Editor’s Note: It’s another throwback post, this time featuring yours truly! This one goes back to 2014 when I had an amazing opportunity that I still look back on and smile. Hopefully you’ll get a smile out of it too!
In 2014, had the opportunity to cover a sold out arena show for the band Third Day, who gave me full access to do pretty much anything I wanted. Today I’ll share some of the images with you, as well as my experience covering the show. I also did some band portraits for another artist that I’ll share after the concert stuff.
As soon as I got the phone call asking if I was available to come to Atlanta and cover the Third Day show, and being told I would have full access, I knew I wanted to set up a remote camera on stage to capture the view of the band performing with the sold-out audience as well. I set it up during the band’s sound check (as you can see in the test photo above) using two Manfrotto Magic arms (one to hold the camera and another attached to the rail and arm holding the camera for added security/support).
The camera itself is a Canon 5D Mark III with a 8-15mm fisheye lens at 15mm, and I put the biggest memory card I had in it to make sure I didn’t run out of card space during the show as I wouldn’t have access to it to swap out cards. Since this was my first time setting up a remote camera on stage, I just took a guess at the settings and hoped it would work. I went with Spot Metering, Auto ISO with 1/250 as the minimum shutter and 12,800 as the max ISO, and f/5.6 just to be safe on depth of field.
To trigger the camera, there’s a PocketWizard Plus III in the hot shoe and connected to the remote port with the appropriate cable, and I had another PocketWizard Plus III in my front shirt pocket that I used to trigger it during the show. I could have put the PocketWizard I had on me on one of the cameras I was carrying if I wanted the on-stage camera to shoot at the same time I was shooting, but I opted not to.
This allowed me to capture some key moments during the show from a unique perspective, as well as show the size of the crowd.
It’s always a privilege to shoot soundcheck, so here are a couple of my favorites from that:
The band invited some friends to join them for the show, including one of my other favorite bands, Needtobreathe, who were also in town for their own shows at The Tabernacle that weekend and stopped by for a couple of songs:
And here are a few more of my favorites from the evening:
And at the end of the show, I went on stage to get a photo of them facing me with the crowd behind them:
It’s a cool experience being able to shoot for a band that you grew up listening to and can now call friends!
Speaking of friends in a band, my buds in Preson Phillips recently released a new album and needed some images to help promote it. They wanted a close up, kinda harsh and gritty look, so here’s what I wound up doing for them:
I mainly used all constant lights for these setups; two Westcott TD6s with strip banks on either side and a fluorescent ring light (mainly for the catchlight in the eyes). The background light was an Elinchrom BRX 500 with a reflector aimed at the white wall behind them:
So there you have it, a look into a couple of my recent shoots. Hopefully some of this was helpful and will inspire some creativity in you as well.
You can see more of Brad’s work at BMOOREVISUALS.com, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.