Great weekend.  Jammed packed full of shooting.  One of the highlights of the weekend was the ability to shoot all-access for Alternative Press magazine at the Fall Ball tour stop in DC.  I had the opportunity to shoot the soundchecks and show.  A very unique experience.  Check out my gallery on AltPress.com!

Photos like this one of Chris Wallace from the The White Tie Affair is why I love being in the photo pit.  I've been reluctant to use my 50mm lens on my Nikon D90 because of feared focusing issues.  I don't think I had a problem last night and I used it again tonight with Guster and was very happy. 

A fitting song.  This is a shot from The Bravery show at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C.  They had lighting with a lot of movement and red/orange tones which made shooting slightly difficult.  

Speaking of difficult... I continue to get denied photo passes for shows.  It's slightly discouraging, but oh well.

In celebration of their new single, "Mess of Me," Switchfoot has sent links to fans via Twitter to share world wide.  I received a message from the band this morning and will be hiding this CD with the mp3 and a folder of my Switchfoot photos in DC tomorrow.  Be on the look out for location via www.twitter.com/barricadebuzz!

Yesterday I was at FreeFest, which was one heck of an experience.  I had a great time at the festival and it was a wonderful opportunity to photograph so many high profile bands like Taking Back Sunday, The Bravery, Jet, Weezer, and Blink 182.  It was, however, a tough shoot.  

There were about 30 photographers in a very confined pit, making mobility impossible, so you had to hope you were in a lucky spot.  By the time Blink came on, our 2 song set (not the regular 3) was cut down to 1.5, which for my group (they ended up splitting us up), was a curtain drop, an intro, and part of "What's My Age Again."  Translation? 50 frames.  I think I walked away with maybe 5 decent shots.  I left the pit feeling rather defeated.  I take my time at any show seriously and I was disappointed, actually, beyond disappointed.   Anyways, here they are.

I guess everyone who won the All Access showed up. (sad face).  Oh well, I kind of figured that no one in their right mind would pass up an all expenses paid trip to Baltimore.  Anyways, I can't be too bummed over it, I'll still be at Free Fest this weekend and photographing Blink 182 for Alternative Press.  Tomorrow I'm headed to 6 Flags America to catch the MTV VMA tour with All Time Low and The White Tie Affair; 'should be a good time.

Oh, by the way you can check out some amazing photos of today's band, The Daylights, by the talented Steven Taylor.

I photographed Switchfoot last night.  They have got to be another one of my favorite bands to shoot.  The show up at Ram's Head in Baltimore, MD was pretty crazy.  Frontman, Jon Foreman, ascended to the second floor balcony and proceeded to sing from the steel structure.  Despite security freaking out, Jon decided to return to the stage by descending down the steel column.  Don't believe me?  Check the video.  Photos too!

I'm hoping this KHS song to be true.  At the end of every summer, the Baltimore-Washington area puts on the Virgin Mobile Fest.  This year, Virgin Mobile has decided to cater to those affect most by the harsh economic times and re-name the event, Free Fest.  Yup, 35,000+ tickets were made free to the public.  The event is featuring Blink 182, Weezer, Taking Back Sunday, The Bravery, Franz Ferdinand, and many more artists. 

There have been many events happening leading up to the big weekend... which happens to be this coming weekend.  One of those included the Kyocera All-Access contest, which would provide 14 lucky winners the opportunity to document the festival, everything from the show set up, band interviews, to the performances themselves.  I applied earlier in the summer with the hopes of being one of the lucky 14.  Last week I survived the first round of applicants and received a phone interview.  I totally blew the phone interview (yes... I realize my phone skills need work.  They're getting better, I promise).  Anyways, I was pretty disheartened when I didn't receive a follow up phone call later in the week.

Tonight, however, I have been informed that I am on the waiting list; a pretty incredible feat since I botched the phone interview, and there were over 2,000 applicants.  So I guess this makes me #15?  I'm hoping it's a lucky number because this would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Keep your fingers crossed!

Like A Storm at the Nissan Post Pavilion in Bristow, VA

I had a bunch of people make some remarks to me about going to Creed last night.  Honestly, I could care less what they think about Creed, it was a pretty cool show.  I really enjoyed photographing them and Like A Storm-- though I only was allowed one song for LAS (Thanks LiveNation...)  Such high profile acts are great to shoot because their stage set up is of a higher quality, meaning more lights; and well, more lights means better shots. One of the cooler things I got to experience last night was photographing pyrotechnics.  Usually such things happen outside the first three songs, but not this time.  It was insane!  Photos to come!