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Articles Tagged with: event photography

The Shaniqua Brown Final Show

The Shaniqua Brown

Last night, I went down to The Pour House in Charleston to catch some loud and sleazy rock n’ roll. It was the last show for the local rock band The Shaniqua Brown and they were pulling no punches. I’d never seen them before, and I’m sad to see them go, but I was happy to be there.

Lead singer Rachel Kate Gillon took the stage with a fury that made you feel like she was fighting for survival and if this was goodbye, she was taking the crowd with her.

CUSSES

This was the second time I shot CUSSES, the last time was at Kulture Klash 7. This three piece band sounds like a wall of crushing sound thanks to guitarist Bryan Harder’s recipe for making one guitar sound like four.

Hailing from Savannah, GA, they’re hot off the release of their debut record. Singer Angel Bond screams out with such power while slithering across the stage, she channels part Mick Jagger and part Iggy Pop in her movement, but she’s got a voice all her own. Let’s not forget that their drummer is a fucking madman, and that’s a good thing.

Bully Pulpit

Bully Pulpit is a fucking heavy blues band from Charleston. Reminiscent of the classic punk rock sound of the Dead Boys and the New York Dolls, I felt like I was back on Bleecker Street as they tore up the stage. I think it’s safe to say that these guys aren’t capable of doing anything quietly. They also have one of the coolest band names I’ve heard in a long time.

Heyrocco

Heyrocco is another local up & coming band. I shot them once before about a year ago at the Change For Change Art Show. In the time since I’ve seen them, they’ve really grown into their sound. I was very impressed to say the least.

They just successfully funded a kickstarter project to release their debut record, which is due to come out very soon. I’m looking forward to hearing what they come up with, because they have a really interesting sound live.

I also got to shoot alongside Tracy Grant, who was on the receiving end of my elbow when I got blindsided by a pit dancer. Pataford was also there taking shots, both from the crowd and with his camera!

I have a full set of photos on Flickr for you to check out. Have a great weekend!

G. Love & Special Sauce

Last night I was faced with a terrible decision. It was the end of a long day spent working on a project and I was wiped out – I needed to relax for another long day working on the same project. I also knew that G. Love & Special Sauce were playing at the Music Farm in Charleston, SC just at the time I was finishing for the day. Well, you’re reading this now because I made the rock n’ roll choice to go down in flames. You only live once here on earth, best make the most of it.

Opening the show was the Alabama native Kristy Lee.

She dresses like 90’s era Ice Cube, talks like an old southern maid, and sings like it’s her last day on earth and she wants the world to remember exactly who she is. She was amazing – I couldn’t believe just how talented she was live. She got the place going better than most full bands could. She’s like a gospel singer who sings about whiskey instead of God. I loved it.

G. Love & Special Sauce hit the stage like freight train. Timo Shanko was on bass and the Houseman Jeffrey Clemens was on drums as the stripped down trio rocked the Holy City.

It quickly became apparent that God has returned to the earth and has taken the form of G. Love’s bass player. Timo was on fire. The guy is unbelievable.

On Stage right was the Houseman slapping the skins like it’s New Orleans in February and he’s got all the beads. The old school voodoo rhythm keeper kept the funkiness turned to 11.

If Timo’s the God, and Houseman’s the Devil, then G. Love’s the prophet telling us all how it is in the D-Cell slinging streets of Philadelphia. He’s not going back to Jersey ’cause he knows he’s fixin’ to die. He’s taking I76 and his baby’s got sauce, so you better holla.

The last time I saw G. Love, it was about 15 years ago at Tramps in NYC. I always remembered how this guy brought the ladies in – It was about a 10 to 1 ratio of girls to guys then, and they were all smokin’. 15 years later, and the man still has it. The crowd was a great example of Charleston’s reputation of being home to some of the world’s prettiest ladies.

Kristy Lee came back out to sing with the boys:

The band did not waver, and the crowd was bumpin’ and grinding all night long…

I took a lot of shots of the show, so make sure to browse through this set on Flickr. I had a fantastic time, but all things must come to an end, so I leave you with a crowd shot I took before I headed back home to my lady:

Emily & Joe

Last month I shot a really cool wedding on Folly Beach in South Carolina. The couple was amazing as they were willing to do just about anything – they truly had fun at their wedding and it shows in their pictures. Lets be honest, how many people have a wedding party photo like this?

I did do a lot of more formal portraits such as this (which is probably one of my favorite shots of the day because of that amazing southern sunset):

But I’m sure a shot like this will make them smile pretty wide when they’re old and gray:

Joe & Emily really weren’t your traditional couple, which is a perfect fit for me since I’m not a traditional photographer! I did make sure to cover the basics of wedding photography though, such as capturing the elements of an American wedding.

Here’s the bride getting prepared:

And the first look:

The respective wedding party portraits:

The ceremony:

And the first kiss:

The signing:

And then of course, everybody’s favorite part of the wedding, the reception. Here are some elements of their tables:

The first dance:

I did grab the newlyweds to do some sunset portraits during the reception. Joe didn’t know that he was going to be my movable sandbag for a few shots:

After the sun went down, they partied:

And Joe found the garter and Emily fed him some cake:

I can honestly say that with couples as fun to shoot as this, wedding photography can be a blast. I consider myself lucky to have been their photographer for their special day.

Help Portrait MUSC Kids 2011

It’s been almost a year since we held our Help-Portrait MUSC Kids events (last year we did 2 – you can read about those here and here). This year, I’ll be leading our team on Friday, December 9th at the MUSC Children’s Hospital. We can’t do weekends at the hospital, so this was the closest we could get to the actual event. The Charleston, SC Group is also planning to host 4 events simultaneously on the official day in North Charleston, Charleston, James Island, & Johns Island. So if you can’t help us out on Friday, I’m sure they could use it on Saturday.

This year the Help-Portrait organizers want everybody to be a bit more interactive with their subjects. To best understand what they mean, Jeremy Cowart tells us in this video:

I think we can do some exciting stuff with these children since we don’t have a large amount of kids that we shoot. We can really spend some time getting to know their stories and spreading the word about Help-Portrait. Some ideas I have are to do some video, which would mean that a videographer could help us out this year. Since we can’t really do hair and makeup, maybe we could incorporate some really awesome hats as props – if anyone can pull together a unique hat collection, that would be cool (maybe we could ask a local thrift store to lend some to us). How about some frames that the kids can paint? I’ll be bringing a 5×7 photo printer, so the kids can make their photos into an art project (the atrium has painting supplies). If you have any ideas, I’d really appreciate them (either here in the comments, on the Help-Portrait Community site, or on Facebook).

I also wanted to share with you some great news from the boy who was our inspiration to do this at MUSC Children’s Hospital. Jessie Dasinger has passed the 280+ day mark after his bone marrow transplant and he’s doing great. He’s back in school and back to being a normal kid again. His story is an inspiration considering that just a year ago at this time he wasn’t well enough to participate in the event.

Make sure to check our community page for all planning info regarding the event. It’s less than a month away, so please don’t be shy – lets get the conversation started!

CupcakeCamp Charleston 2011

After a year of patiently waiting, Heaven on Earth has returned to Charleston, SC. Bakers from around the low country freely give away their sugary treats to local cupcake lovers in hopes of winning the title of best tasting, most original, or best Thanksgiving themed cupcake at CupcakeCamp Charleston.

After learning our lesson from last year, we arrived early to the event and jumped on the line outside of Spirit Moves Dance Studio.

Once inside the studio, tables filled with cupcakes lined the walls. Throughout the event cupcakes came and went – what you tasted was based on what was available when it was your turn to go inside. A big improvement was the inclusion of sponsored beverages from Fiery Ron’s Home team BBQ and Coastal Coffee Roasters (who were also sponsors at BarCampCHS).

As I moved down the line, I began to notice a trend in pumpkin flavored cupcakes. At the time, I didn’t realize that there was a Thanksgiving category, so I was perplexed by the amount of pumpkiny variations. The good news is that I love pumpkin flavored stuff.

Just like last year, there was no shortage of happiness. I swear that you could end all wars with free cupcakes. Look at those campers. The bakers and volunteers were also as friendly as can be – nothing but good feelings around the studio.

I had a plate full of cupcakes to taste, and a big cup of milk to wash it down. Here’s a pic of what I got:

While I was snapping away to capture this holy day, I had the pleasure of meeting CupcakeCamp Charleston’s organizer Heather MacKey. It was cool that she recognized me from my post about last year’s event. Of course, I asked her to pose for this picture with sponsor Hazel Rider:

Hey, it’s been a while since I showed a picture of cupcakes. Here’s some more cupcakes!

Local photog and technophile Eugene Mah was on hand wearing an interesting T-Shirt. I snapped this shot of him with the proprietor of Spirit Moves who was sporting some steam punk goggles:

I do not know who won the contests yet, but once again the people in attendance were the real winners because… FREE CUPCAKES!!! My personal favorite was the cupcake that had everyone talking. A banana nut, peanut butter, & bacon cupcake. Yes, I said bacon. It sounds disgusting, but it was a down-home wall-of-sound musical party in my mouth. I’m serious, it was amazing. Look at it. Want it. Love it.

Check out my full set of photos on Flickr. Want some great news? Summerville is hosting their own CupcakeCamp event early next year, so now we don’t have to wait a whole year for this to happen again!

New Vs. Old

Kevin Seconds at Jimbo’s Rock Lounge

Last night I attended two musical performances. One was a group of budding pianists performing in their first recital, while the other was a pair of more mature punk rockers playing acoustic sets.

Mackenzie Performs At Rollings Middle School of the Arts

I started off the evening at my daughter’s middle school, which is a local magnet school for arts. She auditioned to become accepted into the school as a pianist, and in just a couple of months her skill behind the keys has skyrocketed. She played an flawless rendition of “A Journey In The Arctic” by John Thompson.

Mac’s performance (filmed by my wife on her iPhone)

The kids in her class were amazing. These 11 year olds killed! They have a really good teacher, and Mac is lucky enough to have Mrs. Shelly, who helped prepare her for school and continues to show her support.

Mac & Her Piano Teachers

After the recital, I jumped in my car and headed down to West Ashley to see punk rock legend Kevin Seconds from the band 7 Seconds perform at Jimbo’s Rock Lounge. The opening act was a couple of local punks from the band the 33’s who played very youthful punk songs about rebellion and fighting the man.

I was definitely no longer at a middle school recital anymore, with more “F*cks” in their first song than in a classic 80’s porn tape.

David Dondero

Next up was David Dondero. I had never heard of David before, and he really floored me. The songs were all extremely well written and memorable. His voice is fantastic, he kind of reminded me of what Bright Eyes would sound like without the whining.

David Dondero

Finally Kevin Seconds took the stage. Last time I saw his band 7 Seconds, I was a teenager in New York. Now, at the age of 50, Kevin tours around the world playing songs from throughout his career.

Kevin Seconds

As requested from the audience, Kevin played the 7 Seconds classic “Soul To Keep”. He preempted it by saying that for as much shit his band caught for the stuff they did in the mid-1980’s, it gets requested every night.

Kevin Seconds filmed on my iPhone

I really think these guys deserved to be playing to a packed house, but Charleston just isn’t a punk rock town. It’s quite unfortunate, because the music is really great. I don’t think they were bothered by the small turnout, in fact they seemed just happy to be out on the road playing.

Kevin Seconds Blowing The Harp

The comic relief came when some dude walked up on stage between songs and requested that Kevin play some Pink Floyd. Kevin laughed and respectfully declined. The staff however, did not appreciate the man’s actions. In fact, the bartender demanded that he leave immediately. He made the mistake of saying, “What are you gonna do about it?” and she jumped over the bar, grabbed him by the back of his neck and physically threw him out. Stupid me stood there mouth agape watching this unfold with a camera in my hand instead of up to my eye! I did manage to get this blurry shot though:

Kevin told her that she was hired as his road security if she wanted the job. I asked her if I could take a shot of her for this blog since I blew the action shot 😉

This Bartender Takes Crap From Nobody

Check out all of yesterday’s photos here on Flickr.

Ghost Walk 2011 Photo Booth

This post is going to look strikingly similar to yesterday’s, that’s because I used the same setup with some slight modifications. For the WHAIES Masquerade Ball, I had a little problem with my backdrop for the booth. I didn’t have a backdrop! UPS was very tardy with their delivery (next day does not mean next night!!) and I had to head out to the party with a makeshift backup plan. Nothing a little black gaffers tape can’t fix, MacGyver style. I used the school’s stage curtain and some black fabric to make it work. Unfortunately that meant time spent in post production correcting the color shifts between the different black elements. Booooo. This time was different!

Armed with a proper backdrop, I headed out to Summerville, SC for the Ghost Walk/ Harvest Fest/ Harvest Moon Hayride. The new challenge that arose for this booth was being outdoors and contending with very windy conditions. I was positioned up against a brick wall, but the backrop was still about a foot or so away from it. I had to bring down the height of it a bit so that it wouldn’t sail away and I used a combination of tent spikes, stones, and clamps to secure the backdrop. I also left out my umbrellas and used cardboard to flag a pair of bare flashes as the rim lights on either side. Umbrellas are pretty kite-like in the wind, but I actually like the way the non-diffused flashes look for this application. I used a softbox on a heavy-duty c-stand as my main light.

Because this photo booth was sponsored by Prudential Southern Coast Real Estate, I didn’t have to worry about collecting money, which meant the tethered laptop stayed at home and I was able to shoot away without administrative concerns (who paid for how many, associating file numbers with names, etc). I shot over 100 portraits in 3 hours! You can check out all of the photos here.

Mistress Mira Battles Harry (Kegan) Potter!

With that, I’m done with Halloween photo booths for now. Time to carve some pumpkins in preparation for my absolute favorite holiday of the year!

The Fall Is Awesome!

Day 251 - Sullivan's Island Lighthouse Sunset

This is the best time of year to capture sunsets here in the Charleston area. The weather is beautiful and the sky seems to catch on fire for a brief moment. There’s also no shortage of fun stuff coming up, such as corn mazes, haunted house attractions, hayrides, and pumpkin picking. Halloween just might be my favorite holiday ever – it brings people together. What other holiday makes you go out and ring on your neighbor’s doorbell so they can give you treats?

I have a busy month ahead of me as well. One of the highlights include a wedding shoot this weekend on Folly Beach. I’m pretty stoked about getting some sunset portraits of the happy couple. October 22nd is BarCamp! If you remember, I did a session last year on photo editing (you can check out the post about that here). This year I’ve proposed a session called “Off-Camera Flash 101”

If you’ve never been to or heard of BarCamp, it unfortunately has nothing to do with alcohol. It’s a conference where the attendees are the attraction. Basically anybody who attends can pitch a session to teach. It’s really fun and you get a kick-ass T-Shirt. It costs a mere $10 to participate – get a ticket now!

Next up, I’m doing a photo booth for the Summerville Ghost Walk/ Harvest Fest/ Harvest Moon Hayride sponsored by DREAM and Summerville JSL. That’s on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 from 6:00PM-9:00PM. I’ll be on the side of the Prudential Southern Coast office at 112 W Doty Ave in Summerville, SC. I hear that Mistress Mira will be doing some fortune telling as well 😉

October 27th-November 5th is the return of the Coastal Carolina Fair. Check out my recap rom last year. I just ordered my prints for the Photography Contest. This year they have changed the rules slightly from last year as you can only submit 3 photos now. I guess the contest has grown a bit! You can see the official rules here.

Of course, I’ve saved the best for last. Just read my rundown of last year’s CupcakeCamp event. It was the single most amazing event ever conceived. All you can eat free cupcakes, no questions asked. If you don’t want to go to this, you’re not human. CupcakeCamp will be on November 5, 2011 3:00PM-5:00PM at Spirit Moves. Check out the Facebook event page here. Look at the sweetness:

Grandparents Day

This past Friday, I was asked to shoot portraits at my son’s school for their annual Grandparents Day event. I had less than two hours to shoot group portraits, and 87 families that wanted to get their picture taken! Needless to say, that is not a lot of time to pose, set lights, and make sure people were happy with the results.

Luckily, I had a spectacular assistant to take care of payments, paperwork, and keeping the line moving (my wonderful wife, Amy). I can’t imagine doing something like that alone! I did have one frightening moment with one family when my photos were coming out completely unlit. It’s easy to panic when you have a long line of people waiting for you to get to them, and a family in front of you holding a pose and you can’t get the photo. I changed the batteries on my main flash, but that didn’t help. I contemplated switching my lights, or bringing out my other camera, but I decided to first go through my settings checklist that I had made on my laptop prior to the shoot. Sure enough, I had accidentally bumped my shutter speed just past my camera’s sync speed. Yikes! It really only took about 90 seconds for the whole ordeal to get resolved, but it felt like an eternity in my mind.

The lighting setup was pretty simple. I used two Nikon SB-600’s and a reflector. The main light was in the Softlighter II on the right and it was set to 1/2 power. The fill light was in a Westcott Apollo on top of a boom stand and was set to 1/8th power. I had a circular reflector clamped onto my tripod in front and a little to the left to fill in some light. I was shooting at 200th of a second at F/7.1 and ISO 200. I shot everything in manual, except for my white balance. Lesson learned, as I had to correct the white balance on all of the photos afterward. Never trust auto!

If you’re one of the families that are visiting to find your photo, please visit this gallery. I had a blast spending the morning with these families and look forward to shooting more events at the school!

A Day In NYC With A Nikon P7000

Last weekend I was in New York to catch the Archers of Loaf reunion shows, and on that Saturday, I had a few hours to kill before meeting up with my friends to go to the show. I had just received a new camera, the Nikon P7000, and really wanted to familiarize myself with the camera during this trip. Instead of doing a typical review of how the camera works (you can read those here and here), I figured I would just show you what I made with them and let you decide if you like the camera by what it’s possible of. If you’ve been reading my blog here, you know the kind of photography I make and you can see how well these photos stand up to my other work.

I started out in Astoria (which is a neighborhood in Queens for those of you who aren’t familiar) and walked a couple of blocks over to the train station.

I love public transportation in New York. During the day you don’t need to wait long for a train – who needs schedules?

After about 10 minutes, I arrived at the Fifth Ave./ 59th St. station.

I emerged from the subway to the sights and sounds I lived in for so many years in a past life.

My first stop was the cube Apple Store, which was completely covered with boards because it is under renovations – Not a problem, it makes for a more interesting atypical photo! Because it’s such a busy scene, the lines in the crosswalk come in handy as an element to draw your attention to the construction site in the center of this shot:

Just outside of the Apple cube was a brass band which was drawing quite a crowd. I snuck in from the street side and got in close – you can see my bald-headed reflection in the horn!

I was getting hungry and thirsty and I knew exactly what I wanted: A dirty-water dog. I didn’t have to walk far into Central Park to find a cart and a bench to sit on.

As I sat and enjoyed my mystery meat on a bun, I started to compose the scenes around me. Right across the way was a guitarist and girl eating her lunch. While the guitarist was interesting, I couldn’t get a good shot of the girl that was flattering because she was munching on her food the whole time. I figured I’d drag the shutter a little to get a pedestrian walking by and capture the motion. This was the result:

To the right was a pretty lady getting her portrait made:

I ventured further into the park, past the zoo, and through this tunnel to see what moments I could capture.

Isolating a person in a scene is a lot harder than you can imagine on a perfect Saturday afternoon in the park. I found this girl hanging out on the rocks – she wasn’t alone though. There were 8 other people on the same rock, but I found this angle to single her out:

As I walked further into the park, I started to hear live amplified music. I followed my ears until I came upon the Summer Stage. I walked in just in time to catch a set from Fitz & The Tantrums!

Fitz & The Tantrums at Central Park 2011

Boy, did that put me in a good mood! By the end of their set, there was nothing but smiles in the crowd. I had food in my belly, a song in my head, and a new camera to break in. You couldn’t ask for a better place in the world to be at that moment. I ventured back out into the park and stumbled upon some people doing the Tango in the middle of the path. I knew it was the Tango, because someone was kind enough to spell it out for me on the ground.

I decided to climb some rocks and came across this fantastic view – I fell to my stomach and quickly shot this as there was a clear people-less view!

I looked around and there were so many couples – it was quite romantic. I like this scene because there is a couple on the left, as well as a single guy looking over at a single woman. When coupled with the photo that follows it, there is a story of longing going on.

I really started to focus on couples for a while. This couple seems pretty focused on something off camera:

Here’s another couple checking out some photos on the girl’s camera:

It was sunny out for most of the day, and I was very happy to have an optical viewfinder on this compact camera – it’s a lot easier to see in bright conditions than the LCD screen. Speaking of the screen – It’s the same size as my D90’s screen! It’s bright and defined, and Nikon was kind enough to let you clear all of the visible data so you can shoot and view your photos without any clutter.

This couple eventually asked me to take a photo of them with their camera as well:

As I said earlier, I try to isolate my subjects, but in this photo you can see just how close people really are to each other:

It was time to head downtown to meet up with my friends. I put on my tourist hat and started taking shots of the buildings.

I absolutely love this action of this shot of a couple exiting F.A.O. Schwartz:

All of the shots I took in this series were made using the camera’s finest jpeg setting. I could shoot in RAW, but for purpose of this camera, which for me is primarily street and casual photography, the jpegs look downright amazing right out of the camera. I like to know that if I find myself in a situation where I know I will decide to do some extreme photo editing when I get back to my computer, I can switch to RAW. I did do some light editing in Lightroom on these, such as black & white conversions, cropping, & straightening, and tweaking of brightness & contrast.

I want to briefly touch on the features of the camera that stick out for me so far. If you’re a Nikon shooter, you should be pretty comfortable with the menu structure. However, I do find it strange how you can conveniently get to important settings using the camera’s quick menu dial, but you can’t get to all of those same settings using the menu button! The separation is a bit confusing. I also wish I could change the direction of the physical dials to mimic the way I have my D90 set up. I haven’t taken advantage of the User mode presets yet, but I think they’re a great idea. I really wish the exposure compensation dial was a dedicated ISO setting dial like the Canon G12 sports – it is a setting I find I’m constantly getting into. In fact, I had my quick menu set to the ISO function 90% of the time. I know it sounds silly, but I love that it has standard strap connectors so that I can use my favorite camera strap, the Domke Gripper. A good strap is something you shouldn’t overlook for your camera – if you you’re not comfortable carrying it, you’re less likely to do so!

This shot of a man on his phone is one of my favorite shots of the day – I walked up and was immediately drawn to the geometry of it all. I love the lines of the steps leading to the man and the pots and the trees at the top that balance it all.

I also love this simple street corner by the world famous Carnegie Deli. It’s not too busy and the tone made for a great black & white photo.

In conclusion, I friggin’ love this camera. It’s capable of taking very high quality shots in a small package. During this trip, I didn’t miss lugging around my DSLR and a bag full of glass. I was able to get great shots and look inconspicuous while doing it, which for street photography is a huge plus.

I took a lot of photos that day – you can see the full set on Flickr.

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