Surrounded by lush grounds of the Missouri Botanical Garden, singer Erin Bode charmed the audience with her sparkling personality and mellifluous voice at the 2008 Whitaker Music Festival.

Backed by her jazz trio, Bode performed songs from her new release, The Little Garden, providing the perfect kick-off to the annual festival.

Photographer’s Notes:

This was a last minute shoot that came up, but I was pleasantly surprised by the opportunity. The last time I’d seen Erin Bode was at a private party/recoding session a few years ago. It was a late-night affair with a dark, club ambiance that couldn’t have contrasted more starkly to the warm afternoon glow that surrounded the Whitaker Music Festival’s opening night.

The performance took place on a ground-level stage of the garden’s natural amphitheater, and I shot from the front of the stage at the front fringe of the crowd.

There were no song restrictions and I shot sparingly over the course of half an hour during the first part of Erin’s set. Since this was a basically a seated event, I limited my movements and shot from a crouching or kneeling position throughout the set.

Lighting:

The lighting for the first portion of the set was almost entirely natural light. The performance began at 7:30pm, so it was the perfect time to catch the last of the sun’s glow through the clouds.

The stage was covered, so the performers were in open shade with soft light coming through the back.

Lenses & Gear:

I shot this set using the Nikon D3 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8. The range of the zoom was great for this type of work and let me sit on the grass in front of the crowd without having to move too far forward.

Exposure & Metering:

Due to the soft, even lighting, the exposure on this shoot was pretty much a snap. I dialed in 1/500 and f/3.2 at ISO 1600. As the sun set and the ambient light fell, I lowered the shutter speed to 1/250.

End Notes:

Again, this was a great surprise and I’m glad I had the opportunity to photograph Erin Bode and her band. I’m looking forward to what the rest of the Whitaker Music Festival brings in the next few months.

But in the meantime, back to the rock show.

Jill Scott didn’t bring her three Grammies, but you could hear every one of them in the electrifying performance the virtuoso singer delivered at the Fabulous Fox Theatre.

Scott treated the sold-out crowd of 4200 to a rich set list, starting off with “Let It Be” from her 2007 release, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3, followed by that album’s title track.

After her performance of “The Real Thing,” Scott paused between songs to reiterate the song’s second verse for the uninitiated.

I ’m more than a toy for your satisfaction
I’m a pay-per-view on the TV screen
Your main attraction

By the end of the night, there was no doubt about the veracity of these lyrics. Fact: the woman’s got pipes.

Photographer’s Notes:

Just as with shooting Raheem DeVaughn‘s opening performance, photographing Jill Scott’s set proved an interesting challenge given the setup of the Fox Theatre. Without a dedicated security/photo pit, I shot crouching down in the aisles of the venue and generally tried to stay as out of the way as possible. This approach, combined with the layout, restricted composition to a degree, but the spectacular production won out in the end.

I shoot for the first two songs, and was glad that I brought my casual kicks instead of my dress shoes. While the latter would have been perfectly at home in the posh theatre and among the well-dressed crowd, flexible and comfortable shoes were an absolute must for this gig.

Unlike the high stage of the Pageant, the Fox Theatre’s stage is only about four feet, which would have made standing all too conspicuous.

Lighting:

The production opened with a loose grid of shifting lights behind Scott, which created a fantastic backdrop of color and texture with the surprising amount of smoke being generated on stage. During the first song, this curtain of lights rose to reveal the full band and backup singers, along with a variety of more environmental lights. During the first and second songs, this mix included reds, greens, yellows, purples, and blues.

Light on Scott herself was warm, thin light from high above – no such luck with a spotlight for the first two. While the front lighting was weak, there was generally more than enough action in the background to keep things interesting.

Since much of the lighting occurred at the back of the stage, I shot primarily from fairly acute angles to keep the background as lively as possible. Shooting from the sides produced the best mic separation, but simply didn’t do justice to the lighting production.

Exposure & Metering:

Since the light on Scott was relatively constant, I shot within a fairly narrow range – around f/3.2 and 1/250 at ISO 2500, give or take a third-stop in any direction.

Lenses & Gear:

I shot with the Nikon D3 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 for almost the entire set. Given the moderate distance from the performer, the range of the telephoto was most welcome. I did switch to the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 for just one shot of the full stage, knowing I’d be remiss if I missed capturing the full setup.

End Notes:

Below are two snaps of the Fabulous Fox Theatre itself, in between sets. You can see that despite the size of the venue, there is actually a good deal of haze in the place, which was put to good use during Jill Scott’s performance. The Fox is a wonderful venue.

At 81-years old, Tony Bennett still knows how to work a crowd. Backed by a four-piece backing band, the legendary jazz singer graced the Fox Theatre with standards and original tunes spanning his over half-century of performing.

Bennett was all smiles for the show, and seemed to genuinely relish his time on stage and in the spotlight. And for someone who has been performing with such endurance as he has, it seems only natural that he would be at home in front of a crowd. While his voice is no longer what it was at its peak, Bennett’s charm and style won out in his performance, and Tony Bennett laying down classics is still simply just that.

The silver-haired singer seemed to have all the moves down to muscle memory as he sailed through the first three songs, holding the mic in his left hand with expert control while gesturing expressively with his right.

Photographer’s notes:

Despite all the necessary safety measures, like having a copy of the confirmation and an emergency contact number, shooting Tony Bennett’s performance still proved a mild difficulty in receiving credentials at the venue. With no photo passes and no list, security was out of the loop, as was the production coordinator. While the former was not that big of an issue, the latter proved troublesome, since she was also listed as the emergency contact. Still, everything worked out and I was granted access to shoot after Bennett was into his second song.

For this quick one-and-a-half song shoot, the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lived on the D2X, and it’s range was perfect. While I don’t often use the lens for stage-front concert photography, with a fifth-row shooting restriction, the telephoto range of the zoom was just perfect for the singer, particular at 150mm and above.

With relatively bright spotlights on Bennet throughout his performance, exposure was relatively easy: 1/200 second at f/2.8 and ISO 1250 (HI-0.7 on the D2X) was used for all shots.