The Tour

The tour has been fantastic! In case you hadn't figured it out before, I am on a 12 day tour through California with the musician Paul Wright and the band Rootdown.

The trip has been fascinating! Each stop I have met new amazing people! Meeting new people all over California has been great. Running sound gear in all different venues has been interesting, lots of Mackie and Allen&Heath boards. We had one show that had 3000 people, and other shows that the venue could only hold a small handful.

It has been interesting.

Photography wise, It has been a trip. I have found that my camera is a conversation starter. People have asked me a lot of interesting questions about photography and traveling with bands. I wish i had better answers for them, since this is my first tour as a photographer (and sound guy). It has been cool taking photos of the concerts, and just seeing what I can come up with. There has been some very interesting venues! All of them have been churches for youth groups, or just all church events of some sort except one in a small stage in West Hollywood, and a really cool Irish pub in Huntington Beach. Huntington beach was the only opportunity we had to really see the Ocean.

Tomorrow is the last concert of the tour. It is in Salem, Oregon. Then I will be going back to normal life. I definitely need to start looking for photo shoots again.

First, I need a real job to pay the bills.

It will be nice to be back home in a nice relaxing environment. I am looking forward to getting behind the camera more often for portrait photography and what ever other gigs I can find. It has been fun traveling to places I had never imagined going before. I have met a ton of new people along the way, and it will be really cool to hopefully keep in contact with these people! It is 2:50am, I am really exhausted, and my computer battery is just about exhausted as well.

I am in Medford for the evening, and headed out to Salem tomorrow. I should probably get to sleep so i can wake up tomorrow, and enjoy the day!

Thank you, and God bless you!

Photo Details: This is Jackson, the Bass guitarist for Rootdown, in front of a Porsche that we found earlier today in Chico, California. It was pretty much the most fantastic car that I would ever dream about having!

Summer is Over, What's Next?

This summer has been awesome.

Working at Camp Harlow has been great! Lots of great friendships, and opportunities have been built over the summer. My only regret was that I didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted behind my camera. It often sat around and i felt like it was just collecting dust. Photography is my number one passion and i didn't get many opportunities to let it shine this summer. I have a few photos I need to update my Flickr photostream with, but not as much as i would have preferred. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Now that camp has ended, I have a lot of time to get back in the game. I have been offered an opportunity to travel with Paul Wright and his band to 11 shows down in California and Oregon. I was a little hesitant at first, but now that I have decided to do it, I am completely excited. I still don't have an idea on what to expect. I have been wanting to get some traveling in, but this is definitely an unique opportunity for me.

My job on the tour will consist of a few things. I will be running the sound mixer at each of the concerts, which includes setting up the stage. And on top of that, I will be taking photos at the concerts and just general photos as we were traveling and in between concerts.

As for gear, I broke my SB-600 (and gave it away to my photographer friend from camp) and purchased a new SB-800 to replace it. I also just purchased a new lens, a Nikkor 17-55mm 2.8 DX lens. It's pretty sweet lens, and is much more manageable than my 70-200mm and takes better photos than my 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 DX lens.

So, thats all for now.