The Sheepdogs At MTelus

The headlining act of my first concert shoot of the year was Saskatchewan's own, The Sheepdogs.  I heard a few months back that they would be performing at MTelus and after the success of requesting a photo pass to shoot The Beaches back in November, I thought I'd see if I could successfully grab another.  I got my confirmation from their band manager (thank you very much Rebecca) Friday afternoon and was in the pit when they took the stage a little after 9:30PM.  The Sheepdogs shot to fame thanks to winning a contest to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine back in 2011 and a Juno for Best Rock Album in 2012 for their album Learn & Burn, while also winning one for New Group of the Year at the same time.  They have gained a large fan base playing what they call "pure, simple, good-time music" and have released four albums of what I guess could be called Countrified Classic Rock.  Their latest, Changing Colours, was released last February.  Seeing as how I'm used to shooting these shows from the crowd, moving around is never really an option.  In the pit, though space is limited, I am free to roam a little bit while making sure not to get in the way of the other photographers.  To try and get used to this, I told myself I was going to shoot each of the three songs we were allowed to photograph from different spots in the pit.  I began at the far right of the stage and was at the opposite end by the third. Baby steps, but you need to crawl before you can run.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 34mm and the second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 40mm.  Here are some more photographs that I took at the show.

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 30mm

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 34mm

 

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/2.8, 1/800sec, ISO 3200 at 32mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 35mm

f/4.5, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 30mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

The camera problems, which were discuss in the Damn Truth post, and the harsh lighting were a little problematic, but I fought through and think I ended up with some pretty cool shots of the show.  Thank you once again to Rebecca and Evenko for the pass.  Now, off to plan how to acquire photo pass #3.