One valuable lesson I have picked up during my time at the Washington Post is big country shows make for the best photos. Country shows are exactly that, shows. Spectacles. The artists work very hard to give their fans the show they want. The lights for these shows are generally much better than the average rock show. The artists actually want to be seen. Imagine that.
Tim McGraw was no exception. Even though the show was a soundboard show, I was confident I would still get some good shots, and I did, even though it didn’t exactly work out the way I envisioned it.
Tim’s stage had a catwalk extending way out into the floor seats from the stage. His publicist said he generally comes down the catwalk during song three, but the night before he also did it during song two. Well, for our show he spent all three songs there. Normally that would be great, but the soundboard at Jiffy Lube isn’t very high up and the people standing in front of their seats blocked my view of Tim whenever he got too far down the catwalk.
I moved around a bit to change vantage points whenever a kid on her dad’s shoulders or someone holding their digicam blocked my view. Tim’s hat proved to be a real problem as well. he wears a huge black cowboy hat that generally blocked his face unless he looked up at the crowd, which only happened when he wasn’t singing.
I shot this show with my Nikon D3 and a rented 300mm/2.8. Full photo set below:
Tim McGraw @ Jiffy Lube Live – Images by Kyle Gustafson
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