@davidbergman

Yesterday I was in Jacksonville for a few hours to photograph Christian metalcore band Oh, Sleeper for Kerrang. The band is on tour and Jacksonville just happens to be where they were playing on the day that I was available.

The toughest part about this type of job is that I have to fly in and find a place to do a shoot very quickly. I’ve been to Jacksonville a few times, but have never scouted for locations.

After I landed, I went to the venue to see if it might work. It was locked and there was no one there, so I just walked around the neighborhood.

What did I find about a half a block away? A church! Too cliché for a Christian band? Maybe. But it was all I had and time was ticking.

I walked into the church offices and explained my situation to the director (“See, I’m shooting a Christian rock band for a British music magazine and would love to photograph them in your beautiful church.”)

To my surprise, he agreed.

I called the band to tell them where I was and began setting up my lights.

I kept my lighting very simple. I turned off most of the ambient light except for the altar and used a Nikon SB-800 with a Honl snoot in the front. It was placed as high as my stand would go and centered right over my head. I put a warming gel with some bubble wrap (yes, bubble wrap) in front of the snoot to soften the light a tad.

I also put a bare SB-800 in the back. It’s zoomed all the way so it doesn’t spread out too much.

I used the snoot in the front because it focuses the light onto their faces and upper body. I wanted the light to fall off at their legs and, more importantly, stay off of the carpet in front of them. If I had any stray light on the floor, it would wash out those nice beams of shadow being created by the back light.

Specs:
Nikon D3 body
Nikon 24-70 mm lens
Shutter speed: 1/13 sec (to bring up the ambient light in the background)
Aperture: 4.0
ISO: 800
Front light w/snoot: Nikon SB-800 on 1/8 manual power
Back light: Nikon SB-800 on 1/4 manual power
Both strobes triggered with pocket wizards

Right before I shot my first frame, a sweet older woman came in to practice on the pipe organ. Talk about cliché. It was pretty cool to hear that blasting away during the shoot as it really enhanced the mood.

The shoot went great, I packed up my bags, made sure everything was exactly as we found it, and left to catch my flight home.

As the TSA guy was screening my bag for explosives at the airport, he said he was impressed with how nicely my camera gear was packed. From a man who looks in people’s suitcases all day, I’ll take that as a compliment. Luckily he didn’t think my snoot presented any kind of threat.

It’s always cool when you can do a favor for friends and help raise awareness for a great cause at the same time. When Maureen and Tom Cavanagh asked me to shoot a charity basketball game in Harlem, there was no way I could turn them down.

Tom Cavanagh is most recognized from his TV show “Ed” and also plays Zach Braff’s older brother Dan on “Scrubs.” I’ve known his wife Mo for many years through her role as deputy photo editor at Sports Illustrated. They are two of the nicest, most down to earth people you will ever meet.

An SI column by Rick Reilly led to the creation of Nothing But Nets – a grassroots campaign to purchase anti-malaria bed nets to save the lives of children in Africa. Read the original article here and a follow-up here.

One person dies every 30 seconds from malaria, a disease that’s transmitted by mosquitoes. Malaria is particularly devastating in Africa, where it is the leading killer of children.

Tom actually had malaria as a kid when he lived in West Africa. He successfully beat it, but the experience motivated him to get involved with charitable initiatives to combat the disease.

For just $10, Nothing But Nets purchases and delivers an insecticide-treated bed net to a family in Africa. So far they’ve raised enough money for over 2 million nets and are constantly delivering them to families that need them.

For more information and to donate, go to NothingButNets.net (it’s “dot net,” get it?).

The first annual Cavanagh Classic took place yesterday at Harlem’s Rucker Park, a famous street basketball court where many top NBA players come to show their stuff during the summer.

I knew this wasn’t the NBA though when the “mascot,” a six-foot tall mosquito, showed up. If killing mosquitoes is the group’s goal, I think they’re on the right track because it must have been 150 degrees inside that poor guy’s suit.

I may have been donating my time, but I wanted to shoot this as if I was working for Sports Illustrated. I set up a few remote cameras and made this shot of Tom driving the lane.

They even had a slam dunk tournament at halftime.

Hey Tom — somehow I missed the shot of you making that monster dunk but it must have been because you jumped too high out of my camera frame. Maybe I’ll get it next year, unless they make you wear the mosquito suit.

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A few years back, Digital Camera Magazine published an article about me entitled “The Frenetic World of David Bergman.” Sometimes I laugh about it when I’m home in my slippers taking out the trash.

But during this time of year the description is warranted. If I’m not on tour with a band, I’m usually shooting football for Sports Illustrated. I thought it might be interesting to go through last week’s schedule and give you an idea what’s it’s like to shoot for SI.

WARNING – this post is long but filled with tips for travelers and sports photographers like what not to say when trying to get a 45-lb. bag into an overhead compartment.

Continue reading What it’s really like to shoot for Sports Illustrated

For all of my fellow photo geeks out there, I recently wrote for sportsshooter.com about my experience with the Radiopoppers. If you use TTL, the wireless triggers are the most useful new strobe accessory to come out in years.

I based the piece around a shoot I did with the band innerpartysystem in Times Square (documented on my blog).

You can read the whole article here.

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I spent all day Saturday in the hot sticky mess that is known as the 2008 Warped Tour, where crowd surfing is the most popular attraction.

There were 103 bands playing on 12 stages in the Nassau Coliseum parking lot. I bought quite a few $6 Gatorades throughout the day.

I had a few minutes to do portraits with All That Remains. With limited location options, I put them in between some tour buses and shot from a low angle. The sun was directly overhead, so I put a couple of Nikon SB800 strobes inside of a large Chimera softbox using a two-flash speed ring. Some toning in Photoshop completed the look.

After the portrait session, I shot the band in concert. It was a hair-raising experience.

I also shot a bit from the stage, which usually makes for a decent photo.