Opening up for Chromeo at the Pageant, Mayer Hawthorne brought a smooth Motown flavor to the night that would have done his home stage of Michigan proud.
Photographer's Notes:
Cameras Used:
- Nikon D3
- Nikon D700
Lenses Used:
Mayer Hawthorne's set was really quite dark, but nothing that some f/1.4 primes couldn't help tame. Still, shooting at f/1.4 still necessitated shooting at an effective ISO 6400, which should give you an idea about the light levels for this set.
I shot this with the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and Nikon 85mm f/1.4 almost exclusively, switching to a few wider shots with the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 just to try and mix things up.
The only real “gotcha” shooting this show was being pulled early out of the photo pit. I'm not even sure how quickly, but it was somewhere around the second or third song. This wouldn't have been unusual except that we were told that we'd have full-set shooting access for Mayer Hawthorne. It's not really clear what the issue was – security said something along the lines of, “They're on stage, it means you gotta go.”
Regardless, Mayer puts on a fun set and plays to cameras – and the crowd – with posing enough that there was plenty to shoot in a short timeframe.
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