@davidbergman

This month I photographed the women’s NCAA basketball tournament, shot boxing at Madison Square Garden, and made new portraits of the Pat McGee Band.

But my photo of the month is a little more close to home. My 3-year old daughter Amanda Grace was the lucky recipient of a blue lollipop after getting her hair cut and this was the result.

 

I used a toy lens called, appropriately, the “lensbaby” to give the photo a unique look. It’s a tilt/shift lens that keeps the center of the frame sharp while throwing the rest of the image out of focus.

The tongue, however, is no trick photography.

Pure Amanda.

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I spent some more time in February touring Canada with Barenaked Ladies for TourPhotographer.com.

The guys all live in Toronto and the Air Canada Centre was packed with over 13,000 people. They’ve given me unbelievable access to photograph them backstage and on stage, so I couldn’t miss the opportunity to make a shot showing the band with their fans.

As they were taking their bows at the end of the first encore, I jumped onto the drum riser. Ed Robertson said to the crowd, “Do you guys want to be in a picture?” Everyone went nuts, the band turned around to face me, and here’s the result.

 

It bothered me a little that there is a space with two empty seats just to the left of the band. However, I actually got an email from the couple that was sitting there. The wife is pregnant and her husband told me that they left right before the encore because they thought her water broke!

It turned out to be a false alarm, but they wanted to get on the road just in case. They’re pretty upset that they missed being in the photo!

The band Barenaked Ladies brought me on board the Carnival Legend for five days in January to document the first ever BNL “Ships and Dip” concert cruise for TourPhotographer.com.

The fans were told that if they wanted to be in a very special photo they should show up at the pool wearing their cabin bathrobe and nothing else.

My biggest concern was that only 10 people would show up. Luckily, we got nearly six hundred and the band posed right in the middle (on the upper level behind the circular railing).

On the count of three, all of the robes were dropped and I made a photo that hundreds of BNL fans will never forget.

Everyone I talked to said that we made it a lot of fun and they had a great time. The only awkward part was reaching down to pick up their robes after I was done taking the shot!

If you want to see the “before” photo of everyone in their robes, it’s available at TourPhotographer.com. Just navigate to the 2007 Ships and Dip photos in the Barenaked Ladies section.

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As we say goodbye to 2006 and welcome 2007, I wanted to pay tribute to a dear friend and great musician, Chris Williams.

“CW” was the drummer and one of the founding members of the Pat McGee Band, a group I traveled with last year for TourPhotographer.com. Chris and I worked on a number of projects since then and I saw him whenever we were in the same city at the same time.

Unfortunately, Chris passed away unexpectedly in October. He was one of those rare people that everyone liked. His enthusiasm for life and music was contagious and you couldn’t help but be in a good mood when he was around.

I did this portrait of Chris under the piers in Ocean City, MD this past summer.

 

In his honor, I’m donating all of the profits from Pat McGee Band print sales at TourPhotographer.com to the Progeria Research Foundation. Chris had a special friendship with Sam, now 10, who is a drummer and has Progeria. You can read more about it here.

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This month I went on the road with Barenaked Ladies for my company TourPhotographer.com.

I had all access to make pictures each night and I usually chose to shoot the encores from the back of the stage so you could see the crowd in the photos.

I noticed that during their song “Brian Wilson,” Ed and Steve did this really nice double jump. On my last night with the tour in St. Paul, MN, I made sure to get to the front of the stage for a moment so I could capture both guys off the ground.

 

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