Sometimes musicians have a moment of collaboration between them and the audience. Its perfect when the crowd correctly interprets the music and lyrics and respond positively. That feeling is so overwhelming and beautiful that as an artist you want that glimpse of adoration to become a lifestyle. If you ever want to experience that collective appreciation have Timothy “Mace” Macon play drums for you. He brings an emotional and skillful approach to drumming that begs to be heard over and over. Need a moment as an artist to be exhorted and remind yourself why you do, what you do? Ask Timothy Macon to play drums for you.

Bob of illphoto.com and I collaborated on this shoot. He should be posting some pics of this session on his blog pretty soon. Until then check out some of his other work which is both amazing and hilarious.

A rapper usually surrounds himself with an entourage on stage, hype men to get the crowd all worked up. I couldn’t be lucky enough. This guy was a solo act-literally-he would invite a singer or a guess emcee one at a time. He actually used his talent to sway the crowd. Imagine that, an emcee that actually relies on talent. I digress. The lack of people on stage made it harder for me to shoot without being spotted. I had to adjust and switch out my shooting gear to carefully execute my plan while not being noticed. It was difficult but I shot him and a few others in the process. The others will not be shown for security reasons.

I have the greatest job in the world…getting paid to shoot people.

It was a rainy and dark night. For a Friday night traffic was unusually slow due to the downpour. The shoot was confirmed earlier in the week and I couldn’t back out now just because of a little rain. I managed to make my way outside the Dallas downtown area to the theatre where the 5 subjects were meant to be shot on stage. As I walked in the theatre it was weird to hear all the crowd singing with the opening act not knowing what would be befall the second set of performers. I entered and slowly made my way backstage and set up my Canon 50d with an 85mm/f1.8 and as soon as they-Free Agent-took the stage I begin rapidly shooting.

Sometime ago I posted some photos of band called “Project 86.” Back in the late 90s and the early 2000s they were a top selling rock act. Well they toured through Fort Worth, Texas with a band called “Spoken.” I forgot I took some pictures of “Spoken” they didn’t all turn out so well but here are some that I thought turned out better than the others. All these were taken at a 800 ISO with various aperture and shutter settings.I hope you enjoy.

Shot with my first digital camera the Canon xti/400D, Canon introductory 24-55mm/f3.5-5.6 lens and no flash.

Tuning Up

Guiding the crowd

…and just in case you forgot; then there was project 86.