If you haven’t heard yet Encounter only has a few more nights in Auburn before the ministry moves to Hong Kong. If you haven’t been out to the student activities building on the Auburn campus to participate with Grace Campus Ministries you have about two more chances. This coming Monday and the Thursday about 10 days later on November 20th. Below are a few shots I took this past Monday.
This semester has been a completely new challenge to me to find new ways to shoot in almost complete darkness while the band performs. For the past several months I had tried to get a shot of the drums but (by design) the drums sit in almost pure darkness. I was finally able to grab a shot as the sticks flailed through an led light on the other side of the stage.
Daniel Bashta, the worship leader, (who happens to be in Shanghai China right now) gives great meaning to the thoughts of intense worship. I love capturing Daniel’s eyes as he plays for his Lord. Many times I watch and know that he probably feels like he is in a room by himself and God having a conversation. I have really enjoyed getting to know Daniel and his wife the past several months.
If you are around the Auburn area, come by campus next Monday night.
This past Saturday I did a live performance photo shoot with Jacob Blount at Eighth & Rail in Opelika Alabama. This was Jacob’s debut performance and he combined it with an art show and an all around creative evening time. A local artist, RC, hung painting, drawings, and photographic prints and dubbed the night “drink-n-draw”. Each table was supplied with a sketch pad (most of which had a few pages of completed sketches from RC) and guests were asked to draw or sketch as they listened to the music from Blount.
It was interesting to hang around with so many creative and talented people and I enjoyed the evening very much. Several of Jacob’s friends and family came for the opening and it was nice to see so many people there in support of Jak but even if you just walked in not knowing anything about the plans for the night you would have enjoyed a great performance from a local band. Below are some of my favorites from the night (click the link at the bottom to see all 6 in this blog post). To see the entire shoot visit the Jacob Blount gallery. (To see all 6 images in this blog post just click the continue reading link below.)
Last Friday I had a chance to shoot for a band at Eighth and Rail in Opelika called Martha’s Trouble. What a great night of music it was last week. Be sure to check out their website and the new CD’s coming out for Christmas. Below are a few of my pics from the shoot. You can also see the Martha’s Trouble Gallery to see the full shoot of the live performance.
Here are a few shots of the Cornerstone Band. I was testing out a 14mm lens tonight along with a 105mm macro lens and took these shots. Thanks Patrick for letting me get up in your face to take some of these shots. The acoustic guitar is my friend’s, b/ (Worship Leader at Cornerstone, also pictured at the bottom), who is speaking at Encounter tomorrow night on the Auburn University campus, so don’t miss that at 8:30 at the student activities building if you are in town.
Last night I had dinner with some friends and stuck around to listen to the band practice for Sunday morning. It is so nice to spend a little bit of time with people who are passionate about what they do (like b/, Josh and several others), because it’s contagious. If you have ever been around someone who is passionate about what they do, you will notice that it wears off on everyone around them. The same as negativity produces negative people, so it goes with passion and positive people.
As a photographer I think you really find the look or the shot you have been looking for all along when you think you have exhausted all possible angles, focal lengths, and exposures and just sit down and stop trying. It’s at that point that you really have to start getting creative. Sometimes when the creative juices are not flowing that can look very forced, and down right bad, then there are other times when you look at the results and think, wow, why didn’t I try this all along.
Last night was one of those night, for me anyway. I had taken a few shots of the band’s practice and couldn’t really find anything new and exciting so I just sat down on the stage next to the drum set and there it was. I really had been trying to get a good shot of the drums in this particular setup for about 6 months. I felt like raising my hands in the middle of thier set to say “I’ve got it!”, but hey, it’s just practice, right. So here are two of my favorite shots above from last night’s practice. The first, on the drums is BJ, and the second image is Rob from Marth’s Trouble (a band I have regrettably yet to shoot or see in person). Other images from last night can be found here.
Update on Cindy Wall’s Story
A story of Cindy Wall that many of you may already know at this point is continuing to make its way around the Internet. Cindy Wall’s commitment to Christ, baptism, and death in such short succession has now moved around in ways none of us who were involved could have possibly imagined. That may show the limitations I put on God and His greatness, but it is bigger than just our congregation or church. See some of the more recent posts from others like:
There are many other examples, and I know I have missed some important ones, but this is a good example of how her story has made it around the Internet, just an incredible story.
One thing I like about smaller local bands is they bring in new musicians to play all the time, and they always seem to add their own flavor to the band. If you follow some of the large bands of our time like Third Day or Coldplay, a new guitarist would be big news and would probably disrupt the unity, flow, and chemistry of a band for at least a period of time. Smaller bands don’t always have the luxury (if you want to put it that way) of being able to have the same musicians play every single time. As frustrating as that can be for a worship leader or other members of the band, sometimes I find it very refreshing because the guest or new musician always brings his own perspective to the group.
Last night Rob (pictured below), who plays with Martha’s Trouble, joined the Cornerstone band practice to play on Sunday. I was able to shoot the whole band for about an hour yesterday and these two are two of my favorites shots from last night. Although I didn’t get a chance to talk with Rob last night (sorry Rob) I have really come to enjoy shooting live bands. Musicians are one group that (in general terms) love to be photographed doing what they love to do, and that makes for much more appealing images than those who can’t stand to have their photo taken.
If you would like to see the rest of the shoot from last night you can view it in the gallery under people, called music. A few weeks ago I was able to do a shoot with Encounter with Grace Campus Ministries (see Opening Day for Encounter at Auburn University) which I really enjoyed. Tonight, I will be back on the Auburn University campus to shoot Encounter again, should be a great night, look for some images from that shoot in the upcoming days.
Holiday’s always seem to be a time when we neglect our blogs and online lives for that of something in real life. Tonight I am going to spend the evening with some family and close friends watching the fireworks in Auburn. Each year the city of Auburn puts on one of the best fire works displays I have seen in person. Great for such a small town, so tonight of course I am going to try and get some good fireworks photography.
I love that type of photography but I haven’t shot fireworks photography in almost 10 years now, should be great. When I get back in the next few days I will post some fireworks shots on the blog here. While I was waiting I was flipping through some of my music and thinking about what the 4th of July means for this country. This countries history is short compared to some, parts of history tend to grow dark with a new generation.
I was not alive or when Woodstock took place, so if I want to know anything about it, I have to read the history. Jimi Hendrix has been on my playlist of artists for years now, but this one performance really stands out. I can’t decide if it is brilliant or terrible, but it is certainly different.
Holidays, the 4th, and Some Hendrix
I wasn’t going to even do a blog post today, but I had iTune on random and up came the famous version of the Star Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix, and I thought about this particular holiday. If any of my two or three readers read my rant on Father’s Day (Why I Don’t Like Father’s Day // Top 10) you might get an idea I don’t like holiday days. Generally, I don’t. Everything is out of sync, but maybe I just have a problem taking some time off.
So, here comes the Hendrix Star Spangled Banner (video of performance). If you have never heard it before, it is not for the faint of heart. Hendrix played this on August 18th, 1969 on the final performance at the Woodstock music festival. He only played it two more times, once in Greenwich Village and once in Harlem where two kids actually stole Hendrix’s guitar out of the back seat of his car before he went on stage.
We are More Than Just one Mind
It just reminded me what a diverse and complex collection of people that have graced the history of the United States. You may not care for Hendrix, his lifestyle, or his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner (I know many who hate it) but he was a part of what made this country what it is today, just as much as we all are. Here is wishing everyone a wonderful 4th of July.
Tuesday’s are busy days around our place. We usually take all our orders from over the weekend in to USPS, which we did today. Deborah packaged up all the book orders, I did all the eBay orders and we made it into town in time for my guitar lesson.
What’s in an E Blues Scale Again?
We found a great deal on a beginner Fender Guitar a month or so ago, and I started taking lessons each Tuesday. This was only my second lesson, but I learned today that I was not holding the pick properly (or using the proper pick), looking in the correct spot, plucking the stings in the correct way, and I lost track after that. It wasn’t really that bad but I have never picked up a guitar prior to my last two lessons so the learning curve seems high to me, especially when you have a day job and can’t practice all that much. I did continue on with the open E Blues Scale, and will try to use some proper technique for next week. At least I can play and still feel my fingers.
New Music Added
I received a few new CD’s from my trading pals over at LaLa again today, and few from Amazon. I have been trying to get a better collection of blues guitarist and these will fit the bill quite nicely.
Santana - The Essential
Santana - Supernatural
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - The Sky is Crying
The Killers - Hot Fuss
The Killers - Sam’s Town
Everything Else
We finished our work today rather early and went out to dinner at a favorite local place in town called Locos. Usually a college hang out but we arrive well before any of the wilder bunch arrives and we had a nice relaxed meal. By the time we got home it was still light enough outside to take a short walk, only about 2 miles today.
Today was another day of work here at the home office without having to go in the car anywhere. We are leaving for the gulf coast tomorrow morning so we had to get all the orders processed and packaged, and pack, so we can leave first thing in the morning.
Blogs and Twitter
I did my normal daily blog posts for the morning. I have been trying to get the hang of Twitter and finally did a blog post about it on my freelance blog. It has kind of thrown me for a loop the last few days as I have been trying to figure it usefulness out, but the more you use it the more you get the hang of it. For information on that, just see the other blog post called Is Twitter Really a Useful Tool?.
Elance Will Continue
I didn’t win the bid on the project that closed today, but, I wasn’t even the slightest bit close either, so hey, I guess I will try it again. The winning bid was some ridiculous fee of $50 and I was way way way over his bid for sure. I looked at a few more postings today on Elance, saved a few, bid on one. There are so many projects, and they range so much in what needs to be done it is hardest for me at this point to find something and go with it. As with everything else on the Internet (or anywhere I guess) it just takes time to figure it out.
Bags are Packed, We’re Ready to Go
Well, not really, still having to get everything together to leave tomorrow for the beach. We usually pack a few minutes before we leave so I still have a few hours to finish packing. I hope to have some time to update the s/v Island Zephyr blog once I get down there, since that is where the s/v Island Zephyr is located.
Practice Makes… Well… Noise
Any guitar players out there? I did manage to get in some practice to day and I now can say I know my first scale my memory, the open E blues scale, as my instructor has named it for me. The tips of my fingers now burn like I stuck them flat on an open fire but I can play the scale.
There is so much information about the guitar on the Internet it is hard to absorb it all, but I did find a good post on a variation of the E blues scale, E Blues Scale Variations that looked pretty good but far beyond my learning right now. We are really looking forward to getting back down to the gulf, should be a nice weekend, even if it rains all day.
The weather today could not have been nicer down here in beautiful LA. It is now in the mid-80’s during the day and very pleasant at night. It won’t be long before we will have to shut all doors and windows and not open them again until winter, lest we melt from the heat.
Work and Elance
Today was a nice day spent working in the office. We didn’t have to go anywhere and tomorrow will be about the same before we leave on Friday for the gulf coast. We are going to spend a long needed weekend down on the coast. Even if it rains the entire time we are there it will be nice to be back down on the water again.
I bid on my first project over at Elance today. I have been preparing my profile, resume, and all other things I felt were needed to present to any potential client that I am indeed the hard working, reliable person I say I am on my profile page. I spent almost two months getting all my ducks in a row to pick up some freelance work from this specific site.
We will see how it goes tomorrow when the bids close for that particular project. There is a lot of information about what to do and not to do on Elance, like, Elance Tips: Top 5 Projects You Should Run Away From, hopefully I picked a good one.
I did manage to pick up the guitar and practice a bit today. New scales from yesterday’s lesson have my fingers numb and very sore. Open E blues scale and A blues scale on tops on the list for this week.
Nature in View
Not much happening in this area today. We had a gigantic Turkey Vulture sit on the edge of the pond, I guess waiting for something to just float up for lunch. Nothing else but the crazy Whippoorwills today, and a frequent squirrel visitor who was thrilled that I put out a bunch of cracked pecans just for him.
After dinner on the patio we did enjoy a nice fire. Still a good size of biomass to burn up from clearing over the winter.
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