State Theatre, St. Petersburg Florida - March 11, 2010

If you’ve been following me on Twitter for a while, you may remember this as the concert of many tweets.  Being my first time shooting in this venue, I didn’t know what to expect. First thing I noticed - no photo pit. The crowd was just leaning right up against the stage.

Luckily I’m a charming enough guy and was able to get into decent enough position to get some good shots.  The trick? Ask if you can stand somewhere for thirty seconds and you’ll be out of the way. Hasn’t not worked for me yet!

Graham Colton was the opener, and the artist I was officially there to shoot.

At first I was shooting from the side since there wasn’t much room to move through the crowd. Then the security guard I was standing beside asked if I wanted to go out in the middle and shoot… So, of course I said yes!

Next thing I know, he’s parting the waters and guiding me out to the middle of the crowd! No complaints here :)

The easy thing about Graham was that he’s a one-man-band, so it was just variations on the same theme. I tried to mix it up and get dynamic angles (read: tilt the camera) and both wide and tight shots.

After Graham finished, it was time for Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers.

Stephen Kellogg

I asked the security guard if I could go stand on the side stairs and shoot for a few seconds…

SK6ers

Yep :)

Kit “Goose” Karlson

Stephen Kellogg and Sam Getz

They put on a great show, and the crowd loved them.

After a stage change, it was time for Needtobreathe to come out. This band has quickly become one of my favorites over the past few months, so I was pretty stoked to see them.

Bear Rinehart and Seth Bolt

Bo Rinehart

 
David Leonard (well, his silhouette anyway)

David Leonard (for real this time)

Bear Rinehart

Seth Bolt

Joe Stillwell

Seth again - Probably my second favorite shot of the night

During the show, I got a text from a friend asking if I was at the Needtobreathe concert.  He’d spotted me from the VIP balcony, but wasn’t for certain it was me.  He invited me to come up and shoot from there for the rest of the show.

As you can see, this gave me a better vantage point from which to better capture the ever-changing background in its various stages, and…

Get crowd shots.

My favorite of the night.

You can check out Needtobreathe’s latest album here, SK6ers’ here, and Graham Colton’s (latest full-length) here. He has newer EPs on his site