Todays Shoot - The New England Metal and Hardcore Festival: Atticus Pre-Party

For metalfest this year I had a few jobs to do.

I was hired by Monster Energy drinks to shoot for them, I was also doing as much coverage as possible of the live bands, and wanted to do ALOT of behind the scene type shots

I rolled up with my ex-roomie Jessie Lee and my bud WOJO as an assistant.

The first day was a pre-party sponsored by atticus clothing













This was the first time I used my 580 EX 2 - so it took me a little bit to get used to - alot of the shots were blown out at first and not balanced the way i like to balance light

Because the pre-party was upstairs there was no baracade or much for lighting, so I was using my flash as a main (which i hate to do, but whatever)

I did alot of shooting outside - looking for behind the scenes stuff, people holding monster, wearing atticus, etc.

for the entire day my ISO was at 400 and all of the shots this day were with the 40D - i changed up between my 24-70 2.8 and 16-35 2.8 lens - the shots outside with flash were around 5.6-6.7 ish - the ones with out are all 2.8 - around a 200th - later in the day when the sun went down i was shooting at 5.6 at a 10th to soak up the natural light - and the indoor shots are also at a 10th to soak in the ambient lighting

MCMB













Matt (kenmore), Vincent (acacia strain/cockpunch)













Mark













Nick (with words)













Jay (within the ruins)













Sylvia (massconcerts)













Scott (palladium/massconcerts) - Phil (white chapel)













Jay (within the ruins)













After doing some behind the scene type stuff I went up to shoot My Children My Bride - for these shots I was shooting with the 24-70 which i thought was a big mistake (in hindsight) - i dont like in the inability to go super wide. and do to being moshed on - walked on - I couldnt do a lens change - and only shot one song - no biggie though - I was shooting at a 15th at 9.5 because i was super close and didnt want to get any flash blur. - one of the shots i took of dan... vincent (acacia) was lurking in the background so i zoomed in so you could see him being a creep haha




















































Next up - Vincent and Phil were giving The New England Metal and Hardcore Festival - Hall of Fame award away (I was inducted last year, and its seriously one of the biggest honors of my entire life and career). This year it was going out to legendary ex-hardcore vocalist/current booking agent - Matt Pike














































































After the award, the top secret band of the night was White Chapel - again i risked being up front (no baracade) and facing the mosh in order to get better photos - while most other photographers shot side stage... sometimes its worth shooting up front and risking a little mosh - sometimes its not. - i dropped my speed down to a 10th to try to get a bit more blend but the lighting upstairs is so shot it was kind of a moot point







































After that, we hit the hotel, had a pizza party in the room with Matthew of MCMB and got to hear the new record which KIIIILLLLLSSS - its so good, everyones going to be stoked on it.

I prepped a bit for the upcoming day, and went to sleep...

on to day 1 of metalfest...