Performances- Jon Moyer Photography

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Weezer at the Del Mar Racetrack

Posted by Jon Moyer in Events, Music, Performances, Photography, Uncategorized on 08 24th, 2010 | No Comments

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!

Weezer, Del Mar

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Matisyahu at the Del Mar Racetrack

Posted by Jon Moyer in Abstract, Assignments, Celebrities, Events, Music, Performances, Photo Tips, Photography on 08 17th, 2010 | No Comments

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.

Matisyahu

Matisyahu at Del Mar Racetrack, 2010

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The Band from TV

Posted by Jon Moyer in Celebrities, Events, Music, Performances, Photo Tips, Published Work on 06 18th, 2010 | No Comments

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.

[Greg Grunberg]