member and the member all the way in back - while also flooding the background with a bit of light, then I put a second umbrella in front of and to the right of the right member - and pointed it toward to left member which would flood the middle with light - light the guy on the right - the guy on the left - and give the singer a little bit of back light. then i set a boomed beauty dish above the singer for front/above lighting which would also bleed onto the left and right members for some fill light

the umbrellas were powered at 80% while the boomed dish was at 60%

See set up shot here - the umbrellas are pointed in so they arent too too easy to see - but using what i said above - look for them



















here is what an unedited shot from this set looks like




















All in all this late night shoot was a success, and im pretty pumped on the shots. I've known Joe since his days in for the fallen dreams, so it was cool getting to work with him again.

Todays Shoot - Alissa (NSFW)

My good friend Alissa who I've worked with probably about 4 or 5 times, fiiinaaally found some time in her hectic new work schedule to swing by the studio for a shoot.

As long as I've known her she has had this awesome two toned hair where the top is blonde and the bottom is either brown or black, which i thought would be perfect for my awesome top secret project.

Shooting her is always awesome because shes really good with posing and has a pretty excellent sense of humor when it comes to shooting

see outtake for example.



















She has always been into masks, she makes them, collects them... etc. She had an awesome new gas mask she wanted to shoot in, so we did a good amount of work in it.

split lighting - 2 3x4 soft boxes f16 at a 160th - iso 100 (unedited)



















The first half of the shoot I experimented with rim lights, doing 3 light shots, even 5 light shots, for the first time with a model - rather then a band. and i really wasnt into it for the most part. I'm still going to be toying around a bit with different stuff, but I gotta say im fairly content with what I get when I want to get it.

Aside from making masks, she also made an awesome skirt we wanted to shoot in, so we used the gas mask as well. (unedited)



















After shooting some stuff on white, we flipped it to black with more selective and sparse lighting...
2 3x4 softboxes split lighting - model about 2 feet in front of edge of soft box - F22 160th - iso 100 (unedited)



















then the second half of the shoot was the top secret project, sooo you dont get to see any of that quite yet... but soon, i promise.

Todays Shoot - Michael

This shoot was a bit different from what I normally have for work.

Michael is running for selectman board... at only twenty years old! so he needed some shots for his campaign, and for press.

I wanted to give him some pretty standard head shots, something that says, im young, but im serious about what I want to do. (i didnt want to post the boring standard head shots, so i posted some of the less drull images)

Anyway, so we did a bunch of different lighting techniques for this. I will just do the run through of a few of the unedited images ill be posting.

All lighting on this one is profoto compact 300s - canon mark 2 1ds - canon 70-200 2.8 L

First shot - Split lighting with 2 3x4 soft boxes - f14 or 16 - iso 100 - at a 160th



















Second shot - half lit one 3x4 soft box - shot at f18 125th iso 100 - model turned toward the light



















Third shot - two bare bulbs at full power about 3 feet above the model pointed around shoulder area, one 3x4 soft box at half power boomed above the model at about a 60 degree angle



















Fourth Shot - Third shot - two bare bulbs at low power about 3 feet above the model pointed around back of head area, one 3x4 soft box at low power boomed above the model at about a 60 degree angle - shot at f5.6-8.0 using the 70-200 with the extender so shot at about 400mm - at iso L (low) - trying to get a darker - more selectively lit DOF type of shot.