photo by Scott Kelby

Another month has passed by which means it’s time for another Blog Follow Friday feature. This month I would like to showcase the amazing live music photography of Brad Moore. Brad is a Florida based photographer who also works with Kelby Media Group along side of Scott Kelby as Scott’s assistant. Previous to his job with Kelby Media Group, Brad was a photo assistant to Joe McNally, one of the industry’s top photographers, for two years. You can read about his time with McNally here and here. Both of those blog posts are great reads if you’re interested in learning what it’s like working with Joe McNally. My personal favorite is the story of his first shoot with Joe, shooting the U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmers.

Brad’s live music photography is, simply put, awesome. The shots that I’ve included in this post are only a small sampling of his incredible portfolio.  The moments Brad has captured, in one of the industry’s more technically difficult genres, is one of the reasons why I’ve gotten more into live music photography. It’s such a great reward to be able to capture a moment during a show with emotion, intensity and movement. Add in some beautiful light and you’ve got “the shot.” Brad’s portfolio is PACKED with these kinds of images.

I’d also like to make a point of how helpful Brad has been to me over the past few months. I’ve been in contact with him through Twitter with a few questions and he has always come through with answers, even if it requires a little bit of research on his part. Thank you Brad!

Brad Moore’s Portfolio Website

Brad Moore’s Blog

Brad Moore’s Twitter

I am a huge fan of hip hop music. Always have been and always will be. I can listen to it all day long. In fact, I recently did just that at The Underground Music & Art Festival at The Nutty Irishman in Bay Shore, NY. The all day event featured a lot of incredible talented rappers, DJ’s, graffiti artists, DJ’s, break dancers and even a hardcore band. I had a great time shooting this event and wish that I was able to stay the entire time but unfortunately something came up.  From what I’ve heard, the rest of the music that night was incredible. I am happy with these photos though, so it was well worth attending. I’d like to thank the guys of Cicada for hooking me up with VIP access to the show. If you’re a fan of hardcore, definitely check them out. Although I think they may have scared the hell out of most of the crowd, I think they picked up a few fans as well.

Sometimes, as a photographer, you will be challenged by uncontrollable conditions. Such was the case when I was asked to head out to The Local 269 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan to photograph The Audiobodies showcase performance. This venue was pretty small and as far as the house lights were concerned, well you might as well have had a flashlight with dying batteries taped to the ceiling. Good thing I asked questions to the publicist, Arien Rozelle of Feeling Anxious, and got some info on what to expect from the bar’s conditions. So, with that knowledge, I decided to bring along a few speedlites to help me out. All I did was set up two speedlites, one at a slight angle to the stage about 40-50 feet away and then another Justin clamped to an overhead TV stand which was to the side of the stage. This gave me a lot of creative control in this environment.

The Audiobodies are, for the most part, a two man band but at this performance they brought in an additional guitarist and drummer. Jason & Wyme are some of the nicest and respectable guys that I have met. They’re music is in a class all of their own and I mean that in a great way. Be sure to keep an eye on these guys as they just signed a record deal with one of the pioneers of hip hop music. They’re destined for a huge successful career in the music industry.

The past weekend I had photographed the most important portraits that I have ever created in my lifetime. A series of photos that I will never forget. These portraits mean more to me than any photo of a musician, actor, celebrity, landscape or anything else I will shoot in my career. Here’s the story…

The young woman you see in these photos is my sister Samm. Yes, with two M’s. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen that kind of smile on her face and I am so damn happy to have photographed it. I never want to forget it again. Samm is a recovering alcoholic, among other things, and is making progress in her new life that I am extremely proud of. She is, as of the day of this post, 6 month and 4 days sober and refuses to go back to her “old life”. The glow of “Samm Wenner!” is back in her eyes. The smile that lights up a room has returned. As I write this, I’m on the brink of losing my composure and crying tears of joy all over my keyboard….forget it, I just started again. The man you see with her in the above photo is our father, Richard. The moment in this photograph is one that I am so happy that I was able to shoot. It means the world to me. It’s not a technically perfect photograph, but I really can care less about that. The fact that Samm and Dad are together, smiling, laughing and really enjoying themselves together is a beautiful thing. The photo could be a blurry mess and I’d still post it here. The photos posted in this blog entry truly summarize what was said to me while at The Ranch when I told Samm that I want my sister back. She replied, “She IS back.”

Samm brought Dad and I to “The Medicine Wheel” on the grounds of The Ranch. Although I don’t really remember exactly what she said about the meaning of this particular place, I do know she holds it close to her heart as it is an area of incredible healing for her. When you approach “The Medicine Wheel”, you are supposed to touch, hug or whatever you like, a huge stone in the middle of a circle of much smaller stones that are arranged in a circle around the larger one. This enormous stone is supposed to give you strength and power to relax and meditate.

As Samm walked down a line of small stones, she sat down on the edge of the circle and seemed at complete ease and relaxation as she looked out over the farm at the beautiful sunset. It was so great to see her really enjoy it.

The Ranch is a really beautiful place. Not only are the 2,000+ acres simply amazing to stare at but the people who work there are some of the best people I have ever met. They have helped Samm become return to who she truly is. I am forever grateful to Bobby, Kate, Steve, Debbie and everyone else who has crossed paths with my sister over the past 6 months and have helped her in her journey to recovery.

Thank you.

Another edition of the monthly Blog Follow Friday series features another amazing photographer that I am very happy to have here. David E. Jackson. Remember that name because this guy is legit. Dave is a portrait, wedding, and music photographer based in Wisconsin. Dave’s style can be seen from across the room with his signature lighting technique. To define your own style as a photographer is one of the most important aspects of your brand and Dave has accomplished this amazingly well. I first came across Jackson’s work a little over a year or so ago when his website was featured on Zack Arias‘ Photo Critique series. His photographs immediately caught my attention and I’ve been a fan of his work ever since. Dave has a personal series of photography that is an ongoing project that he has titled “Simple +Dirty“. This series of abandoned locations with focus on textures, colors, and shapes is simply beautiful. When I first started in my photography, this was one of the themes of my work, so you can say that I’m a big fan of the Simple +Dirty series.

Dave has a new workshop series that is a must for anyone that’s interested in portrait photography. It’s called the Breaking The Rules Workshop and you can get all the details here.

I’d like to thank Dave for contributing to this series and also for all the helpful information he’s given me over the past year. When we get a chance to meet up Dave, I got first round of PBR! Here’s a few samples of Dave’s photography work.

David E. Jackson Website

David E. Jackson Blog

Follow Dave on Twitter

If there’s anything I enjoy most about my love in photographing music, it’s the people I get to meet. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some very interesting people, all with incredible stories to share. The guys of Unified Theory are no exception to this. These guys are all amazing musicians with a great sound. I met up with Unified Theory at Ollie’s Point in Amityville, New York to shoot a live performance. They put on a great show that was very chill and included some great songs by Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, and Grateful Dead to name a few. The guys also performed some of their original music which I have to admit was pretty damn good too. I had a blast working with these guys and hope to meet up with them again for future shows. They are not a band you want to miss.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTES

Going into this shoot at Ollie’s Point, I had no idea what the lighting was going to be like. The guys in the band told me that they have a great lighting setup but just to be safe, I brought two Canon 580 EXII’s and light stands. I set one light up on each side of the drummer platform directly behind the band, almost facing directly straight out to the audience. I had the power set at 1/8th which, at the time of the performance, I wished was much lower. I couldn’t interfere with the show to lower the power so I just dealt with it. But, after viewing these images on a much larger screen I’m actually pretty happy with the results. If anything, I would have added a third light in front of the guys for a little bit of fill.

I have to be honest with you guys…Rachel is one of my favorite models that I have worked with so far. This girl just knows how to work in front of the camera. If you want her to look soft and elegant, she nails it. You want dramatic and bad ass? She’ll nail that too. What more can you expect from a former “America’s Next Top Model” contestant? Not only is she a very talented model but she’s also just a great girl to hang out with in the studio. She’s able to run with the jokes and crack a few of her own. And, if you saw the Behind The Scenes Video that I posted last week, you know she’s got some dance moves too (after the credits). Simply put…I love working with Rachel.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from our shoot in Brooklyn at 3rd Ward.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTES

If you watched the behind the scenes video closely, you may have noticed that I was using a few different lighting set ups during this shoot.
- The first shot in this series was lit using a Elinchrom BXRi 500 and 69″ Elinchrom Octa fairly close to Rachel, maybe 4 feet away at camera right.
- The next two shots are with the Elinchrom BXRi 500 bare bulb with a 7″ reflector. The light was around 10-15 feet away which gives that nice hard shadow. If I had more room in the studio (or just remembered to actually move it) I would have had the light a bit farther back from Rachel to get a clean hard edge on the shadows.
- The photo of Rachel getting makeup touched up by Mayra is backlit by the bare bulb BXRi and the main light is an Elinchrom 39″ Deep Octa. I LOVE this modifier…it is suhweeeet!!!
- The jump shot, close up and three shots of Rachel on the stool are all lit with the 39″ Deep Octa, about 5 feet away from her at camera right.
- The last three are my favorites I think. I was using two Elinchrom BXRi 500′s shooting through small strip boxes. The lights were angled at 45 degrees on either side behind Rachel, about 4 feet away. I love this setup. The amazingly beautiful shadows and highlights this gives just blows me away.
- You may notice how dirty the CYC wall was during the shoot. Typically this would bother me and I’d have it repainted but for this shoot, I was cool with it. I think it gives these photos (where you can see that part of the CYC) an extra touch.

To go along with the launch of my new website, Flosites asked for an interview as well and I was more than happy to answer some questions for them. Head over to the Flosites blog and check out my interview here. I’d like to send a thank you over to Ross and the whole Flosites crew once again for hooking me up with my new website, blog and everything else we’ve worked on together.

The time has finally come…my brand new portfolio website has been launched! The amazing team at Flosites spent a lot of time and put in some hard work on the site and it shows. Flosites took on a big project with me to completely rebrand my photography business which included the new logo, new stationary, this blog, a full SEO project, and ending the project with this new website. Here’s a quick rundown of the new site. If you’re not into reading too much, just go to the site and check it out for yourself.

THE DESIGN.

To go along with my brand and style of photography, I chose to go with a full screen website that really showcases my photos in a bold way. The site’s overall look is simple yet bold and strong. My logo was kept small in the top left because honestly, if you’ve made it to the site, you already know whose work you’re looking at. The opening slideshow on the home page shows a few photos in the site and will repeat forever…so continue on to the portfolios.

THE PORTFOLIOS.

I’ve decided to keep my portfolios down to bare minimum. I am only showing my Music photography and my Fashion photography on the site. When you scroll over Portfolio at the top of the screen, you’ll notice that the entire screen dims. Click on Portfolio and there are your two options. When you click on either Music or Fashion, all the thumbnails will open up. Click on a thumbnail and it goes full screen. Pretty damn simple right? When you’re in full screen view and move your mouse around, you’ll see some of the images move along with the mouse movement. As I mentioned above, this is to show more of the image. When you bring your mouse all the way to the right or left, the arrow for Next or Previous will appear. You can also use your arrows on the keyboard to move from photo to photo. You also have the option to have the site take over your entire screen for a better viewing experience. Simply click on the full screen button at the top right. When you’re in either the thumbnail view or full screen view (not when the site takes over your whole screen), you have some options at the bottom right corner of the photos. You can Tweet a photo, which posts a link to the photograph through your Twitter account. There is a Lightbox feature on the site too. On each image, just below where the Tweet option is, you’ll see “+ lightbox“. When you click on this it will add the photo that you are currently viewing to the Lightbox. From the Lightbox (bottom left), you’re able to share the images by sending them through email to anyone you like. And finally, you have the option to download any photo you like. Just click on Download and a new window will open up.

THE OTHER PAGES.

Aside from my portfolios, you can also read a bit more about who I am and where I’m coming from as a photographer in the About page. There’s also a link that will bring you to my Blog. Also notice along the top of the website, right next to my logo. There’s some text up there that is a small excerpt from my most recent blog posts. If you’d like to get in touch with me, just go through the Contact page and fill out the form. When the form is completed and you press Submit, an email is sent directly to me. Along the bottom of the website is more contact information and social media links. If you are a client of mine and would like to access your private gallery, simply click on Client Page and you’ll be redirected to the main site where you can access your gallery. Also be sure to check out Flosites website by clicking on their logo. They’ve got a lot of other great websites and blogs that they’ve worked on that are definitely worth checking out. Just go through mine first.  ;)

I’d love to hear what you guys think of the new site in the Comments area below. In fact, I love to hear what you all think on any post here on the blog.  :)

I recently had the opportunity to shoot in studio with a favorite model of mine, Rachel Echelberger from BMG Models. I’ve worked with her once before at Brooklyn Studios (you can see those photos here) back in February of this year. Rachel and I got along so well and came out of that shoot with so many great photos, so I knew that I’d have to work with her again. With the help of the amazingly talented hair and makeup stylist Mayra Melendez, we got to shoot again but this time at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, NY. Since I was also trying out some new lighting techniques and getting a little more creative with wardrobe styling as well, I wanted to document the shoot with a video.  I asked my friend John Woodruff to come on board as my assistant for the day and to shoot some behind-the-scenes video. Well, the shoot went incredibly well and we all had an amazing time together. Everyone got along really well, I introduced them to some new music by Max Tannone (Jaydiohead), and it was just a great day. I’m still working on the final photos from this shoot but you can see what goes into one of my studio shoots by watching the video here. The video quality is not exactly perfect and this is my first time editing any kind of video but I’m still pretty happy with the way this video came out. I’ll be including more of these behind-the-scenes videos during future shoots.

Note :: If the video does not load, try refreshing the page…that should work.