March | 2013 | A Smorgasbord Visionary

So last Thursday I got to shoot Tiesto’s College Invasion tour. You can find my little write up and gallery here.

If you have known me for any amount of time, you would know that I have been addicted, seriously addicted any sort of EDM music for the most part of my life…since I could drive. I won’t age myself just yet. But I am surprised that it has taken me this long to get into this type of photography!

My favorite part of the night had to be the energy I felt from the DJs….being able to clearly see their satisfied expressions from front row, aka. the PIT…..and being able to feel the crowd’s energy from within arms reach. No, no….wait, it was definitely the body rattling bass from being directly on the speakers. No, no, nooo… it was being able to work and photograph a passion that has been on-going for almost 18 years now! …wait, shit, did I just age myself?! Oh god…anyway…. Well, I’ll tell you, it definitely wasn’t the flying alcohol that I walked into as I was passing into the pit for the sets!

Lets just say….It was a great experience all together, and I certainly plan to shoot another event like this! You can count on it.

Here are a few photos and of course some thoughts from the night:

I only got to see Alvero exit the stage, so yea guilty, I missed the first set. It was all so intense and confusing and well I guess I thought Tiesto was playing at 7pm! Duuur….I really can’t believe I thought that. But since Alvero was a part of the show, I definitely didn’t want to leave him out whether it be one photo or not!

The shooting conditions weren’t as ideal as I had hoped for. I was already afraid of the 20 minute time limit we had, which actually turned out to be plenty, maybe too much time! BUT the viewpoint from the pit was pretty LOW. It took me a while to start copying the Prime Social photographer’s technique which was to hold the camera high above my head and shoot blindly…which I haven’t ever been too good at! I have a hard time getting a straight shot when I am looking right through the view finder on any given day! I’m all around crooked…. *wink*

It seems as if I have a set of very happy floating heads! At one point, a few guys from the crowd tried to convince me that I could use the ladder that was pretty much directly against them on the wall and that they wouldn’t push me. That wasn’t my worry in the first place (really? do people do that??lol)….It was more the concern of being in their way and I guess just extremely close proximity with young college guys!? I dunno, maybe.

Quintino’s smile was full of satisfaction and very contagious. He gave me a very happy feeling. I don’t imagine I would get this benefit being amongst a far away crowd.

I’ll admit, there’s a simple joy about watching these guys head bang to the BASS…I don’t listen to headbanger music or heavy metal, which to me is very different to watch those guys do….but headbanging and fist pumping to BASS, well yes, that’s different and I like it!

This guy, Tommy Trash, exuded a much different personality…no smiles and joy, more like some serious PASSION.

Now, look at this photo below. This was the ladder I was invited to stand on in order to get a better view of the DJ without holding the camera as high above my head as possible. See how he’s pointing it out for me? you?….? I thought this group of photos was hilariously related to what he was asking, as if he’s demanding I use the ladder in the first photo and then in the second photo he throws his hands up like, “C’MON!?” and then finally in the third he is begging “Please!” HAHA I got a trip outta that.

He was quite the ham though, since most of my crowd shots included him looking at the camera in some different way countless times. Even the photos I saw by Prime Social included some photos of him looking right at their camera while the rest of the people watched the stage! Silly….

The fans, gotta love them…I DO! Their energy is so exciting to me! Every time the bass dropped, I could feel their energy explode! It’s unfortunate that when all of the fans were at their hypest for the camera and literally hanging over the rails posing as crazy as they could that they did not realize that I was waiting for the lights to shine on them. Once the lights shined on them was when the bass was hitting hardest and then no one was paying me attention anymore! So the wildest fan photos were just too dark to process. Merp.

So many restrictions. Only shoot from the pit, only the first 20 minutes, no shots on the way out, no wide angle shots, no shots from behind the crowd, no stage shots. Restrictions, restrictions!

**And here comes Tiesto and HIS Light Show!**

The best shot I could get while his name was lit up and framed right was with a huge smoke blower right in the way! nice…

I liked the photo enough to keep it, but even though I had more, only one with the smoke blower is needed.

Well now the crowd was very well lit, so lit that looking toward Tiesto was crazy blinding and too much for photos of him! And I really shouldn’t have bothered trying to take photos of the crowd until Tiesto’s lights came out!