Concerts
Featuring great music and terrible lighting, NEEDTOBREATHE's show at Exit/In was definitely a memorable challenge to shoot. Not only was it extremely dark in the venue itself, the sellout crowd made moving around nearly impossible. Venues without photo pits seem to be the theme lately and I am not to sure how happy I am about it... I came away with about 5 photos that I actually liked out of the 140 or so that I took, giving me a wonderful 3.5% keeper rate.
My first and hopefully not last time shooting at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. Given the lack of a pit, I feel like it went pretty well although I was given a hard time by somebody there about shooting from the front row with my photo pass which allows me to do so in the otherwise assigned seating auditorium. With my photo pass came a ticket for 10th row seats with our reporter that we had covering the concert as well so that was nice to have a home base to come back to during the concert. The acoustics in that place are awesome to say the least.
I was lucky enough to get a pass for Commodore Quake this year. Going in, I was pretty skeptical given last years performances that were less than stellar in my opinion. However, I really liked Wale and Kendrick Lamar's performances. From a photo standpoint, it was a little dark and I struggled a little bit with keeping motion blur to a minimum but that is part of the job.
When I got back from the show, an Instagram user had taken one of my photos and posted it as his own so I confronted him about it and got "you're just mad because I have more likes on your pictures than you" as a response. I then contacted Instagram and reported a copyright violation, which was processed today and the photo was removed from his page. Not only was he extremely rude to me when I asked him "please credit me on my photo" he also blocked me from posting on his page before I had the chance to explain to him that he was infringing on my Creative Commons - Attributive license that I attach to all of my images and needed to credit me or take the photo down. Since he was rude about it, I reported him and Instagram handled it. The worst part about it is that he labels himself as a "Pro Photographer" on both his Twitter and Instagram profiles. A real "Pro" would not steal another's work and call it his own. Just Sayin.
In an event very much like the Spotlight showcase from a few weeks back, The Athenian Honorary society sponsored Athenian Sing, an event featuring 13 prominent performing arts groups on campus. The event was in Langford Auditorium which I enjoy shooting in due to the variety of different colors of light that they are able to project onto the stage. The format of the show was a judged contest with the first, second, and third place winners receiving $1500, $1000, and $750 respectively for the charity of their choice.
