On a whim, I reached out to the Skull and Roses team via email, expecting to get denied for a media pass as I had never shot a concert (or any event for that matter). ย I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from Dennis McNally of all people who for some reason thought I was worthy of a photo pass.
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I was both honored and excited to take my first stab at concert photography, especially at Skull and Roses. ย I felt like this opportunity warranted a lens with a little more reach so I decided to rent an f/4 70-200 from Panasonic. ย This wound up working great as the artists were at least 10-15 feet from the photo platform. ย My f/2.4 24-70 did great for wider shots of the stage and some crowd photos, but glad I took the 70-2oo with me.
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Nonetheless, I was both nervous and eager to take a stab at this. ย I've loved photography as both a means for creativity as well as just to document travels and places we go, so merging those two things with live music really seemed like a perfect mesh for some things I spend a ton of time doing already.
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I initially had a ton of imposter syndrome being on the same platform as people like Jay Blakesberg, Susana Miliman, and Bob Minkin, but for some reason, it relatively quickly went away. ย I like to think I was realizing my legitimacy, but it was probably the beer.
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Big fan of Jerry's Middle Finger as well. ย They have probably been my favorite band under the Grateful Dead umbrella I've seen since moving to California.
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I was especially looking forward to shooting Dark Star Orchestra. ย I've got a soft spot for them, I think they not only do a phenomenal job at carrying the torch
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Being so close to Phil Saturday night was truly surreal and at this point I was feeling pretty nervous. ย The crowd was as big as it would get the entire weekend, thousands were no doubt tuning in via the streams across the globe, and here am I, a literal concert photography rookie with around 10-15 other people blessed with the opportunity to shoot one of the most culturally influential musicians in the last 60 years.
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All things considered, I think I killed it. ย I didn't get all the angles I would have liked, but photography seniority took over quickly on the platform near the stage and I got out of there around 15 minutes after Phil started.
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I wound up taking it mostly easy and chilling with new friends on Sunday but made sure to get back to the photo pit for Phil's final set.
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Looking forward to hopefully shooting Skull and Roses again next year and more concerts this year as well โ going to do my best to just reach out to local artists in the Bay Area without overextending myself too much. ย Keep an eye out for more concert photos and cross your fingers for me ๐ค โ most of the rest of my photos from Skull and Roses 2023 can be found here.