RECAP: Spring Break

Friday, April 3rd:
It was a gloomy/rainy day. Those are the best! I hopped on the bus heading down to the Strip. On the way, I saw an SUV completely rolled over on its top. I have never seen that in real life. There was no one inside, thankfully and the ambulances had already came and left to the hospital. I hope everyone made it out alright. Got down to the Strip, practiced tons of street photography and am quite satisfied with it! Later that evening, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Perez Hilton outside of Pure Nightclub. His apperance was scheduled to begin at 8:00 PM, but normally celebs show up later than that (usually an hour). Got there around 9:00 PM and asked the guy sitting outside of it at a table if Perez would be walking outside of it (pointed to the area I meant) and whatnot. He said yeah, but said that he wouldn't be posing for photos, that he would just walk straight in. So I just thought, screw it. I'm not gonna stay another hour and hope to catch a shot or two of him walking in, I've gotten enough photos today and left! :)

Saturday, April 4th:
The 10th Annual Pet-a-Palooza. (http://www.petapaloozalv.com/) It's basically a big outdoor family friendly festival with tons of dogs! You can adopt pets and/or bring your own dog. I don't have a dog, so I took a lot of shots of many dogs of all types. There were definitely some original dogs there! I hope to have the photos up sometime soon...
This event also has live music by three artists, and since it's a family type event there aren't moshes or too large of a crowd near the stage I was able to get extremely good shots of two performers, not gonna lie. I love you, 200mm lens! I didn't shoot the first band, The Script because they were done once I arrived. However, I did photograph the other two performers who were Mat Kearney and Gavin Rossdale (Gwen Stefani's husband). They were wonderful live. Both did awesome acoustic performances. Those photos are done being edited/watermarked, so that's what I am gonna be posting next!

Sunday, April 5th:
The ACM Awards were being held here in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM that day. If you don't know, ACM stands for the Academy of Country Music. I'm not a big fan of country music, but do like some artists, and hell, a celeb is a celeb and if I can get the photo- I will! The taping of the award show would start at 5:00 PM, meaning all the artists would have to arrive to the orange carpet (not red) before then. I arrived around 2ish-3ish. There were many, many fans already piled up behind the stand things near the entrance to where the limos would pull in. I definitely had no way of getting over there. I mean, yeah I could have gone over there, but just would have been stuck behind the crowd and not seen a thing which was not gonna happen. This was behind the MGM Grand casino (on the backstreets). I crossed it and looked for a better spot somewhere I was allowd to be where the security would kick me out. Luckily, on the opposite side of the driveway where the limos pulled in, there was a little sidewalk space with about 5 people there. I could see a spot that I could fit in perfectly without anyone blocking my view and I ran across the street to take it! As the celebrities arrived and got out of the limo, the people closest would usually start cheering whomevers name which was helpful for me to get ready with my camera and snap photos of them from the distance I was at while they make there way from the limo to the orange carpet. Yet again, I was more than thankful for having my 200mm lens on! I would say I was at least 50-55ft. away from where the celebs were walking! Some, like Carrie Underwood for example instead of walking straight to the carpet, came over to the fans that were across the driveway from where I was and signed autographs/posed for a few photos with fans which was very, very helpful to get good shots because there weren't as many men in black surrounding them! I don't want to spoil any others I was able to get photos of, so I will post them directly after all my Pet-a-Palooza photos! ;-)


During the weekdays of my spring break, I took it easy and hung at home. Revamped my room, did things of that sort.


Saturday, April 11:
I finally hungout with one of my bestfriends I hadn't seen for too long, Jourdan! I went to his house to meetup with him for my first band promo photoshoot I would have later in the day. The band is just local, and according to Jourdan and others- very good! I still have yet to listen to their songs on MySpace...keep getting sidetracked. Their name is Hollywood 'N Vine, and they've played at some good venues here in Vegas. I'm going to shoot thier next show. Anyway, Jourdan and I then went to the leadsingers house (Alex). Our first location was the garage and we taped up newspaper to the wall and layed some out on the floor for them to pose against. Yes, I know that's abit cliché and has been overdone, but the band liked it a lot so we did it. After shooting in there, we ordered pizza and chatted for a while. Two of Jourdan's friends were there, one that wanted to meet me for a while. There names were Shae and Farrah. One's a senior and the other a junior. Oh, yeah the other two band members names are Jason and Michael. All of 'em were nice and easy to work with. Finished the pizza, and they got into their second outfits for the other location. Alex had choosen this gutter area in his neighborhood and we got a lot of shots out of there. We couldn't really go far since Jason had to be back at the house by a certain time for an appt. he had to make. Finally, we finished. Shae, Jourdan, Alex and I all drove over to Farrah's house in her car just to chill for a bit. It was fun, we just did random things, took candids, etc. Later on that evening, we drove down to this small, free carnival. It was also a mini car showcase thing in a way. There was a variety of cars that each owner built themselves during a certain amount of time. Sadly, I only took a photo of two or there! Also shot some bokehs of lights on booths and such. Those turned out cool. There was a live band there, and they were just packing up their set so I didn't get to hear them. They were a punky type band called the Scoundrels. There weren't many people at the carnvial, large crowd around the stage, so I went up to the lead singer (Biancia) and asked if I could take her photo. She said definitely, and asked if I wanted the other band members in the photo as well and I said yeah. It turned out really great, actually. I made a print of it for myself. :) Looks like a promo in a way, only thing is that I cut out her belt buckle kind of..haha. We chatted with them for a bit and then Jourdan and I each took a photo with Biancia before looking at a few more cars and calling it a day.