And the Show Begins

"Ready to Rock" by Wes Aldridge

The blog shot was especially hard to choose tonight. I was still in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, until 5 p.m. tonight. I had several shots from the community today that would have made for excellent shots to share. But, as Fate would have it, bigger and better things happened tonight.

My good friends, Thaxton Ward, performed at Amsouth/Starwood Amphitheatre tonight before headliner 3 Doors Down. I was issued a media pass that allowed me to shoot the shows. I got some excellent shots of 3 Doors Down performing their first 3 songs in their set, I even impressed myself with some of them. But the shot I went with for today happened right before the band even took the stage. I felt like I witnessed a moment and was able to share it with other people.

I was standing between the mosh pit and the stage in a 4-foot wide clearing to do my photos. I turned around to look at the crowd as the band started to take the stage... and I saw pure energy, so I snapped off one frame. I loved it the second I shot it and knew it was pointless to try and shoot the band for the blog tonight.

The mentality behind this shot was this: Why put up a picture of rockstars that are used to being rockstars everyday of their lives? Why not put up a shot of these young kids that want to be that rockstar or just wish for something magic to happen in their lives? Why not show their raw excitement and faces and starry eyes filled with dreams and hopes? And so, here is my shot.

Timing was everything for this one. I had slowed the shutter down to about 1/40th of a second at f/2.8 with a high ISO of 400. The slow shutter allowed the girls on each side of the main subject to get a motion blur and show some electricity. The looks on these kids' faces were pure and unstaged and no one else in the entire venue saw what I did at that second in time, because all eyes were on 3 Doors Down. I wanted to share this so badly, and it is my offering for the night. Maybe we will look at a concert shot of the band performing tomorrow. Then again, something else might pop up and botch that plan too.