Opening up for John Mayer on the Battle Studies Tour 2010, Michael Franti & Spearhead delivered an explosive performance on stage in the way any great opener delivers. With bright, colored lights and a bevy of interesting subjects on stage, I loved photographing this energetic group as a prelude to Mayer's more contained set.
Photographer's Notes:
Michael Franti & Spearhead were just plain fun to photograph. While there was a ton of activity on stage that made tracking difficult at times, the sheer energy and number of great subjects on stage made this a great concert photography shoot.
I was shooting this concert double-barrel, with the Nikon D3 and D700 and all my f/2.8 zooms.
There was generally plenty of light, and this could have been a “low” ISO 800 shoot, but I wanted to keep shutter speeds up and shot happily at ISO 1600.
For this concert, the real challenge was close ups of Michael Franti himself – for most of the long three songs, he was running around and hyping the audience. With the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 and a few dedicated moments to the singer, perseverance was really key here in delivering clean shots of the singer's face.
