Category Archives: music

The State Of The Blog(s)

So far this blog has been a mix of my family portrait photography, a handful of wedding, personal + travel, and live music. I realize that this is a little ridiculous and it’s kind of confusing to scroll through the fun+upbeat+happy+colorful portraits and then be slapped in the face with mostly black+white+moody live music moments. It’s such a weird thing trying to compartmentalize all of these things that I love so much, but I’m working on it and have decided that it does make sense to create different sites for different things.

Here’s how it’s going down!

This blog, saramontour.com/blog, is still going to be the main little hub, but most of the posts are going to be of my awesome family portrait clients. I’ll also post the handful of weddings I take on each year and personal posts of the ridiculous things Scott and I get in to. This will include some travel photos, but most of those will end up on The Vagabond Bond.

I’ve reactivated my live music website, saramontourlovesmusic.com (YAY!), and I’ve made a brand new tumblr blog, saralovesmusic.tumblr.com, where I’ll post all of the concerts that I shoot. I’ve imported the shows from the past couple of months, and I’ll post more from the archives as new posts.

I’m also going to try to make one post a week on this blog that has a wrap up of everything I’ve posted around the web.

I know this is all crazy and probably confusing. I ALSO know that I’m probably the only one that is really concerned with The State Of My Blogs, but… there you have it.

winnipeg folk festival . holga

Usually I shoot with my main camera A LOT at the Winnipeg Folk Fest, but this year (my 9th!) I just soaked in the music instead of trying to document it. When I did feel the need to shoot I turned to my film cameras; either my Holga or a Kodak Pony that I just got from Pops Montour. I haven’t developed the 35mm from the Kodak yet, but I just got my 120 back from the Holga yesterday.

Check it:

andrew bird at the winnipeg folk music festival

Andrew Bird with Konono Nº1


Kinnie Starr


Kinnie Starr


Sonny Landreth

(If you’re viewing this in facebook, head to the blog to see the full size images.)

the album leaf . seattle music photography

I’ve been wanting to see the Album Leaf for a long time, so I was pretty excited to be able to shoot this show at Neumos for FensePost. Sea Wolf opened and had some pretty good lighting. I was able to rock some flare and play with the lighting a little bit which, next to capturing perfect moments, is my favorite thing to do. I was pretty excited about the lighting and assumed that the Album Leaf set would be even better. Me = stoked. Great band. Great light. Great venue. Great moments. Done&Done, right?

Not so much. Album Leaf set up and I saw all of these LED light strips attached to their microphone stands. I figured this could either be really good for shooting or REALLY BAD. Turns out it was the latter. Kind of. The entire set, except for the last song, was lit solely with those LED strips and a projector pointed towards the band. SUPER dark. SUPER inconsistent. SUPER tricky.

This is where I think you have one of two options. You can either freak out and tell your editor that it was almost impossible to shoot because there was no light, which was actually pretty valid, or you can expand your default and jump out of your comfort zone. I got nervous for about 4 seconds, and then I got SO EXCITED.

Life is a lesson.


the album leaf . seattle concert photography

the album leaf . seattle concert photographer

the album leaf . seattle music photography

the album leaf . seattle music photographer

the album leaf . band photography

the album leaf . seattle photographer

the album leaf . seattle photography

the album leaf . seattle photography

the album leaf . seattle photographer

the album leaf . washington photography

the album leaf . washington photographer

the album leaf . music photography

the album leaf . music photographer

the album leaf . concert photography

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