"WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T COME HOME?"

Not me! As far as I’m concerned, Bon Jovi can come home as often as they want.  For those of you that don’t know, I am the cliche.  I’m the typical home-grown Jersey fan-boy.  I was born and raised down the shore.  I love Bruce and Bon Jovi.  I’m not goo-goo for gaga crazy in love like some OK, I may have a little man-love for Tico . However, seeing these artists perform for their home crowd is an awesome experience.

Also, this was the first time I got to see the new Meadowlands Stadium.  This place is cool.  I can’t really explain what makes it cool though.  Maybe its the bars in the mezzanine.  Maybe its the kick-ass coaches club underneath my section that had Air-Conditioning.  It could also be that when you are down on the field or lower level, the stadium feels like it towers over you.  The place just has an awesome aura about it and I cant wait to see some football games there this fall.

Back to the concert.  I was very surprised that security let me in with my DSLR.  Especially since it had the Nikon 70-300mm lens on it.  But, they said, “go right ahead.”  So I did.  My seat was located in Section 113, Row 13.  For those of you without a seating chart, this is the level directly on the 50yd line.  The stage was setup in the end-zone to our right.  I had a pretty good view with the naked eye.  I knew that the 70-300 was gonna yield some good results.

Speaking of gear…. This is what I packed.  I had my Nikon D5000, the 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens (rented from Lens Rentals), 2 batteries, and 2 8GB SanDisk Ultra cards.

I learned this next lesson when shooting my friends band a while back (pics here).  Spot Metering is your friend. This was especially helpful from my vantage point.  I was just far enough away to capture some ambient stage lighting.  By using Spot Metering, the camera exposes just for the subject’s face and ignores the ambient lighting.  If I wanted to take a wider crowd shot, i would just change to a different metering mode and switch back when I zoomed in tight.

When your stuck in one seat the entire show, you can find yourself easily taking the same picture over and over.  I tried to change this up by taking horizontals, verticals, 45 degree angles.  Sometime I would take pictures of just the big-screen and the crowd. Other times I would take pictures of the artist and the big-screen.  I kept trying to get creative with composition. If you don’t, the night could turn very repetitive quickly.

I often I had to remember to enjoy the show.  I would force myself to put the camera down and enjoy the show.  I wasn’t there on assignment.  This was a fun night out for me and I wanted to enjoy it.  The show was awesome!  They played for 3hrs.  They mixed it up with fast, slow, acoustic songs.  They played old and new stuff.  It was a great experience and by using the tips above, I came home with some great pictures too!

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