I am so excited to be the feature photographer for Walmart/Soundcheck on their latest production for Dierks Bentley. Be sure to visit www.soundcheck.walmart.com to see the feature video and exclusive photographs from the Ryman Theatre in Nashville. Dierks new song “Home”  was just nominated for ACM’s song of the year for 2012  right at the time of this shoot, and the next week Dierks was a presenter at The 2012 Grammy Awards. The video crew captured a live concert and behind the scenes interviews with the celebrity. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to photograph several prominent people, I have to say the Dierks is probably one of the best people that I’ve photographed in a behind the scenes session, a very nice guy that was so at ease with me behind the camera. I was able to sneak in for stealthy photographs like the one below, he was very much at home with my camera.

For the still photographs, I used both my Canon 5d Mark II, and an original Canon 5d with a wide array of lenses from the 15mm f2.8 fisheye, the 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens, and the Canon 50mm f1.2. All of the live scenes were shot with available light from the video setup, with ISO ranges from 800 to 1600. For Dierks feature portrait session, I used a Canon 50mm f1.2, coupled with an Alien Bees ring light with a 56″ moon unit, triggered by Pocket Wizard TT5’s and TT1, along with a canon 580EX. I also shot one sequence with just the 50mm lens in available light from the massive window at The Ryman, and all of at the outdoor scenes were shot on the 50mm lens as well. I love shooting in Nashville, and make the trip up the Music Highway as often as possible.

Here’s a screen shot from Soundcheck’s home page featuring the shoot.