The best thing about having a photo pass for a concert is that it gets your camera and lenses in with no questions. The worst part is you can only be in the pit for 3 songs, and then you’re back into the crowd, but everyone is already crowded up against the rail. This means you have to get creative with your shooting. I shot Galactic and Tea Leaf Green at Terminal 5, which is a great venue because they have 2 balconies. Perfect! After the 3 songs went by incredibly quick, I headed right for the balcony to get some shots from above.

Here’s my favorite shot from the pit while I was shooting Galactic, it’s of Cyrille Neville of the Neville Brothers and The Meters:

You would have a hard time creating better light if you took the time to set up lights yourself. The blue backlight mixed with the gold rim light is amazing. The lighting guy doesn’t help you all the time though, and this was one of the few shots I got that was lit nicely. Terminal 5 uses heavy back lighting which means dark faces and blown out backgrounds with lots of lens flares.

Here’s a great example of a nice shot that I got from up on the balcony:

A little exploring around the venue, and you can get some great angles, and have some shots that aren’t exactly the same as the other 10 photographers shooting the show.