Friday night marked the return of the A Cappella sampler to Penn State. After going on a one-year hiatus due to policy changes regarding events in the HUB, the event brought together all nine of Penn State’s a cappella ensembles. Since the event was put on by my fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha, I was given free roam of the venue to take pictures, which is always nice. As a former member of the Dreamers (I had to leave the group due to time constraints, though I hope to be back next semester), it was nice to hear how far along they’ve come and to see all of my friends who are in the other ensembles perform.

The event was resulted in my taking over 1200 pictures, so it took me a while to go through them, but here are my favorites from the night. Enjoy!

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On Friday night, legendary rock group the Eagles performed at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State. Though the tickets were expensive and the target audience not quite in line with the groups style, the BJC was almost entirely filled. Granted, the Eagles do have one of only two 29 time platinum albums (over 29 million albums sold, holy moly!), so I think they could probably fill any venue anywhere.

The shooting was not great, they stuck us back of house, over a hundred feet from the stage. Luckily, Andy Colwell was there to save the day again, lending me his backup 70-200m f/2.8 lens and a 1.4x teleconverter, and even let me take a spin with his 300mm f/2.8 (with the tele), so I was still able to pull some keepers out of the gig. They are, as always, below.

Note: Check out picture #3 in the slideshow, I’ve been experimenting with a cinematic crop ratio (2.39:1), similar to what movies are displayed in at theaters, TVs display at 16:9, which is a little taller. I got this idea from a story that ran on Scott Kelby’s blog a few weeks ago. Let me know what you think!

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A week after shooting Some Downtown Avenue at the Darkhorse, I found myself back in the bar, again with my camera. This time I was photographing 5 Cherry Lewis, an up and coming bar band in State College. My fraternity brother, Pete Macartney, is the lead guitarist, and former Blue Bander Isaiah Thomas (no relation to the Knicks GM/Clown) was on the drum kit.

I had yet another enjoyable experience at the Darkhorse, and finally got to meet the owner, who at first yelled at me for taking “crowd shots” (I wasn’t), but then lightened up when I told him I would send him some pics. He ended up being a pretty cool guy, so no harm no foul.

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I wasn’t the only photographer there; friend, mentor, colleague, and sometime gear-rental dude, Andy Colwell was there too. His pictures are probably lying in the proverbial pile behind all of his paid gigs, but maybe they’ll see the light of day.

Anyway, here are the rest of the shots.

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As a kickoff to Homecoming week, the Student Programming Association (SPA) at Penn State brought in pop-punk band Boys Like Girls to Rec Hall. The concert turned out to be excellent. I was surprised by how much “heavier” Boys Like Girls had gotten since I last listened to them (it had been a few years), but they pulled it off pretty well. The lead singer had nice interaction with the audience, crowd surfing at one point. I was also quite happy with my shooting, especially the shot that you see above, which made it into the Concerts Portfolio section of my site.

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