Rick’s Rants and Raves

I’ve got some Irish blood in me somewhere, I’m just sure of it. Of course, I’m full blood Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. This year I managed to take a day off from work so that we could enjoy some of the festivities while the kids were at school. Of course we didn’t actually leave the house until around noon, to deliver Girl Scout cookies. After that, we headed toward Byrne’s Pub where we were able to catch a performance by a band we’d never heard of before: 9 Castle Close. Since it was only 1PM, the tent was sparsely populated compared to what it will have been later.

Of course, I had the camera bag full of the normal “shooting a band in a pub” gear. And this time, I had my lovely voice activated light stand with me. I’ve shot a few gigs solo recently, and I’ve come up with some interesting ways to mount a remote flash in a bar, but today there was nowhere to hang a strobe. We were in one of those industrial strength party tents, with no center poles. And the roof peak was probably 15 feet up. Had I been solo, I would have had to shoot 9 Castle Close entirely with ambient light.

And I shot ambient for about half of the time we were there. But I prefer the look of lit stage performers for the most part. Especially because in this environment, the background was so busy, and it is hard to isolate a performer and make a compelling composition using ambient light. Narrow depth of focus helps, but killing ambient with flash does it better.

Previous performances, my VAL was on the same level as the performers, and she could hold a snooted flash at eye level to be sure she was aiming it properly. Today, she was holding it over her head because the performers were on a bit of a stage, and having a difficult time keeping the strongest part of the flash on the performers’ faces. Perhaps I should have removed the snoot, or changed the zoom on the flash to help the spread a bit.

This was one of those rare performances where the drummer was in full view from several different angles. And he happened to be reasonably expressive in his playing, making some great “music faces”.

During the break, we introduced ourselves to the band. The first question from the lead singer was whether we were shooting bands for a living. Score one for looking like you know what you’re doing. After checking their website, I can see at least one pro (or attempting to be pro) photographer has shot them, at the Dayton Celtic Festival. So it is good to know we looked like we knew what we were doing. I got to hand them a brand new Moo.com business card to help seal the “professional look”. Now I just need to work a bit more on my portfolio page.

We headed home shortly after the end of their performance.

Of course that wasn’t the end of our St. Patrick’s Day. I got to take half of the Cub Scout pack to Free Geek. There they learned about the parts of a computer, and how they are recycled. They also got to spent some time taking them apart, which was the best part for them.

Scott was a great help and a good sport. The kids went through the computers almost as fast as he could deliver them for dis-assembly. The event was well received by the kids and the parents alike.

Thanks to Scott and Free Geek for helping to organize the event.