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You Lookin’ At Me?

augiedb — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:48:51 +0000

Duck. Duck. GOOSE!

85mm, f/3.5, ISO 320, 1/1250s

Mountain Lion/Lightroom Update

augiedb — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 03:50:12 +0000

Time to update the previous post:

I fixed the problem? How? Oldest trick in the book: I rebooted the computer.

Whatever was stuck in the system got cleared out by the reboot and now everything works fine.

Had I been a Windows user, I probably would have thought of that first. ::sigh::

Lightroom 3 and Mountain Lion

augiedb — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:58:04 +0000

I’m having a bit of a problem with Lightroom 3 tonight, and I wonder if it’s not due to my recent switch from Lion to Mountain Lion.

I can plug a memory card into the SD slot on my iMac. Lightroom recognizes it and shows me all the pictures on it. When I go to copy the files over and import them, though, I get this error message:

Anyone else have this problem? The solution might be to upgrade to LR4, but I’d rather not spend that nearly $100 right now…

Tomorrow Night’s Winner of The Voice, Cassadee Pope

augiedb — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 05:51:14 +0000

I don’t see how she doesn’t win this whole thing tomorrow at this point. And I don’t see how she isn’t the second coming of Carrie Underwood, arguably the most successful singing competition winner of the last 12 years. Here’s a final batch of images from Cassadee Pope’s solo tour back in February at Mexicali Live in Teaneck, NJ.

Those two and more in the gallery:

Blue Kid, Part 1

augiedb — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 02:45:03 +0000

I have too many pictures from this set, so I’m betting it’ll go two parts.

Blue Kid is a group formed in Brooklyn by their lead singer, Lydia Benecke. I had never heard of them before this show. I looked up their website and videos on YouTube before the show so I would have some idea of what I was getting into. I wasn’t sold by those videos, though. But their live show had me hook, line, and sinker from the start. Blue Kid is a great and entertaining live band, led by an energetic and quirky Bernecke, who’s comfortable on the stage and delivers the set with emotion and conviction.

85mm, f/2.5, ISO 2500, 1/250s

The set started with an a capella bit, with Bernecke standing alone in front providing her own percussion by smacking her chest and legs/hips to keep the beat. It worked. (You can see the opening number on YouTube from a different venue. I haven’t seen any iPhone videos from the Mexicali Live show on YouTube yet…)

85mm, f/2.5, ISO 2000, 1/160s

And as a photographer, you’re immediately drawn the animated one in front of the band who isn’t hiding in a shell. This is the fun stuff.

More pics of the rest of the band after the break!

85mm, f/2.0, ISO 2500, 1/320s

The rest of the band was a little better lit than the previous group, but the drummer, Damian Vancamp, still had little chance of being photographed. Too small a stage, too many people and objects between him and myself. I call this one “Drummer in Repose with Rembrandt Lighting”:

85mm, f/2.0, ISO 2500, 1/160s

This may be the only concert photograph ever taken of a drummer where you can’t see the drumsticks. I’m a rebel!

The guitarist, Matty Brogan, fared better:

85mm, f/1.8, ISO 3200, 1/160s

You can see from the settings that he’s only as bright as he is because I ramped up the ISO and slowed down the shutter a hair. Otherwise, he was better shadowed.

The bassist, Nick West, was standing behind the piano, out of sight and in deep shadows. Here’s my best shot at him:

85mm, f/2.0, ISO 4000, 1/160s

I had no chance at him cleanly. The mic on the piano was always in the way. It’s as good there as it’s going to get.

And, finally, the man tickling the keyboard, Matt Skrzynski:

85mm, f/2.0, ISO 3200, 1/160s

I had a tough time finding a shot with him where his face looked “right” in a still shot. Sometimes. that happens with people. They look natural and comfortable in a live performance, and every shot you bring home has a contorted face. That’s what high speed burst mode is supposed to help with.

I have a lot more pictures, though they’re mostly of Benecke. Like I said, she was a dynamic lead for the band and the camera is drawn to her. Lots of different looks, lots of opportunities. We’ll do a Part Two just for those pics soon.

Lorette Schroth

augiedb — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 03:15:27 +0000

Lorette Schroth (warning: music auto-plays) is a talented singer/songwriter with a unique sound. Click on the link to see if you can figure out all the influences. (It feels a little Russian or Middle Eastern, maybe? Might just be the violin playing.) She has an album out now, but she’s still new to this. There is no Wikipedia page, and I’m guessing this blog post will be a top result if you’re searching on her name anytime soon. She was a little nervous-looking on stage, but sang clearly and powerfully.

From a photographer’s point of view, she didn’t move around much. There was a nice bright spotlight on her for her set to help with lighting, but she wasn’t giving many different looks. That’s not her job, that’s mine. Her job is to sing, and she did it well. I tried some different angles, but most of the best shots were from one of two angles, and that’s what you’ll see here.

The band backing her up has a couple of guitarists (one acoustic, one electric), a violin, a drummer, and pianist who was completely in the dark. How much in the dark was he? At ISO 6400, I couldn’t get any picture of him. I’m not even sure my camera ever locked focus on his silhouette. In fact, the lighting difference between Schroth and her band was so great that it was difficult to get anyone else’s picture. The pianist was in the dark, but the acoustic guitar on the far other side of the stage was just as hidden. The electric guitar had some light, but the violinist had to play behind the lead singer, and so existed half in shadow the whole time. It’s a small stage at a small venue. It is what it is.

Now, let’s go to the Mexicali Live of Teaneck, NJ for some pictures:

28mm, f/2.2, ISO 2500, 1/160s

See if you can find the band in this picture. The piano is just off to the left of this picture. The drummer was in somewhat of a good light sometimes, but there wasn’t much of a clear angle into where he was, so it didn’t matter. Mexicali Live is a dinner/concert venue. For this night’s show, the place had a full set-up of tables with people eating dinner. I’m not pushy enough to go standing in front of people and blocking the show for them. I tend to stand on the outside edges, up against the walls, and crouched in front of the stage.

85mm, f/3.2, ISO 3200, 1/160s

I often use black and white as a way to cover up problems with the color output in a picture due to noise from high ISO shooting. I’m not doing that with this show; these pictures work better for me in black and white. It almost fits the mood of this show better. It’s a pretty good looking pic, even at ISO 3200. It’s hard now to believe that my first DSLR only went up to ISO 1600, and was pretty much unusable at ISO 800, anyway.

85mm, f/2.5, ISO 6400, 1/160s

This picture is at ISO 6400 and has the most minimal noise reduction on it. It’s the picture from the whole night that convinces me that it’s OK to move beyond ISO 2500/3200. Hell, I might shoot my next show entirely at ISO 6400.

After the break: More fun with high ISO photography!

85mm, f/2.5, ISO 2500, 1/160s

One more black and white shot that I barely touched noise reduction on, just because I liked the way the natural noise looked like grain:

3200mm, f/3.2, ISO 3200, 1/160s

And, finally, a picture shot at 3200 ISO with no noise reduction added to it. I did a white balance correction and added some clarity, but that’s it. It’s still a pretty clean file:

85mm, f/2.5, ISO 3200, 1/160s

Blue Kid Preview

augiedb — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 03:59:06 +0000

The concert I shot over the weekend had three sets in total. Here’s a quick preview of the middle act, a band named Blue Kid, as fronted by Lydia Benecke:

85mm, f/2.0, ISO 2500, 1/320s

Lorette Schroth Preview

augiedb — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:54:26 +0000

Also appearing at Mexicali Live over the weekend was Lorette Schroth:

85mm, f/3.2, ISO 3200, 1/160s

Nellie McKay Preview

augiedb — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 06:03:37 +0000

Coming soon, from Mexicali Live in Teaneck, NJ…

50mm, f/2.5, ISO 2500, 1/125s

UPDATE: After proper White Balancing, this is what the pic looks like:

Big difference. McKay looks less pink now, to my eye.

Cassadee Pope Beats Gangnam Style on iTunes

augiedb — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 05:21:45 +0000

How does that make you feel, Cassadee?

Preview: Cassadee Pope