Jared Polin: Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com and the photo I'm about to show you is what
I think is one of the best live concert shots I’ve ever taken.
Now, it may not be the most perfect photo in the world but I think it represents almost
a perfect live concert shot for this artist at this particular location.
Now the artist is Gavin DeGraw, he plays piano, he was opening for Billy Joel at Madison Square
Garden.
I came up to Madison Square Garden last minute because Gavin was able to get me in to do
photos for the show.
They told me I could shoot two songs, the first two songs from the actual stage so that
was Madison Square Garden stage.
I could basically go where I needed to go and then I would shoot the four or five songs
that he played opening off the stage.
Now, I got a tour before the show of where I can be on the stage and I walked around
this corner.
So basically what happened is the guy walked me up onstage; Billy Joel’s stage manager
walked me and said, “You can go here and you can go here and then you can go into this
area,” which I walked around and as soon as he showed it to me, I was like, “Ahhhh!”
It’s like everything opened up in my mind because I have this visualization of the image
that I want to capture before I even get up to MSG so when I'm on the train, I'm sitting
there thinking – actually, before I even got on the train, when I first knew that Gavin
was going to be playing at MSG, I started to pre-visualize the image that I wanted to
capture in my mind.
And I think that I did end up capturing that image that I saw in my head and it’s the
type of image that any artist would love to have especially because they’re playing
at MSG.
So here’s the image.
This image is meant to be huge.
It’s meant to be printed large.
It’s meant to be – it’s really meant to be seen.
How did I shoot it?
What’s that say?
1/320th of a second at 3.2 ISO 2500, 14 mm with a 14-24 2.8.
I wish I had the GoPro on my camera but I forgot to put it on the top to give you guys
the first-person perspective which is my fault but also, I didn’t want to get in trouble
because there are rules and regulations when you’re doing this type of thing.
So I walked out on the stage right after Gavin started and I came between the two speakers
in the back where I could shoot from and this is what presented itself.
I sat there for the two songs going for a shot just like this.
I think it’s meant to be in black and white but what is great about this shot is you have
the band members.
Gavin is right in the middle.
You’ve got the keyboardist here, you’ve got the guitar player over here, you have
a bass player over here and you have the drummer over here.
Yes, I may be able to just shift to the left a little bit but what I'm looking at in the
camera, because the drummer may be further to the left than these guys over to the right,
what I'm looking at in the camera is the center focusing point.
And that’s where I start and then I move my focusing point to lock in on Gavin.
I'm in single focus not continuous because I want him locked in focus at 3.2m, remember,
with a 14-mm lens, you are basically going to get almost everything in focus.
What makes this such a pivotal image for an artist is the fact that it’s Madison Square
Garden.
The fact that it says Madison Square Garden here; it’s one of the most famous venues,
music venues in all of the world and something like this, it’s like a culmination of somebody’s
hard work throughout their career to get to this position to play in front of a sold out
crowd so what you have here, it says Madison Square Garden.
You know that this is the Garden’s roof.
If you’ve ever seen the Garden, this is what it looks like.
You’ve got all the banners in the background.
Well, I don’t like the Rangers anyway but that’s what’s there.
Something else I noticed later on is that you have the Gavin DeGraw logo that’s showing
up in a reflection on the piano itself.
And all in all – oh by the way, I thought this was a distraction but I couldn’t move
it.
This is a set list, Billy Joel set list because they were coming up next so I still think
it works.
Everything about this image, it’s even left to right, top to bottom, the lines are pretty
darn straight and I am extremely, extremely happy with this shot.
1/320th of a second to help for an emotion, 3.2, it could’ve been anything.
It could have been four, it could have been five, six.
It really wouldn’t have mattered even if I shot this at a 60th of a second, but I wanted
to have the faster shutter speed to freeze what I needed to freeze and this is the shot
that I got.
I am uploading this shot to Flicker at 40x60, full res, grown to 40x60 if you guys want
to go ahead and print it.
For personal use only; I still own the image.
This is my image.
If somebody wanted to purchase it, as in a publication or the band themselves, they can
do so but this is not for republication anywhere.
It’s for personal use, for you to print at home, if that’s what you so choose you
want to do but I'm putting this out into the world.
Please respect the copyrights on it but it’s for personal use.
You can share it.
Just do not sell it or try to call it your own.
That is not a very good thing.
So I had those images but I also had others and I picked what I thought were the best
of the best to tell the story in a couple of shots.
Preshow, sitting backstage, everybody’s waiting to go on.
It’s 6:50, they were going on at eight o’clock so everybody was just hanging out, on their
phone, doing their thing.
This is basically a shot before the show.
Moving forward, now we’re getting closer to the show.
Gavin’s getting ready.
He has his hat ready, he has his suit ready.
This is what he’s wearing on the stage.
You can see I love the extra stuff in the wide angles.
This is a 14 mm vertical.
Yup, shot at 24 mm.
This is the type of shot that it has to be shot at the end of this 14 mm because it would
bow.
Vertical with a 14 mm at 14 is kind of awkward looking but 24 mm definitely works.
I love the fact that he’s getting ready for the show.
You have all the tour stuff just here waiting for it.
The funny thing is all these images are black and white, by the way.
This is right before the show.
It’s set 5,000 ISO, 1/60th of a second at 32.
There’s not a lot of light back there.
This is him just getting ready mentally for the show so that’s what’s going on.
I just love – this is my second favorite shot or maybe my favorite shot compared to
the next one but I love this because you see the stance.
Everybody that’s there is waiting for him to come out.
Everybody is waiting, the music is going to start playing, the show is going to begin
and he’s going to go out.
And then you have this shot, which like I said, you already heard what I said about
it.
And I wanted to go with a vertical from the stage.
You’ve got the spotlight shining on him.
It’s just him, no other band members.
It says Madison Square Garden up here, it has Gavin DeGraw logo up there and then you’re
good.
Then moving in a little tighter.
It’s just one of those shots.
It’s part of the story.
Now, if I didn’t have the wider shots, the story may not represent Madison Square Garden
but being that we have the widest shots to help tell the story, it goes ahead and explains
– this is a great part of the photo story.
Then we have post-show, he’s all excited coming off the stage.
I went down to hear him shooting at 16,000 ISO because the lights were very dim.
They actually turned them on just as he was coming off the stage but I was really happy
with what I was able to get with this image so very happy.
1/80th of a second, 32, 16,000 ISO and then him just talking to some people up in the
stands.
I think it’s a great shot for after the show when everybody’s changing over and
what’s going on?
And I have a couple of shots where he’s over to the left and he’s over to the right.
I just felt that this one worked best right in the middle.
Now going back to this full res image real quick, I am going to see the before and after.
By the way, I got this – this guy sent me this KB covers.
I think they’re like condoms for your screen, sorry, for your keyboard.
So it has everything written on it and we’ve got before and after buttons.
I didn’t even know the shortcuts.
So all of it is right here.
Here’s before and after.
That’s the blue of before and after and then that is the black and white of what I
captured when I went ahead and processed it.
So, this is the full res image.
I think this is the type of thing that is one of the best shots that I’ve taken and
I pre-visualized seeing this for many, many years and it just so happened that I was finally
able to get up onstage in Madison Square Garden and get the shot that I was visualizing.
This full res image is over on the website.
You can click on it.
Go ahead and take a look but I made it big, 40x60 for anybody that wants to take a look
and enjoy it.
So there you have it, Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com.
See ya.