Weather was perfect at this year’s Lovefest, a tradition which stated in 2004. In its 3rd year the event drew over 65,000 people and tons of DJs with a party that started at 12pm on Saturday and just kept going through Sunday night at various parties all around the city. This year I decided to go under the radar and freelance for my buddies at metrowize.com Their high profiles sponsorship at the event made more sense for me to put down my phatcatphoto hat, and give them the best exposure with my photos. The event was great, although I did not keep track of which DJ was playing where, going from one stage to the next. The experience was amplified by a bit of pre partying, getting away from the sun at our friend Jason Knight’s place, located not too far from the Civic Center. As always, I don’t like to go into too many details, and give my photos a voice, enjoy!
For a more comprehensive album click here, these are just the highlights from the event.

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1. DJ Dimitrius Mikonos @ Crash, SF

2. DJ Solomon @ Fahrenheit

3. Trevor Simpson on the Groove Cruise

4. Donald Glaude

5. Jason Knight

6. Scotty Boy

7. DJ Splyce

8. Dirty Hertz

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Ok, so I’ve decided to put up more of my intersting work from the past in order to jumpstart my blog. I did work for Mouth to Mouth after meeting their manager Joe. The shoot was very nerve wrecking, since I’ve never had to manage 5 people in a shoot at the same time. The shoot took place at Bruno’s, a famous venue in San Francisco. I had a makeup artist work on the guys and the shoot took 4 hours total. Initialy I rented studio strobes thinking that I would be able to have a similar style of photos as usual at a club or a bar, which was the location. However, after taking a testshot at home at the lowest setting, I realized that I knew nothing about these lights, since even the lowest setting is 20 times more light than I expected. I went back and rented another Canon 550 flash and two sets of umbrellas. Best decision I could have done. This move allowed me to capture the ambient lights of the club, while having full controll over the light on the subject. Also, the set up is very portable and I have prefered it over studio strobes for on location work. I don’t understand why the strobes have to be so powerfull at the lowest settings! Anyway, I knew the shots I wanted and I did not let a loss of $100 in a bad rental decision slow me down.

One of the guys from the group was feeling a bit anxious, so half the shots where he was supposed to look at the camera he was looking away, or had his eyes closed. Almost every shot we ended up using, I had to transplant this guy’s eyes from other photos. To make a long story short, the post processing was a nightmare.

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When I heard that Matisyahu was doing a $20 concert at Ruby Skye, I could not believe it. When I got there an hour before the show, there was a line to the end of the block, with all the tickets sold out. I had my camera, but still had trouble getting in. It was horrible, I spent 3 hours in the rain waiting. Then my a miracle happened, my friend came out with a cut wristband. I secured it with some tape, and in I went. Needless to say, being on stage during the performance was a lot of fun.

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