They tell you to never look directly into the sun, right? Sometimes it’s fun to break the rules.

Last week I was on assignment shooting Shinedown at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. I had very little time to make a portrait, so I did a quick CYA shot and then moved the guys over to a couch in the corner.

At camera left, I put a big softbox with two SB-900 strobes on a dual-flash speed ring. Nothing too crazy there.

But then I took an SB-800 and placed it under the couch, pointing straight out at me. I set the light on manual at full power and used Pocket Wizards to trigger everything.

So, what happened? The softbox did exactly what it was supposed to do. It gave me nice, soft, light falling evenly across the frame. There’s a reflection off the texture on the wall at far right, but I kind of like it.

What about that little “sun” on the floor? It completely blew out (there is absolutely no detail in there) and even flared out over Brent’s leg.

This is a no-no in some photography circles, but I like the way it looks. It adds a bit of grunginess to the image.

I did my RAW conversion, basic toning, and vignetting in Aperture. Then I brought it into Photoshop to play with the color tone for the final result.

For the concert a few hours later, I did something similar. I put a blue-gelled SB-900 in the far corner near the back of the stage. I asked for permission from the tour manager and he said it was OK, but if it affected the band during the show I’d have to turn it off. No problem.

I got about 20 frames before the sound guy sitting near my light pushed it over. I asked him what happened and he said that the flash was bothering him.

Too bad. The images were looking pretty good despite the fact that, once again, I was shooting right into the strobe. All of the red light from the front is the club’s lighting while the blue in the back and on the ceiling is all coming from my strobe.

I would have liked to shoot the whole show like that, but I still made a few other nice frames after putting the flash away. I especially like this one in black and white.

Ideally, I’d like to have at least two strobes firing — one in the back and another one in the front. I’d put them off camera and out to the side so I don’t blind the band with every shot.

It’s OK to break the rules, but I still wouldn’t want the band looking directly into the sun. Or my strobe.

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A couple of weeks ago, I photographed the 2008 SEC championship football game on assignment for Sports Illustrated. The Florida Gators beat the Alabama Crimson Tide at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta to advance to the BCS title game in January.

I thought I’d steal a page from Chase Jarvis’ playbook (thanks, Chase!) and put together a video with most of my images from the shoot.

There are a total of 1,304 still photos used in this three-minute piece. I shot 1,859 frames at the game, but the video is edited down for time. A handful of the photos are repeated to work with the music.

It starts with pre-game shots of the coaches and goes all the way through the trophy presentation and Tim Tebow’s post-game lap around the field.

If you’re reading this via email or RSS, you may not see the embedded flash player above. Click here to view it on my blog. You can also download a higher resolution version on the vimeo site after creating a free account.

I shot the game with 3 Nikon cameras: a D3 with a 600 F/4, a D3 with a 200-400 F/4 (awesome lens!), and a D300 with a 24-70 F/2.8. At the end of the game, my assistant held my long lenses while I ran around the field using a D3 with the 24-70 and an SB-800 flash.

The SI cover was Bill Frakes’ great shot of Tebow celebrating. You’ll see that I chose to shoot that same sequence with the wide lens to show the packed stadium (2:22 and 2:34 in the video). It usually happens so fast that you just have to go with your gut (and whichever lens you can pick up first!).

Feel free to ask questions or let me know what you think in the comments.

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I’m happy to announce that one of my photos was a winner in the first annual “Summer Music Moment” photo contest co-sponsored by Billboard Magazine and Photo District News.

The winning image is my shot of Dillinger Escape Plan lead singer Greg Puciato breathing fire out over the crowd during a show a la Gene Simmons.

It was my “photo of the month” late last year (see it here) and is in the new PDN magazine. The contest site says the winners gallery is coming soon. All of the winners can be seen here.

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A couple of weeks ago, I took the subway down to Brooklyn to document the shooting of the music video for “Secret Valentine” by the band We The Kings.

It’s fun to be a “fly on the wall” and find little backstage moments when they happen.

It was really cold, but I went out on the balcony to make this shot from the outside looking in. FYI – you might be able to see in the left window that they were shooting with the super-cool RED camera.

The guys seemed to be having a great time, despite the fact that they had been shooting all day and were exhausted.

The final video went up today on the band’s myspace page.

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Yesterday, I spent the day around town with the guys from Barenaked Ladies, who were in NYC for a couple of TV appearances.

In the morning, they were on “Live with Regis and Kelly,” where I snapped this shot of a cue card during sound check. It’s interesting seeing supermodel Heidi Klum‘s name followed by the words “Barenaked Ladies.” I’ll let you write your own caption.

In the evening, we had some free time in a hotel room overlooking Bryant Park, where the guys watched the crowd gather for the upcoming show.

The band played “Elf’s Lament” and “Green Christmas” as featured performers in the Bryant Park Christmas tree lighting show.

Except for the fact that CBS couldn’t get the tree to light up when it was supposed to, the day went pretty well.

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