Rolling through on his Declaration Tour, David Cook stopped at the Pageant to deliver a tight and crowd-pleasing set that pulled from his self-titled debut as well as new material, much to the delight of his fans.
Photographer’s Notes:
I didn’t come into this show with any preconceptions, but after photographing David Cook’s performance, I came away mightily impressed. Not only did the American Idol winner come out rockin’, he did so with a great stage performance and a very tight set.
For the first two songs, Cook rocked out behind is mic stand for the most part and didn’t leave the monitors except for a few trips to the back of the stage. The real treat came at the end of the third song, when the Idol winner came to the front of the stage on two occasions. For my shooting, this was easily the best part of the gig and it was great to get some shots of Cook going to twon on his Gibson.
I photographed this set with my standard setup for these club shows – the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 on the D3 and D700, respectively. Thanks to spotlights, exposure was not a problem, and I shot at ISO 1600 for the entire three songs.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with american idol, david cook, live, music photographer, Music Photography, photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Welcome to ishootshows.com, the premier site for music photography featuring daily concert coverage, portrait features, and photo advice from professional music photographer Todd Owyoung.
My name is Todd, and I love the rock show. My work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, the New York Times, Alternative Press, Metal Hammer, Entertainment Weekly, and Billboard Magazine. I'm available for worldwide travel for editorial and commercial assignments.
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Holy canoli! These are absolutely amazing! And thank you for sharing your photog secrets with your camera and ISO settings. These are wonderful…
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the comment, I’m glad to hear you enjoy the photos. I’m happy to share what info I can!
Great shots! Did you get any of the rest of the band?
Hi Kathy,
I did get a few shots of David’s guitarist, but for the most part I just concentrated on DC. Thanks for the comment.
Thanks for posting these amazing shots! I was there & it was an amazing show! I’m glad you enjoyed it too.
I agree with Amanda… as someone who is an aspiring concert photographer, I love your blog as you take some GREAT shots, and you let us know what you used settings and lens wise :) It is a great help! Thank you!
You are so talented! These are gorgeous… of course the subject make it easy ;)
Hey Todd,
These shots are amazing. I’ve seen a TON of pics taken of Dave throughout this tour and these are probably some of the BEST! I was actually standing right behind you during this shoot, anytime you were shooting on stage right. Dave and the guys DO put on a great show and he’s a great subject to photograph. Thanks so much for sharing. I’m now lusting after your equipment. (uh, your PHOTOGRAPHY equipment, that is. lol)
Holy! That’s some GREAT pictures there!!! But… I wish you shot the whole band, though.. They’re just as awesome as David is :D
Hi Todd! I am a photographer and a huge David Cook fan. I had the pleasure of photographing him a few months ago here in California during a stop on his tour. I absolutely LOVE your photos of him and so glad to have found you and your work. Thanks for posting!
Wish I’d known that was you down there! I was off to the side, so my photos didn’t turn out nearly as well. I shot a lot of David’s shows as a fan and ended up getting a gig as a concert photographer for a paper here because of it. He puts on a great show.
Fantastic
These are great pictures. You really captured his stage persona. Thanks for sharing them.
You got some amazing shots!David is very photogenic. Just thought you might want to know that a lot of them are getting tweeted tonight.
Keeping it short and sweet: I knew that these shots would totally be worth waiting for! Nice job, as always! :)
I have a quick question. Whenever I use an ISO above 400, my photos come out very grainy. Even at 800, I think they look bad. Is there a big difference between a high end digi P&S and a digi SLR in that area?
Hey Kathy,
As Elisa suggested, there will be a fairly significant difference between a high endP&S and even an entry-level DSLR. With larger sensors, most DSLRs are going to offer much better performance at high ISO, with less noise and more detail than most P&S cameras can offer.
amazing pictures! thanks for sharing :-) I’m really tempted to “borrow” one as my desktop wallpaper, lol.
Great set Todd…I know quite a few DC fans will/are more than excited to see such great shots…shot him myself when he hit Seattle this summer…
I’ll let you answer Kathy re ISO more explicity but in a word: yes (big difference:)
Hi everyone, thanks so much for all the comments on the images here. It’s great to hear from so many fans – I hope I did David Cook justice for all of you!
Hey Todd, thanks so much! I have an entry level DSLR and it’s good to know that I can bump up the iso on that with less damage than on the P&S Getting a new P&S with a cmos sensor shortly. Hoping for some improvement.
Thank you very much for sharing the great photos you took of David Cook. I am a big fan of his but I also love photography and I will continue to check out your blog and work!
Todd, are you kidding??!!! You hope you did David justice!!! Oh yeah, you sure did! No, they are downright the best shots of him taken indoor live that I have seen. They are fantastic! I am now a regular visitor to your blog, looking forward for what’s to come.
great shots of a great performer. hope you’ll be shooting david’s other gigs too :D
Thanks for the feedback – I’d love to cover other shows, but will probably wait until his next tour. Hopefully that will just be next year.