In April this year, 2014, Jim and I attended several concerts at Epcot’s Annual Flower & Garden Festival in Florida. These concerts are referred to as the "Flower Power" series.
This year’s concert lineup included: The Guess Who, Gary Lewis and The Playboys, The Orchestra Starring Former Members of ELO, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Village People, The Grass Roots, Herman’s Hermits Starring Peter Noone, Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas, Chubby Checker & The Wildcats and Alan Parsons Live Project. The last band we actually saw was the Village People because we were heading back to our home in Canada.
Paul Revere & The Raiders put on an excellent show and we were fortunate to get seats fairly close to the stage. Each concert that we attend has its own challenges. Sometimes the lighting is not great. Sometimes you have someone who is a lot taller than you sitting in front of you. Sometimes the performers ask the audience not to video record the performance or take photos (because they are about to release a new song - which is understandable). We always take our cameras and go with the flow.
This year, I bought myself a new camera the Nikon D800 so I could get better shots at the concerts and I was very happy with the results. This new camera allows me to bump up my ISO to 1600 (without noise) so I can still get a fast shutter speed when the lighting is not ideal and I am hand-holding. Because I am not always in the best seat for picture taking, this new ISO capability helps me to take better photographs.
I am always happy when I get an opportunity to practice my concert photography. Epcot does an amazing job of getting wonderful entertainers at this annual event. I have never been to so many concerts and I am grateful to Disney for providing these excellent shows.
Judy Hardiman