Little Feat
When I saw that a legendary band would be playing a small venue in an historic theater in rustic Vermont I knew I had to go. As I attempt to gain experience as a concert photographer one of the most challenging obstacles has been gaining entrance to the concert with my camera. But, as the blogs and twitters of seasoned concert photographers Todd Owyoung ishootshows.com and Brad Moore bmoorevisuals.com are quick to point out, when you don’t have a pass there are indeed ways you can find to attempt to build portfolio shots if you really want to. With no press pass, my choice last Sunday was to buy a ticket. After a quick search of the Paramount Theatre’s website I found they had one prime loge box seat left; I snapped it up. Little feat was to start at 7:30 and so I got to the site at 7:00. The lobby of the building was already abuzz with t-shirt sales and fans enjoying pre-concert libations. Armed with my smallest Crumpler bag housing my D90 with 85mm f/1.8 and 11-16mm f/2.8 I handed the very nice volunteer door person my ticket prepared for the ever dreaded bag search. I had my new Lumix LX5 (a Christmas present) in my pants pocket as a back-up, but to my surprise I was pointed to my seat sans search and told to enjoy the show. Success! Now that I had made it in I made sure to maintain as low a profile as possible, though I did notice an array of other not so discrete picture takers using semi-professional to professional equipment. Little Feat took the stage at exactly 7:30 and the party started. I was able to use my LX5 to get some acceptable images of the entire band from my box seat:
The 85mm f/1.8 combined with my seat choice worked out pretty well:
Near the end of the concert as the energy was really building and the fervent fans had finally made it to the stage for some dancing I used my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 to get a couple last shots before I headed downstairs:
As Little Feat returned for their encore performance of Let it Roll I saw the opportunity to get to the stage and join the dancers who very graciously let me right to the front where I got these shots: 
All in all it was an extremely successful night and I left feeling good about the experience; not to mention that is was an absolutely AWESOME show! I am looking forward to the day when I will hopefully be able to secure a press pass so I don’t have to be quite so surreptitious, but perhaps the lessons I learn from experiences like these until then will help me become a better concert photographer.
You can see all my shots from the concert on my flickr page here.
Until next time – CSH
