I wasn't feeling well on Wednesday, trying to get over a lingering cold that had me coughing every 10 seconds and leaving me froggy voiced every night. But after shooting Marasol in the Port of San Diego parking lot, I had a shooter's high that lasted long enough to get to the Casbah and shoot more.

Lands on Fire started the night, and they had a rock/reggae sound.



I wasn't feeling well enough to shoot as much as I normally do, so I only shot a couple songs per band and relaxed the rest of the time.



Chris was introduced as the whitest Hawaiian on Earth. I don't know about that, but they do have some cute band merch made for babies, guaranteed to make them the indie-est kid in day care.



The drummer looks very familiar, but I'm not sure where I know him from.



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This was one of the debut shows for This is Not My Life.









I've seen Matt sing with his old band, Goodbye Blue Monday, a couple times, and to me they sound pretty similar.



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Having shot the next two bands quite a few times, I thought I'd try something new and only use my 28 and 50mm prime lenses for Marasol. Maybe the fixed focal lengths would make me see things in a different way.



I was starting to feel pretty sick by this point, so I didn't put as much energy into shooting as I should have. Thus, no group shots, just portraits. Sarah is a fantastic subject. At the right angle, I could make her hair look like it was being blown by the wind.





I processed some of the photos with a heavy blue-green cast, trying to make them look like they were underwater.







I found out during their set that they had referred a band to me that wanted some gig photos. Thanks Marasol!! Looks like I picked the right band to give a freebie promo shoot.

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I continued the prime lens experiment with Fever Sleeves. I tend to neglect these lenses when there's enough light to use my main zoom lens, and that's a shame.





There's something about the look of a prime lens that you just can't get in a zoom. The fast 1.8 aperture allows for a faster shutter speed, reducing motion blur, and the shallow depth of field snaps the eye to the area of interest.   



The 50mm lens forces me to pick the most important features in an image and throw the rest away. That's a fun challenge. It gave me some intimate portraits of Nick, which I wouldn't have thought to shoot unless forced to by the lens.