When we start out, we approach our photographs—no matter if they're sports shots or portraits or rock shows—with a question: How do I make them look like those photos in the magazines? When we learn how to do that the question becomes, How do I give them my own spin? Once we get that down, it's, How do I challenge myself to make them more exciting and take chances to get out of my comfort zone?

So you think, closer, even more intimate, even more far out, even more surprising. What I did was take a cue from sports photography. Didn't sports photos get really cool when pros started doing remote shots and getting angles that were anything but typical: camera on the backboard, low down at the starting gate, inside a hockey net, views from the rafters?

For my remote shots of Nickelback's drummer, Daniel Adair, I cashed in a big opportunity. Nikon had established a relationship with Nickelback, so I had access I wouldn't normally have, and when the tour promoters, Live Nation, asked if there was anything special I'd like to do, I asked if I could set up a remote camera among the drums. Turned out Daniel's not only a photo enthusiast, he's a Nikon guy with an appetite for learning how to take cool photos.

I made my first try at Jones Beach on Long Island last summer. I set up a remote camera on Daniel's drum kit and secured access to the stage during the performance. And that's tougher permission to get than the remotes because of the pyro—the show's fireworks displays. No one wants me getting hurt, certainly not me, but because I came early and saw the run-throughs of the pyro effects and got a list of things that would happen during the show, I learned where I could and could not be on the stage.

I got an okay picture...only okay, not what I really wanted. Part of the problem was I lost my remote trigger during the concert when it fell out of my pocket as I kneeled down to change a lens on the camera I was carrying. It was gone into the darkness, and with it went my ability to trip the remote camera during the drum solo.

But a few weeks later I got a second chance when the band played in Hartford, Connecticut, where I'd have a better shot at the shot I wanted because I'd have two remote cameras and no imperative to get all the band members. I'd gotten great shots at Jones Beach, so Hartford could be dedicated to the drummer—from the stage, from the pit and from the remotes.

Daniel suggested I set one of the remote cameras by his china cymbal—and that camera was the one that caught the beauty shot at the moment the pyro went off.

The setup was two D3 bodies, both with 16mm fisheyes [AF Fisheye-NIKKOR 16mm f/2.8D], both on Bogen magic arms; one to Daniel's left, one to his right. I had two PocketWizards, set to different frequencies, and at one point as Daniel played I had one in each hand and played the remote cameras to his movements and the drive of the music. I had the band's pyro list, knew when the fireworks would go off and knew how the show was choreographed. I was firing the cameras with the backbeat and with his emphasis and punctuation. At one point I followed his drum sweep left to right with the cameras.

Whew!

The remote cameras were set for 2500 ISO and center-weighted metering, and I chose to shoot high res JPEGs rather than NEF so I wouldn't outpace the buffer; I was thinking in terms of bursts of images, not single shots. I used aperture priority (at f/8, based on pre-concert testing) because I didn't care if the shutter rolled to really fast or slightly slow; slow might make for a very cool image and some variety. If I'd locked in 1/500 or 1/1000 second, all the photos would have the same frozen motion look; blur can work. To be sure the bright lights didn't blow out too often, I dialed in -1 exposure compensation on both cameras.

I used a 16-gig card in each camera's main slot and an eight-gig in the second slot for overflow. Grand total: 2,607 images on one remote camera, 4,248 on the other.

My only problem is, of course, a question: How am I going to make it different next time?

Bass solo? I don't think so.