Sun God x Relient K x Michelle Branch x Thrice

In the Drake post I mentioned how I landed a sweet gig photographing for the Sun God festival at the University of California San Diego. Here are the other images with Relient K, Michelle Branch, and Thrice. I decided to split them up into a separate post because of how differently things progressed that evening. Drake and Relient K were performances that certainly stood out on their own in terms of photographic aesthetic. They both were challenging in the sense that they were among my higher profile images in which lighting would have been an issue at my experience level. With the kind of boring stage set-up, lighting, and access I had, it was certain I wasn’t really going to capture anything really memorable for Thrice and Michelle Branch.

As awesome as it was to be within breathing distance of Michelle Branch and Thrice, they just didn’t provide anything really interesting in terms of aesthetic experience. My motive for capturing celebrities focuses on expression. Whether or not I’m backstage or in the photographer pit, I want to be able to capture artists in either unique situations or at the peak of some kind of expressive ecstasy. In the images above, I’d say I did well to snag something to that effect with lead singer Matt Thiessen and their guitar guy. I might have caught that with the Thrice guys, but not really, same with Michelle Branch.