Weezer at the Del Mar Racetrack

Saturday, August 21 was not your ordinary day at the races in Del Mar. The horses put on quite a performance but it was followed by an incredible show by Weezer. Rivers was all over the stage and at several points he actually took off with the wireless mic into the crowd. He even ran back stage for the lucky peeps with special passes and jumped up on the row of porta-poties since there was not a stage back there. I have never had so much fun shooting a concert. It amazes me how I got hooked on Weezers music in High school back in 1994 and they are still adding more high school kids to their fan base today. Be sure to check out Karl’s corner on the Weezer web page for more photos. Enjoy the photos!

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Matisyahu at the Del Mar Racetrack

On friday morning I got an email from Matthew Miller, better known by his Hebrew name, Matisyahu. He asked me if I could photograph his show on Saturday at the Del Mar Racetrack and this is what I was able to shoot. First of all, like many concerts, flash photography was not allowed which meant that in order to have an image correctly exposed and not totally blurry, I would have to shoot at a very fast film speed (iso 1600 or higher). Shooting at a fast film speed allows you to capture fast moving subjects in low light but it ads a lot of grain to the image. Since I knew this ahead of time I took a more creative approach, knowing that the images would have a grainy film-like look. On several shots I intentional positioned my self with the stage lights pointing directly into the camera. This fundamentally breaks every rule of photography, but in this case, the result was an abstract dream-like image. I figured since a perfect sharp crisp image was not possible in these lighting conditions, I might as well have some fun and push the limits a little bit. This is where shooting in full manual mode really is crucial. The stage lighting is constantly changing and if you try to use the cameras light meter to expose the image it will, in most cases, expose the image incorrectly. So once I got an exposure that I was happy with I pretty much stuck to that same exposure. Most of these images were all shot at ISO 3200, f4.0, 1/60 sec.

Another idea that I had going into this shoot was to shoot a lot of stills in rapid fire and piece them together in a stop motion animation. The main goal with every event that I shoot is to capture the vibe and energy in a way that will make people that didn’t attend the event feel like they missed something special… and for the people that did experience the show, I hope to help them relive the great memories and to re-live some of the emotions that they felt. This video is a quick rough cut of what it was like at the Del Mar Racetrack on Saturday night. Matisyahu put on an incredible performance and I highly respect him for staying true to his religious beliefs as a touring musician. Enjoy and I would love to hear any feedback.

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5×7 $15.00 8×10 $35.00 16×20 $75.00

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Jeff Daniels

Last week I had the opportunity of shooting an interview with Actor, Jeff Daniels as part of NAMM’s Wanna Play Music campaign. Jeff is best known for his acting but said that it all began with his interest in songwriting and playing guitar.

At one point in the interview Jeff said “Songs are stories and they have the ability to capture a single moment in time and the whole song spins around that one moment.” He added “Music has the ability to become your best friend and it is always there when you need it, in bad times and in the good times. You also find out about yourself through music. When you dive into music it takes you on a personal journey that discovers things that you wouldn’t otherwise know about yourself.”

This is exactly why I love working with musicians, actors and others that have an artistic outlook of life. I have always thought that still photography also has the ability of telling a story and in some cases it is more powerful than a moving picture because it captures one moment in time and all of the thoughts about that picture revolve around that one moment.

Find out more about Jeff’s passion for music at www.wannaplaymusic.com

Gary Sinise and Orianthi

I took these photos of Gary Sinise and Orianthi in a studio that I had set up at the last NAMM Show in Anaheim. The photos where taken as part of NAMM’s Wanna Play campaign.

Our appointment with Orianthi was first, followed by Gary Sinise about 15 minutes later so I knew that time was going to be tight.

Right as we were wrapping up the shoot with Orianthi, Gary arrived and struck up a conversation with Orianthi. All of my lights were set up for Orianthi’s shoot and I took a shot of the two of them and this is a perfect example of really bad lighting. Fortunately, my assignment was not to photograph both of them in the same photo and Gary did not have a lot of time so I didn’t want to change the whole lighting set up for this shot.

In this photo I used one Elinchrome head with a softbox attached at about 8 o’clock (12 o clock being directly behind the subject. I also used an Elinchrome head with a snoot attached at about 2 o clock. This is what provided the nice outline around the subject and the intriguing highlights.

A couple hours later Orianthi performed on the main stage at the NAMM Show. In this shot I slowed down the shutter speed to show some movement and fired the flash to stop the action. The exact exposure was f/10 at 1/25 sec with the iso at 800.

I also shot a video clip with my Canon 5D mark ii of her performance. I velcro’d an Edirol R09 to my flash to capture the sound since it was so loud it would have been distorted with the on camera mic.

The Band from TV

Making Music Magazine wrote a cover story about actor, Greg Grunberg and his role in The Band from TV. They needed a cover shot for the magazine and they contacted me to see if I could get together with Greg at their opening show at the NASCAR race in Fontana to take some photos. I got up bright and early and got to the race track at 7am for the bands sound check. I got the cover shots done with Greg right away, before the rest of the band got there, so that he could focus on the sound check once they started. When shooting cover shots it is important to leave some space at the top and possibly around the edges for the magazine to insert their masthead and story titles. This can be challenging if you like to crop in close to your subject which is what normally makes a better composition. This one didn’t make the cover but I liked the excitement and energy of the shot.

This is the shot they ended up using for the cover.

Bob Guiney sang a few songs.

Lobbying for Music Education on Capitol Hill

On May 11-13 the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) coordinated a unified effort to advocate for music education on Capitol Hill. Altogether there were over 80 meetings with members of congress and their staff, including an event with the John Lenon Educational Tour Bus at the Department of Education with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

The main message that was shared with members of congress was to include a strong emphasis on music education in the reauthorization of the ESEA . To conclude NAMM’s efforts on Capitol Hill there was a Congressional Reception with special guests, Jonathain Cain of Journey and Taylor Dayne . Watch videos of their compelling speeches here . I shot these videos with the Canon 5d mark II