Best new artist Grammy nominee Tori Kelly made her way to Montreal’s Metropolis this week. She may have started out with her youtube videos and auditioned for American Idol, she already seem to have a great stage presence and knows how to work the crowd to get them screaming and singing.
The lights were bright – for you photonerds, being able to go to ISO 800 for a club show is a pretty rare thing these days – the fans were loud and she put on a very entertaining show (hey, I’m not a concert reviewer, that’s as deep as I get 😉 ). The major issue facing photographers tonight was actually getting in the door!
People think that being a show photographer is a glamorous job. While it is a pretty sweet job (when you are paid for it), we are often waiting last minute to know if our request for a photo pass has been approved. Accreditation emails usually come in around 2-3pm the day of the show. We work with it. Management is going from show to show and have a bunch of things to manage each and every night. This time around, we got the go just past 6pm. A little late, sure, as the doors open in an hour. But no biggy. The fun started when I got to the venue around 8pm, and the approvals hadn’t made their way through to the tour manager yet. After emails, calls, texts and lots of small talk, 15 minutes before she was on stage, we finally got our passes.
Seems that the wait was worth it as she was fun to photograph!
You can see the full image set up at Montreal’s own Virgin Radio. As always, here are my faves and a few exclusives.
Little note about the last image above… perfect example of having a microphone kill what would be a great photograph. The lights, the mouvement, the silhouette… sigh.
And yes, I know I can pretty easily photoshop that microphone out, and I may down the road, but my images are usually sent to the media before the show is over (which is after my drive home) and published right away, so no time for photoshop when you are bouncing around like a gummy bear.
🙂