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Photo of Haste the Day on the Pressure the Hinges album tour, photographed in 2007 at Underground Cafe in South Bend, Indiana.

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In my 8 years of wedding photography I’ve never before personally seen a bride and groom put together such a dance routine mix, and even more to have the entire bridal party – a pregnant bridesmaid, the bubble girl and everyone in between – tear it up for this dance!

I’m counting a whopping 15 song medley for their choreographed bridal party dance at the reception. Whoa!

• The Right Stuff – New Kids on the Block
• Born to Hand Jive – Grease
• Keep On (Dancin’) – I’m hearing the Brady Bunch kids on that one
• Billie Jean – Michael Jackson
• Thriller – Michael Jackson
• Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice
• Can’t Touch This – MC Hammer
• Apache (Jump On It) – Sugar Hill Gang
• Bye Bye Bye – N*Sync
• Hey Ya – Outkast
• Dirt Off Your Shoulder – Jay Z
• Sexy Back – Justin Timberlake
• I’m Too Sexy – Right Said Fred (Groom Jim walking the catwalk!)
• It’s Goin’ Down – Yung Joc
• Let’s Get Married (remix) – Jagged Edge / Run DMC

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wow. Nicely done everybody!

Click here to get a reminder when the wedding photos are ready!

Now if that goofy photographer would just pick a spot to take pictures from and stay out of the way… oops, sorry!

From a production geek standpoint, I was impressed. It upstaged the lighting gear from most the local shows I’ve rigged and worked, pretty slick setup.

If geeking out over production setups isn’t your thing, here’s something everyone can appreciate: a show that looked as good as it sounded! And when a show looks good, it photographs all the better. Here’s a few favorites to illustrate.

News From Verona

Attaboy

This guy Grifin was having such fun in the front row they recruited him to rock out on stage for a song.

If you get the chance, check out Attaboy and News From Verona on the Everything Matters Tour.

The anticipation, nervous energy before the stage comes to life, and one-shot no retakes atmosphere gets my creativity charged up. I absolutely love the countdown to go time. Troubleshooting in a pinch to make it work and look flawless. Fast paced action all around! (These all translate just fine to wedding photography moments too… but that’s another post.)

Earlier this month I joined the production of Caught – a senior thesis turned full out dance production by Hannabeth Fischer. A brief excerpt from the show’s event page goes like this:

Artistically acclaimed “mesmerizing”, “enthralling”, and “beautiful the whole way through,” Caught is up for it’s second run in South Bend, IN. Choreography and film: Hannahbeth Fischer. After a highly successful debut at Saint Mary’s College in November, Caught has grown. Adding two musicians to the original sound artist, Patrick Quigley, the Analecta trio is complete. Analecta is a group of rising local musicians: indie, progressive, classical. http://www.myspace.com/analectaband

Experience a cross-platform performance with digital film and dance, playing on the borders of Dance Theater. Live sound engulfs the entire audience, the entire building. This performance, while beautiful on camera, cannot be experienced anywhere but live. Fischer’s statements about movement, duality, tension, architecture, desire, and interaction permeate the multiple channels.

Audience members should look forward to an exciting new space at LangLab. The truly unique space, conducive to incubation and artist musings, will shock many that it exists in South Bend.

Fischer shot some of the film for the projection in the space, adding a unique parallelism to this run of the piece. This is LangLab’s first full length dance performance. Neither South Bend nor LL have experienced a full kinesphere performance such as Caught, and should make it out to LangLab on December 10. Fischer and collaborators welcome conversation in the post-show hang time.

Aside from the usual available light performance photography I also worked with a great crew to provide video and multitrack audio recording for the performance portfolio DVD project. This was a first to go a huge step past mics-mixer-camera to allow for precise audio postproduction mixing of the single-take recording. Translation: geeking out.

Shots made with Nikon D700 and Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 lens in existing light / video projection.

Technical challenges outside of the recording side included adapting a theatrical stage performance at Saint Mary’s College to the LangLab warehouse art venue (very cool feel!). Full theatrical lighting and dimming control was simplified to fit the intimate space. I do enjoy a good brainstorm and improvisation!

Congrats Hannabeth and the cast of Caught on a wonderful 2nd performance! Glad to have been part of it!

More photos on our Facebook page too, become a fan and see our work as soon as it’s posted to enjoy!

UPDATE! Jan 2011 – Check out the LIVE recording album the band made from the audio tracks from the show.

Call it a sneak preview for tonight’s Kingston Falls reunion show in Napannee.

Last shot of the whole Kingston Falls set, looks like the mic is out of reach.

One shot from Close Your Eyes. It was my first time seeing them and I wouldn’t mind having them in another show soon. There’s a similar version of this shot in the header slideshow on our blog – check it.

Update 11/28/10 -The same gear I took to this show is quickly becoming my lightweight concert photography gear kit I use most:

• Nikon D700 for high ISO low light shots (ISO3200 when dim, less when there’s adequate lighting)
• Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AF wide angle
• Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF macro for closeups on tight stages
• Earplugs – get close to the speakers and amps for tight spots to shoot from without losing your hearing
• Walking to a good angle. Sometimes you gotta walk in front of people or *gasp* up on the edge of the stage for a better-than-camera-overhead-at-arms-length shot. (See next step for bonus tip)
• Knowing people helps. Make friends with promoters, bands, and of course, the production crew. This makes creeping up onstage a little less likely to get you blasted by the guy running the fogger or moved back by stagehands. (I’ve run the fogger and been a stagehand… trust me on this one.)

Nikon D700 with 24mm lens. ISO 3200, 1/25th sec @ f/2.8

10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye lens – 1/4 sec exposure at f/3.5 to burn in some of the color. Not even the black ceiling is that dark any more.

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I’ve always been fascinated by stage productions. The anticipation, split timing and single-take, no-redo LIVE production always seems to be my favorite. I love mixing and producing a live concert. Studio recorded audio is a different world to me. The LIVE version is my preference in photography too – I get charged up from the energy as a bride and groom await their wedding ceremony and celebrate the night away. (Our Engagements and Senior Portrait sessions are pretty lively too, don’t get me wrong.)

Back in 2002 I directed and produced a 3 act play with students in Junior and Senior High school, and it was no easy task. Director Jon West and Assistant Director Laura Miller have my respect and applause for what it must require to produce such a great production with most of the cast far younger than even mine was! Bravo!

The show is on for one more night, come see it for yourself TONIGHT, Friday April 23rd! Click HERE to view the event page with more info.

I gotta say he was looked pretty nervous while Armana Reign played and he waited to grab the mic before Haste the Day’s headlining set. Made me wonder if I looked that way when I asked Sara to marry me in 2005.

Jake greets the crowd, has the staff introduce themselves one by one, and when the last one was done he asked her to come back up. Still held it together pretty well at this point. Grabs the mic and re-introduces Jessica as his girlfriend and says “I’ve got a question for you…” drops the mic, drops to one knee, and gets the hugest smile ever while asking her to marry him. Everyone who could see the stage area went nuts cheering!

Most. AWESOME. Moment. Of. The. Night. – she said YES!

I’ve got to hear some pretty cool engagement stories but up till then hadn’t been in the same room or only a few feet away when the question was asked. WOW. It was crazy amazing excitement everywhere. People were flipping out…

And of course, Haste the Day played an awesome finale to this amazing day.

Congrats Jake & Jessica!

Great night at the Underground Cafe, good to have you guys back.

FLATFOOT 56
9.25.09

http://www.myspace.com/flatfoot56