Todays Shoot - Skatefest (live)

NOTE: Big Ups to LUMIQUEST!!!! who hooked me up with a couple new diffusion screens for my promax system! thank you!!!

Its been a few years since Skatefest has graced the festival scene, however this time around it was a bit of a different format.

In past years Skatefest was a two day venture full of massive national bands, mostly punk, pop punk, hardcore, scremo... etc.

The line up was a bit less glamorous in terms of... ya know, there was no band the same caliber of coheed, or something corporate, or good charlotte, or just - massssive national bands... BUT! it did have the reunion of The receiving end of sirens - which at one time were pretty massive - especially locally - so alot of people were pumped on that

I shot the entire show with a 40D and MOSTLY the 16-35 2.8 - but popped on the fisheye a bunch as well.

I mostly shot the mainstage - i went to second stage only to shoot the mighty TRAPPED UNDER ICE! but ill get to that later - for now - some main stage shots...

Each band had different lighting and my flash was effing with me, and decided to put out different light every time it went off... soooo im not the biggest fan of this 580ex 2... but luckily my 580 is repaired so - back to normal for me NEXT SHOW! woo!

Anyway - here are some photos! - first up Versa Emerge! and holy crap that girl can sing - these shots are F8-13 at an 8th (low light - wanted some movement)







































Next up were my good friends in Our Last Night - they just put a new record out - and it fucking KILLLLS - you need to get it - and listen to it - and check out the photo behind the cd - cause i took it (more info on that here = http://jeremysaffer.blogspot.com/2010/02/todays-shoot-our-last-night-day-1.html) - anyway - they had brighter lighting so i jumped to a 15th for a shutter speed

































































I then went upstairs for TRAPPED UNDER ICE! i was fully expected to get killed during their set - as they were the only heavy/hardcore band playing - and the entire hardcore crowd there was brewing waiting for the first note to hit! - i dropped my speed to a 10th and upped my fstop to a 9.5-13th - because i was much closer - and getting walked on haha.. i shot two songs - during the second song the entire crowd ended up on the stage and then jumped on and over me... woo. its called duck and shoot!

































































Next up were hometown heros - VANNA - who always put on an excellent show - the singer - davey was getting so close - my camera and the mic chord and even himself - collided a few times haha - for this the front lighting was SUPER hot - so i shot at a 20th




















































right after Vanna was the moment everyone had been waiting for - the reunion of TREOS! - for this the lighting was much more even - i was shooting at a 10th - F5.6-8.0 - during the first song - one of the guitarists got smacked HARD and was bleeding all over the place (not sure if you can really see it - but - its in there)








































































































All in all it was a decent show - my flash at first didnt want to really do what I wanted it to - but after the first band i got it in check. Hopefully skatefest will continue and grow back to its former glory!

Music Photography Workshop w/ Gage Young and Jeremy Saffer

So this will be a bit different then the posts you are used to. I figured this was a good spot to talk about my week and weekend.

For those who follow, you know I sometimes do music photography seminars, and this time around I was splitting one with Gage Young (www.gageyoung.com) - his website will be back soon if its not up when you go to view it.

Gage is well versed and known for his images of upcoming and established pop/punk/rock bands namely in AP magazine, as well as a slew of others. I was always a big fan of his work since I first saw it around when Homesick (adtr) came out.

www.jeremysaffer.com/workshop (has all the info on it)

Anyhoo. we got TWENTY! students for this SOLD OUT! workshop - largest class to date. People flew in from Oklahoma, Utah, Florida, and MANY from NJ and NY, as well as a few locals.



















After a bunch of help from Nick Bessette, who covered the windows, thereby making it so the sun would not ruin the slide show, we were ready to roll.

(please note - photos were taken by Gage Young, Nick Bessette, Eva Prior, Aubrey Lewis, respectively.)
Day 1...
The first day was the slide-show - where we talk about every single aspect of being a photographer in the music industry - from getting started - to selling your images - who to contact, and why, what words to use, how to set up shoots, yada yada yada




















































Here are some shots taken by Nick of the photonerds during the break!







































The last part of the day was a Lighting demo, where we both showed a variety of how to use one, and two lights to create different looks in a studio location situation, really trying to stress that you dont need 6 lights and 25 grand in equipment to produce a print-worthy shot (as some of the younger, and newer photographers tend to believe at times haha)

here are some shots of the lighting demo

































































After the lighting demo we took some group shots of the entire crew







































That was pretty much the end of day one. We went back to the house, hung out a bit, got a couple hours of sleep, then gathered up and hit the studio for day 2...

Day 2...
Today was more of a hands on day, where three bands (Our Last Night, Thy will Be Done, and With Words) were coming in to do demo shoots with Gage and I, then modeling for the students, so they could apply what they learned to a very real and specific assignment shoot.

Here are some shots of myself photographing thy will be done, and gage shooting our last night for lighting demos.

































































Rather then doing a free-for-all - we made Gage, Nick, and I - TOUR MANAGERS! - each photographer had 10 minutes to shoot - and did a shoot in studio - indoors on location - and outdoors with each of the three bands using different equipment for each shoot!

After a few hours - and alot of hunger (we didnt have time to stop for lunch due to the schedule) - we ate - some of the students who had drives, had to jet out, as we finished day 2 with a lightroom/photoshop tutorial.

All in all it was an AMAZING success, I liked working with Gage, and I think our next one will be even better.

We recorded it all for a possible dvd, but didnt put much into the production of it. unfortunately one person was talking semi-often while we were teaching, and cuts out some of our audio - so, i dont know if the dvd will ever see the light of day, but hopefully we can figure that out. or we will just reshoot another seminar, knowing that it wont be the same.

Gage ended up not only being an excellent dude to split a seminar with, but an excellent friend as well. I will absolutely be working with him again in the future, and needless to say, the bonds made during this seminar between the students, gage, myself, etc. are half of what makes doing these seminars so awesome to me.

Til the next one... Thanks everyone who came, everyone who read this, and everyone whos shown interest
here are the two sexiest dudes alive, in the SAME PHOTO!

Todays Shoot - Our Last Night (day 2) + Vanna live

Today was day 2 of the Our Last Night photo session.

Luckily, today was indoors, and due to getting a bit of a late start, we had very little to work with and very little time to shoot.

So we had their dressing room to work with... I did two sets - one on a couch - and one against the wall.

Couch unedited photo below - lighting is just split lighting with two cold tone umbrellas



















The room was too small to use my 70-200 so I had to use my 16-35... i really need to get the 24-70 - anyone wanna donate?

I think the dudes were pretty burnt out on photos from the day before - I never get that feeling... I get tired, i get worn out, worn thin, but I could shoot for 27 hours a day. - but i TOTALLY understand being SHOT after being.... SHOT... for that long.

So after a quick quick set of photos - i packed up my session gear - got the live gear ready for the show which was Vanna, Our Last Night, A Loss For Words... etc.

A Loss For Words - Live













Our Last Night - Live













The show was really good, lots of younger photographers in the pit...

The front lighting was abnormally strong, so rather then shooting at a 10th i was shooting at a 20th at F8 (mostly) 9.5 for close ups - and 5.6 for bigger wider shots.

At the end of the vanna show - we did the standard - band against thier crowd shot - but unfortunately the band didnt announce it prior to the shot - and the lights were turned off as fans were walking out - so the shot isnt as ideal as i had hoped for
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about 1700 kids at the show - epiiiic! - great middle of these crazy three days of shooting

Alesana photo shoot tomorrow!