Montreal Jazz Fest -shooting with restrictions

My first full music festival is done! What a ride, what a rush, my feet hurt.

The Montreal International Jazz Festival is a little over week long world renown festival that has many of the world's great jazz, blues and even a few rock acts playing on a multitude of stages in the city.

I was lucky enough this year to snag an all access indoor media pass, giving me full access to all the indoor stages. I set my sights on 20 bands, including some greats like Tony Bennett, Blue Rodeo, Bootsy Collins and some festival favorites like Nikki Yanofsky and Montreal's own Men Without Hats, playing their first show in the city in 20 years.

The biggest thing I learned in my 10 days were shooting with restrictions. I'm used to the 3 songs and out standard rule. But this time around, we had 2 songs and even 1 song and out. In most instances, our mobility was also restricted to a certain side of the stage, rarely up front. I also got to see how some artists really don't want to be photographed, such as Collin James who gave us a 3 song limit, but only showed up in the 2nd song, and stayed to the back of the stage, sitting behind a mic. I also had the total opposite with Dee Dee Bridgewater who gave us 2 songs, but spent most of her time on the side where the media was, giving us some looks and poses. She was true class.

Here are some of my favorites from the 20 bands that I had the opportunity to shoot

Mr Tony Bennett.
84 years old, but still holding those high notes and looking like he is having such a great time on stage.

The funkmaster himself, Bootsy Collins. He was gracious enough to allow the media to stay for his entire set!

Men Without Hats

I became a new fan of Trombone Shorty

One the classiest women I had the opportunity to shoot, Grammy winner Dee Dee Bridgewater

She first went on stage at the age of 12 at the Jazz Festival 5 years ago. At 17, her voice is simply amazing! Nikki Yanofsky

Full galleries for each of these artists and others like Collin James, Oliver Jones, Marianne Faithful, Sly Johnson, Lee Fields and Blue Rodeo are up in the Galleries section of my website (link on the top right of the blog) Check 'em out, lemme know what you think!!