Sick Puppies

Sick Puppies opened up for Shinedown a couple of months ago and unfortunately the band did not approve any photo passes so I had to sit and just watch their performance. This was the first time I saw them live and I was floored by their bassist Emma Anzai and I remember thinking “Man I wish I was shooting this show!” simply because Emma was rocking out the entire set! That is something that as a concert photographer I love to see. Having a member on stage with that much prescience and enthusiasm makes for a fun night of shooting.

For this first shot of Emma, I knew I really wanted to catch the movement of her hair as she thrashed about on stage so I chose to slow down my shutter to 1/125th in order to still get that sense of movement but also to still keep some sharpness in the static portions of the photo while also keeping tabs on my camera shake. Looking back on it now I probably could have slowed it down quite a bit more in order to get more motion blur from her but ehhhh…. I’ll try that next time!

Canon EOS-5D Mark II : Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L : 1/125th : f/2.8 : 2000 ISO : 30mm : Manual Mode : 0 Bias : No Flash

This is next shot of Emma is my favorite of the their entire set. Even though you can’t make out her face I still love it because of the nice tight shot of the fret board and bent strings. This one just screamed for a B&W conversion.

Canon EOS-5D Mark II : Canon EF 135 f/2L : 1/200th : f/2.0 : 2000 ISO : 135mm : Manual Mode : 0 Bias : No Flash

As any concert photographer will tell you, photos of drummers are often the most difficult to capture which cause people to usually overlook them. Drummers are tough because they’re set far back from the front of the stage and they’re usually elevated a bit which makes it even tougher to get a good clean sightline for a shot.

This photo of drummer Mark Goodwin was taken with my 135 f2L and was shot at f2 simply because I love the nice soft bokeh of the shots it produces. I mean why else buy a f2 lens if you’re not gonna shoot it at f2 right?! hehe.

Canon EOS-5D Mark II : Canon EF 135 f/2L : 1/200th : f/2.0 : 2000 ISO : 135mm : Manual Mode : 0 Bias : No Flash