You never know who you’ll run into at a music festival. It may be a fellow music photographer, a fan who’d written just days before, or rising Fueled By Ramen stars VersaEmerge.

As it happened, all three happened while I was photographing The Bamboozle in East Rutherford, New Jersey the first weekend in May (especially running in colleagues).

My brother Chris and I ran into Sierra Kusterbeck, Blake Harnage, and Devin Ingelido backstage and were quick to rail off a few portraits. Here are the results.

Photographer’s Notes:

Music festivals are funny things. Shortly after I’d fired off an email to VersaEmerge’s people to set up a portrait shoot, who else should stroll on by the media tent than the band themselves.

I’d last photographed portraits of VersaEmerge when they were on the Love Drunk Tour last year with Boys Like Girls and Cobra Starship, and it was great to bump into them again at Bamboozle.

From the first shot at 2:39pm to the last at 2:42pm, needless to say, this was a very quick shoot.

Lighting:

Since we were shooting in very bright afternoon sun, the goal for these portraits of VersaEmerge was to kill as much of the harsh, nasty sunlight as possible and use the rest as a more subtle accent lighting while our key light did the rest.

Since the primary goal of photographing live coverage, unlike when Chris and I hit Warped Tour 2009, a fast and light lighting setup was essential. As such, we lit this portrait with two Nikon SB-900 speedlights. That were duck-tapped together. Oh, and they were triggered via CLS by the Nikon D700′s onboard flash.

Here’s a crop from the first image showing Chris rocking this flash setup on a monopod:

Exposure for these images was made at ISO 100, f/16, and 1/250, giving a nice touch of underexposure to the sky.

When I think of bare flash, I think of harsh, contrasty, and altogether unpleasant light. Not unlike the midday sun that was overhead during this shoot. But, like so many things, bare flash is never inherently bad – it’s all in how you use it.

End Notes:

Big thanks to Sierra, Blake, and Devin. I’m looking forward for going for the three-peat and photographing VersaEmerge on Warped Tour 2010 – they’re on for the full tour, so check them out.

If you missed them, you can see the last set of portraits I shot with VersaEmerge here:

Portraits: VersaEmerge on the Love Drunk Tour

And of course, the band’s live performance at The Bamboozle is available for viewing here:

VersaEmerge @ The Bamboozle

Florida rockers VersaEmerge kick started my first day at The Bamboozle in East Rutherford, NJ. Having caught their energetic set on the Love Drunk Tour last year, I was eager to see how this group’s live show was evolving. If the fan’s response was any indication, VersaEmerge are set to have a breakout 2010, fresh on the heels of their debut album, Fixed At Zero.

Photographer’s Notes:

Switching gears from dim concert shooting, VersaEmerge’s set at the Bamboozle was a nice way to ease into outdoor festival mode.

It was early enough and the sun was high enough that there was a nice open shade over the stage – perfect and flattering for this sort of live music photography. It was only later in the day when the sun came over the main stages that we were hit with the much harsher full-on sun.

The stages at Bamboozle were pretty manageable, overall. Actually, not too much higher than the Pageant where I shoot so often, so in this regard the stage height was almost a non-issue. What was a nice change, however, was the relatively deep pit at the main stages – more than enough room to move for the small amount of photographers that were credentialed.

For Versa’s set, I rocked the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8.

End Notes:

Want more VersaEmerge? Check out the photo sets from the last time I met up with these rockers:

Photos: VersaEmerge on the Love Drunk Tour 2009

Portraits: VersaEmerge

Also, stay tuned for the portrait shoot my brother Chris and I did with Versa after their at the Bamboozle when we caught up with them backstage.

After our portrait shoot, VersaEmerge flew out of the gates to start off the Love Drunk Tour properly with a crushing performance that the tone for the sold-out show at the Pageant.

Photographer’s Notes:

Prior to the start of the concert, I had a quick photo shoot with Blake, Sierra, and Devin of VersaEmerge and had a blast with the group, so I was eager to catch their stage performance. I’d missed VersaEmerge while I was shooting portraits backstage at Warped Tour this summer, but the group had a lot of buzz and was glad to catch up with them on the Love Drunk Tour.

VersaEmerge put on a fiery set that was a lot of fun to photograph. The band uses three small risers set up at the front of the stage, so in addition to the band’s monitors, there were plenty of props for the band members to get a leg up on to rock out. As it usually goes with a setup like this, it was little bit of “musical chairs,” with the band members on constant rotation on the risers.

I photographed this set with a little bit of wireless flash, with an SB-900 on-camera and an SB-600 as the remote flash.

End Notes:

Stay tuned for the portraits of these guys, as well as the sets from Boys Like Girls and the rest of the bands on this tour. If you haven’t seen them yet, you can see the images from Cobra Starship’s set here, as well as photos of A Rocket To The Moon.

47″ octabox boomed over the band, reflector camera left, two speedlights for rimlighting behind the band.

I caught up with Blake, Sierra, and Devin of VersaEmerge on the Love Drunk Tour for a portrait shoot. We shot with a handful of Nikon Speedlights and one Alien Bees B800 with the 47″ octabox – here are the results.

Nikon SB-900 clamped behind the band, Alien Bees B800 fired through an 47″ octabox above the camera.

Alien Bees B800 fired through a 47″ octabox camera right, 45″ silver reflector camera left, Nikon SB-900 fired camera right behind the band.

Photographer’s Notes:

I had a great time with VersaEmerge – Sierra, Blake, and Devin were all super nice, which always helps on a shoot. I met up with the band in their dressing room at the Pageant, then we walked over to the Moonrise Hotel just down the street.

The Moonrise Hotel is a nice little boutique hotel that opened up earlier this year, and thanks to Harry Lunt, the marketing and sales director for the establishment, we were able to shoot there for the portrait session. Overall, we shot at a total of four separate locations in and around the hotel for this shoot.

For these images, we used a mix of one Alien Bees B800 and several Nikon Speedlights, including three Nikon SB-900s and a couple of Nikon SB-600s. One SB-900 was used as the TTL commander, and the AB was triggered via PC-sync cord.

End Notes:

Thanks to Chelsi, Jessy and Mike for helping coordinate this shoot. Shout out to Blake, Sierra, and Devin for being great subjects.

Finally, thanks to my assistants David and Allyssa.