Get Lucky brought the Freestylers, DJ Monk, and Nyx to Salt Lake City's annual St. Patrick's Day party organized by V2 Events. I was really excited about the lineup, and when I saw the big, bright projector screen, I was stoked for that, too.

One thing I wasn't thrilled about was that the DJ table was high up and far forward on the stage -- great for audience viewing from far back, but difficult conditions to shoot under. The DJ's were frequently hidden behind the DJ table due to their high position and the low angle I was shooting from. Getting back further, there's a big crowd to deal with and too much camera shake to get a clear shot.

Because the table was far forward and raised, it was also difficult to shoot on stage. My usual angles of attack were all blocked! No problem. Time to improvise. As a photographer, it's easy to get sucked into doing what works from tried and true experience. Situations like this force me to think outside the box, mix things up, and even change my shooting style.

I didn't want that bright, colorful screen to go to waste, so I was careful not to wash it out with my flash, and I found myself reaching for my 50mm f/1.8 a lot more frequently to let in more of the amazing light and color that was already there. Maybe you can't see my characteristic flash style as much in these shots, but sometimes you do what you gotta do to get the job done!

I was swimming in the technicolor fantasy visuals by VJ Berkely (Hallucination on Film), and I wanted to capture that sense of hyper-reality that I felt on stage at the event. I hope I've done a decent job of it here.

I really enjoyed the sets, but Monk really impressed me this time. I felt his set connected with the audience even better than the last performance I caught at Pioneer Daze. I got a kick out of Berkeley's video clips, and I think that the VJ performance engaged the audience every bit as well as the music did.

It's funny how much my own emotions effect my photography. I was really feeling all the light, color, and music associated with Monk's set, and it's reflected in the photo set. I think I took more pictures of Monk than anybody else at the party. When I'm having fun it's like my finger never leaves the shutter release. I hope the passion for the music and the excitement of the show are visible in the photography.

Labels: get lucky, nightlife, rave, salt lake city, slc, utah, v2, v2 events

My computer died! My heart skipped a beat. I thought, "Oh no! My Luv2k photos were not backed up! They could be gone forever!" Heat was the problem. My CPU cooler just hasn't been working lately, and things got a little too hot. Way too hot. I got a blue screen of death, and then when I tried to reboot, I realized that the computer froze in the middle of saving photos. Hard disks stopped dead while they were trying to write. Normally, this would result in file corruption, but since I have redundancy provided by my RAID 5, no photos were harmed!

I spent the afternoon yesterday repairing my computer, and then I pulled an all-nighter to get these files uploaded for the client. I've made them wait too long already... I wasn't about to let computer trouble put it off any longer!

So here they are, at long last, and a brush with oblivion... photos from one of Utah's longest running annual parties -- the infamous "first rave" rave... Luv2k!

Quivver, DJ Hardware, Circle of 5ths, Loki, Diggabeatz, Steez, Psyonix, and a host of other great locals gathered for the annual Luv2k rave at The Great Saltair... brought to you by Raytraced Productions.

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Labels: luv2k, nightlife, party, rave, salt lake city, saltair, slc, the great saltair