Taylor Swift Concert Photography

Taylor Swift is such an expressive subject to shoot. She is cotton candy, kittens, and Hollywood glamour all rolled into one.

For concert photography, the last thing you want is for your images to look like everyone else's. What many don't understand about concert photography is at each show there is at least 10 photographers in the pit. They shoot for blogs, webzines, local news media, and for the stock photo houses. After a while, all the pictures start looking the same, because all photographers are given the same time frame to shoot: the first three songs.

Finding different ways to capture the artists is probably one of the biggest challenges I enjoy the most with concert photography. I always try to break away from the herd. Photographers have a bad tendency to bunch up inside the pit ( and somedays there is just no avoiding that due to space, or lack of).

Yes, you need the "money shot." The one picture of the artist which makes them look most appealing, good facial feature, expressive. But, after you have 50 frames of that shot, use the rest of your time to be creative.

Look for quirky facial expressions. Look for a chance to become artistic. Look for fan interaction and for moments that you are NOT going to see in every other photographer's portfolio.

Trick ® Treat !

Halloween is, without a doubt, my most favorite holiday. The only other one that comes close to it is Christmas.

Each year, my husband and I hand out over 15 pounds of candy to our neighborhood kids. We deck out of front porch and take pleasure in the fact we have a reputation as being 'one of the good houses' for parents to bring their little hobgoblins to.

I love the fact we live in the Heartland where people can still bring their children to a neighbor's front door and not really have to worry about safety, or what some nefarious person has put into the candy.

So, here is to Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfingers, Snickers, and Hershey Bars. Blow Pops, Dum Dums, and Double Bubble. Last year we had almost a 100 trick or treaters. Can't wait to see how many we get tonight.

One of our family traditions is homemade paper lanterns. We make 20 each year and light our walk and front yard to welcome our trick or treaters. I love the response from the kids, especially the ones that have been coming to our house for as long as they can remember.

Happy Halloween everyone.

METALLICA: World Magnetic Tour

Metallica's World Magnetic Tour

Metallica has been on their World Magnetic Tour for two and a half years. It will wrap up it's final show in Australia next month.

Out of all of the bands in the world Metallica is the one band who simply is the best to photograph live.

James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Robert Trujillo are four of the best live performers on the planet. They give absolutely everything and it shows from their body language to their facial expressions.

I was lucky enough to photograph Metallica twice on this tour and they are the one band I would shoot for free, and I never work for free. 

It's not just the band which makes shooting Metallica so memorable; it is their fans.

Over the past decade Metallica's fan based has morphed into a wonderful metal melting pot. Teenagers are now bringing their parents, parents are bringing their children, and Metallica's original fan base, who is now in their early 40's to late 50's, are still just as passionate about their band as they have been since 1981.

Below are a handful of my favorites from Metallica's World Magnetic Tour. In the two times I went in to photograph them I walked away with over 800 shots from each performance. 

For more pictures from Metallica's World Magnetic Tour just go to my website H E R E

Audra Mae

I had the pleasure to do a quick photo session and extensive interview with Audra Mae at SXSW. Audra Mae is a uniquely gifted singer/songwriter signed to OneSideDummy Recorders, who happens to have signed another of my favorite bands - Flogging Molly.


Audra Mae gained much notoriety last year when her haunting and soulful cover of Bob Dylan's Forever Young was featured on the Fox series, Sons Of Anarchy.

This shot is the perfect example of shooting on the fly. It was taken in the hall outside of Audra's hotel room and I used a camera mounted Nikon Speedlight to give me nice contrasting bounce light off of the left wall.

We did a quick series of ten shots and then Audra was on her way to perform a riveting set to an eager SXSW crowd.

Audra was truly delightful to interview and she is a stunning natural beauty to photograph.

Post production on the above image included some slight feather retouch on her cheeks, with little to minor retouching under her eyes to help enhance their sharpness.


For the image below I did two extremely high key exposures and shot in RAW format black and white.

30 Seconds To Mars - behind the scenes with Leto

This is one of my favorite candid shots taken after the 30 Seconds To Mars concert.... after shooting the show, I was able to sit back and enjoy the band taking time to do autographs for their fans.

Jared Leto was in rare form and I live for capturing moments like this

Session 2 with The Pretty Black Chains

Two weeks ago I was in Oklahoma City to do a 1950's inspired session with the staff of Oklahoma Film & Music.

While there, I had another session with The Pretty Black Chains. I recently went to Cain's Ballroom to embed with PBC's for their groundbreaking performance opening for the Smashing Pumpkins.

Out of the many Oklahoma bands I have covered of the past years, The Pretty Black Chains are without a doubt the band poised to break through into the national market.

Their sound, and stage presence invokes the feeling of MORE, that they are more than a band who has only been together for two years... that they are more than a band in Oklahoma City. The Pretty Black Chains have the IT factor that is going to land them in the rare group of bands who make it out of the local scene and into rock history.

I started documenting the Pretty Black Chains at South By Southwest, in March of this year. Since then I have been following their rapidly changing sound, flourishing from British inspired pop rock to heavy guitar driven rockers.

Here are a few of my favorites from my latest session with the Pretty Black Chains.