Ludacris by Ty♡

Ya'll, I was so excited this weekend to have the opportunity to experience my first opportunity to photo shoot a concert. I have always loved taking photos of everything, EVERYTHING.

This weekend I shot with a D70Nikon capturing photos of Ludacris in concert at the Sweetwater420 Music Fest in Atlanta, Georgia.

So why is this a big deal to me. I have loved taking photos since forever. It's kind of a thing in my family. We have an on going joke about my granny who back in the 110 camera days {remember those?}, would always manage to catch her big ole thumb in the shot. And my granny would always tell us to make sure to take plenty of pictures when we would go on field trips, summer trips and what not. Taking photos is just something I have always loved and why not do what you love, right.

The goal is to make photography another stream of income. Having multiple ways to earn money as I continue toward my goal of becoming a full time business owner, entrepreneur and freelancer is very important to me. And the goal is to freelance doing only the things I love. I love music and would absolute love getting paid for my passion of music and capturing music artist doing there thang.

My first experience was a super cool and a really nice one. I have been told some horror stories by a couple of my friends who already do what I wish to do on a regular basis. I may have to grow thicker skin along the way, however, I'm hoping all of the encounters are as nice as this first one.

It started with being approved to be able to shoot and write about the Sweetwater420 Music Fest. Thank you Sweetwater420 and Chattanooga News Chronicle. On the day of the Ludacris concert, photographers waited in a designated area and at a certain time before the concert started, we were escorted to the photo pit. The photographers had some serious equipment which next time I have to make sure I make it one of my goals to talk to them about what they capture with the various equipment, take names of equipment and people, etc.

As we rushed to get a spot, there were two guys slightly to the right and one in front of me who decided, "ladies first" with the gesture of their hands. Awww, I thought that was too sweet. Another guy helped me up onto a high, speaker like object that put me dead smack on the stage. I made sure to step down during the concert to give someone else a chance to get up there. Hey, gotta pay the kindness forward. 

Before attending, emails were sent out to share that we could take photographs during the first three songs. Since I didn't have a camera yet, I found a photographer who would also be attending and teamed up with him to share his camera. I just couldn't let this opportunity pass me by. I took photos for the first song and then gave the camera back to its owner to capture photos during the next two songs. I managed to catch 19 photos during the first song and out of those I think 13 came out pretty good. {smiling again}.

I'm sharing this story because one, I'm so super excited to share this first experience with you. And also to share that the old me would have waited for such an opportunity. I would have felt like I needed to practice more and that I needed to have a camera, but as my granny states, "Honey, there's more than one way to skin a cat." I know what that saying means, but granny nor I still don't know were we got it from. Well, me, I know I got it from my granny. And while we're country, we're not skinning cats or possums or anything, LOL :) Plus we're huge animal lovers.

But yeah, back to this awesome opportunity, I figured since I was going to be at the festival as a freelance writer and blogger, why not take what I did have instead of wishing I had something and as Tim Gunn states, make it work.

So without further ado, here are my first captures of my first concert as a photographer. ♡

 See the Ludacris black and white photos here.