Todays Shoot - The New England Metal and Hardcore Festival: Day 1

I think if i posted a few photos from every band i shot live, this would be too long of a blog, so im just going to post a few, and mostly talk about the day and how amazing it was.

I woke up to my merch order at the hotel (THANKS DANNY!)

So I had a shoot with Earth Crisis booked, and that was pretty much the only I had set up - going into metalfest, but as with previous metalfests, one shoot turned into two, then three, etc.

I started off slow, as the second stage started at noon, and the mainstage didnt start til three.

I generally dont cover ANY bands on the second stage because its not exactly safe for a photographer to shoot from the front of stage - and i dont really like the side of stage shots personally.

I started by shooting XTheWarX - because they are my friends from aussieland - and the mosh wasnt too scary to get up and get some shots.

Before the main stage even started I ran into Kyle, Stuart and Ryan of Misery Signals as well as Andy from Fall Out Boy - and was like "are you guys with burning empires?! LETS DO A SHOOT!" - so I ended up doing a shoot with them!

I wanted to get a very - against the blue sky - type of shot for this - i tried some with two umbrellas - and it was so windy the umbrellas flew out and almost into the street - so wojo hung with one - and one of their dudes hung with the other - then i popped a beauty dish up above them and did some just with the dish - then some with the dish and two umbrellas (split) - then some natural light... my settings were: Canon Mark 2 1ds - 24-70 lens - iso100 - F20/22 at a 200th and 2.8 at a 500th for the natural light shots - the shoot was all of 3 minutes.

Almost directly after that shoot, I had my 40D with the 16-35 and was doing some behind the scenes shots when I ran into Blake from BTBAM - and noticed he was using Vic Firth sticks so I took a couple shots (as i will later explain, I was doing some work for vic firth). I just went with natural light - I shot these at F 9.5 because I had him holding out his stick - and was focusing on the logo - and as you should know - for endorsement images - the logo is as important as the artist - so I didnt want to blur him out at 2.8 - and i shot at a 180th to kill any movement.

I ran upstairs real quick to get some live shots of burning empires - again from the front - because i thought I wouldnt get moshed too badly - then i jumped side stage to get some shots of andy drumming

After that I walked around to get more behind the scenes shots before the mainstage kicked off - shooting at 2.8 but my speed was generally around 1000

Around 3pm - mainstage kicked off with a few bands

and unfortunately Architects couldnt make it so My Children My Bride took their spot (WOOO) - Matthew was kind enough to rock one of my team saffer shirts during the set - which was super awesome of him - and getting some main stage shots of them is way better then the day before/2nd stage shots. For most live shots my settings were ISO400 - F5.6-11 (11 usually with fisheye) - and always a 10th - 15th. I generally used only the 16-35 and fisheye - unless I was going for drummer photos, in which case I would pop on the 24-70 (i didnt end up using my 70-200 all weekend)

After shooting a couple more bands, it was time for EARTH CRISIS! the ONLY band I HAD to see the entire set of, no matter what else was happening. I went side stage for this because I knew I would probably get really killed or break my camera if I was up front. When they played gomorrahs season ends and firestorm... oh man... that band is one of the greatest bands of all time, EVER.

After shooting EXC live - I ran around with the monster team doing some natural light shots for them F2.8 at a 500th - as the light was starting to fade out.

I met up with the Earth Crisis dudes for our scheduled photo sesh - but it was SO late that the sun was almost set. So I decided the last 4 shoots I've done with them was split lighting with two umbrellas, so this time I just boomed a beauty dish up high to give them a darker feel - and then did some natural light shots. But because of the dying light - i had to up my ISO to 800 - and shoot 2.8 at a 30th - luckily they were VERY still and my hands are very steady - so I didnt get any blur. the settings for the ones with the beauty dish are a 10th at F20.

Doug interviewed me a little bit on his flip cam for some behind the scenes EXC stuff - I SUCK on camera interviews - so I just said what came to mind - and how legendary they are - how it was my 5th shoot with them since the reunion - yada yada yada - it was an honor to say the least

Karl also restated his praise for my work saying "all your stuff looks amazing, youre the best photographer weve ever worked with" - which coming from one of my heros is so humbling and just... so awesome.

I went back in for mainstage shots of the last few bands who had a LED screen for a backdrop - the bands were valient thor - baroness - btbam - and mastodon.

My flash started acting weird and giving different outputs every shot i took - so i switched out the batteries - and it started working properly again.

After finishing up a couple M-Don live shots - I went over to the hotel and we had another pizza party w/Matthew, Dantera, Wojo, Jessie Lee, and myself

as some know - i do card tricks - so doing card tricks turned into throwing tons of cards at jessie - which then took to the halls of the hotel

all in all - we all suck at throwing cards.

but ill practice and get better! and if you see me - feel free to ask for a card trick - i gotta practice anyway

and yes - this is how straight edge kids party sober - by throwing cards hah.

My CF reader broke so I couldnt get the photos to do any photo work - bummer - but - more hang time...

I went to sleep knowing that I might be doing a VERY awesome shoot the next day...

..onto day 2..