Rick’s Rants and Raves

Yeah, I took a bunch of pictures at Comfest 2010. I even had great narratives to tell about a lot of them. I was reasonably pleased with the set, despite some technical challenges with a new camera. One of the narratives was about how there were lots and lots of photographers at Comfest. I walked away from shooting a band after I took this shot.

I’m not a competitive person, and I didn’t want to be the third photog distracting the crowd. So I walked away and deleted the few shots I’d already taken. Not. Worth. It.

But that didn’t stop me from shooting a number of other bands. And other details. And experimenting.

I introduced myself to Rob, another photographer I’d seen at events like this in the past. We chatted a bit, exchanged cards, then went our separate ways. He’s shooting “for himself” just like me, with a bit of side income to help fund the gear.

After I’d finished all my post processing and uploading, I went to send Rob an e-mail, and thought I’d see if he had posted pictures from Comfest. He has. And his photography is amazing. In fact, if you haven’t gone to look at my Flickr set, don’t bother. You’ll get a much better taste of Comfest, and of the performers, from his set. His pictures don’t need narratives–they speak for themselves.

Tonight I had my ego rightfully smacked down a bit. I have a long way to go. Don’t worry about me though. My ego always seems to return to its slightly-larger-than-nomal size.

After working the first three bands at Creekside, I was tired and jazzed and had a hard time sleeping. I managed to download pics, drink a beer (or two), take a shower, and crash.

Sunday was just as hot, and again I showed up a bit earlier than I needed to. I already knew where everything was, but I figured I would take a bit of time to shoot a few more groups so that I could send them free samples. I took a few picks of the Patrick McLaughlin Band, then meandered to the stage where I needed to be. Jazz Ethics was playing but before I could pull out my camera I was struck by the fact that there were three camcorders on tripods in the otherwise sparse audience up front (the rest of the crowd was cowering in the shade). Then I noticed that one of the women controlling a camcorder happened to have the same 70-300mm lens that I have, also on a Nikon. Then I remembered that Jazz Ethics was the band that I had exchanged two messages with but never heard from again. Oh well, I thought, they clearly already have someone capable of taking decent pictures.

As I walked around the performance area something bugged me about that 300mm lens and its keeper. I think her only “sin” was that she was taking pictures (for the 10 seconds that I watched) from her seat rather than moving around to create a composition. The assumption that leaped to my mind was that she had the gear but didn’t really know how to compose a shot. I think my ego got the better of me in that moment. Whatever it was, I decided to pull out my camera, drop my bag, and make a sweep of the band members.

After I finished, I touched base with the leader of my next band, Sanhedrin Move. Again, I talked about style and what to expect. He actually had a request–shoot each member tightly cropped on their faces, “so you can’t see their guts”. We both chuckled. As his band members are showing up, he tells me he wants to take me up on the offer to shoot a group portrait at the event. No problem, I tell him. I need just about 10 minutes once we decide on a location. With the sunlight beating down, and just one hot-shoe flash in my bag and no light stands (the rest of my gear was in my car 10 minutes away since I didn’t know he wanted a portrait) I started looking for shade to shoot them in. Of course all the shade near by was taken up by spectators, so we headed down toward a path (wheelchair accessible!) near the creek (hence ‘Creekside’). We found a bit of an alcove of trees with dappled sunlight coming through. I hoped to get the sun hitting them on the backs of their heads, and then I would add flash (oh the horror, on camera) to help fill in their faces.

You’ll notice that I didn’t actually post this on Flickr. As a group shot goes, it’s technically OK. Its just not terribly imaginative. Its way better than what they’ve got on their website (nothing) but it is clear to me this is definitely something I need to work on. Of course I had only 10 minutes to work with (by the time everyone was assembled and ambled down to the creek side) but I’d like to do better even in 10 minutes.

We got back to the stage just as Jazz Ethics finished. While Sanhedrin Move set up, I decided to make some idle chit-chat with the women who had the 70-300mm lens. “I see you have the same lens I do.” (I know, pick-up artist I’m not). “Oh? My husband put that on. I don’t really know anything about this thing.” We continued to chat a little bit and she asked if I was shooting for fun or professionally. I told her that a number of bands were paying me to shoot their perf0rmance. “So you were here to shoot these guys?” she asked, pointing to Jazz Ethics as they cleared their gear. After another moment of confused cross-wires discussion, she said “you should go talk to my husband”.

When I talked to her husband, the leader for Jazz Ethics, it became clear that he was the one I’d exchanged messages with and he had sent one last message to which I’d never replied. He was intending to hire me but had a few minor questions. Given the uncertainty of the situation, he told me he had brought money to pay me just in case. I declined the money since I hadn’t really given it my full effort, gave him my card, and promised I’d shoot him again, at the same festival rate, some other time. Since then, I’ve confirmed that MySpace didn’t tell me about a waiting message from him, but I take that as my failure to not check back.

Sanhedrin Move took the same stage as Vernon Hairston Trio and Capital Sound. I liked the familiarity of the environment. I liked knowing where to stand, where the wires were, and being recognized by the sound guys.

As requested, I kept most of the shots tightly cropped. Fortunately, that’s how I like to shoot.

After I made a couple of rounds of the band, I decided to experiment a bit. “Expand yourself” I thought. I decided to add a bit of fill light to the performers using on-camera external flash. I changed two aspects from how I’d been shooting: I changed from spot metering to matrix, and from EV+0.3 to EV0. Using ambient only, spot metering is a must, and I have to be sure the spot is directly on the face of the performer. But adding flash meant that I wanted the camera to expose for the whole scene, and I would add flash to only the nearby subjects.  I also like EV just a little higher than even because I like well lit faces. But now I wanted the background to be a little richer and darker.

When compared with a similar shot with no fill its hard for me to tell the difference. Actually, I think I light in the “no fill” shot better. But it was worth a shot.

Toward the end of the set, after I was done and just hanging out to the side, the drummer catches my attention, and motions in a non-descript way. So I head up to him to find out what shot he wants me to get. “Get me with the sunglasses  on!” Righto!

They finished their set, I said goodbye, and took off.

What went right:

• 5 positive responses out of 22 cold e-mails tells me my price and approach worked pretty well.
• having my own water bottle, and identifying a free drinking fountain early saved me from either heat exhaustion or drinking away my profits.
• All 4 paid bands have seen their samples and have been very pleased, most pledging to work with me again in the future.
• sunscreen both days made sure I didn’t get burnt
• no beer made sure I didn’t drink away the profits
• I handed out business cards to nearly all the band members for each paid shoot

What went wrong:

• miscommunication with one band led to a delayed opportunity. I should be able to shoot them this fall, fortunately.
• My “free sample” shots aren’t nearly as good as my paid shots. For a couple of the “free sample” bands, I’m not even sure I’m going to send them an e-mail with links to their shots. They’re still better than Point&Shoot fan photos, but I can (and should) do better on speculative marketing
• I ran out of business cards and had only a few left for Sanhedrin Move.

Balance sheet so far: $175 received – $24 on food/entrance/parking = $126. Plus one more gig scheduled, and a good relationship with five local bands, and probably another $25 from the straggler. I definitely couldn’t live off this kind of money, but most of these musician aren’t living off their music either. They do it as a self-supporting hobby. As one put it: “Since we all ‘moon-light’ in this industry we are happy to support someone like us who is out for fun (and a little money on the side is nice!)”

Back in April, I became aware of the Creekside Blues and Jazz Festival as I was looking to start marketing my services to bands. The festival organizers had helpfully published their list of bands with links to all their websites. I went to each of their sites, figured out their preferred contact method, and sent them a message. I offered to shoot their Creekside performance for a low festival rate, and I would throw in a group portrait at the festival for free if time permitted. I attempted to contact 22 groups. In response to that first blast, I got 3 yeses and one maybe (he’d have to check with the group). I checked back with the maybe after a couple of weeks, but didn’t hear back from him.

Six weeks later (two weeks from the festival) I sent another e-mail to those I hadn’t heard from, and in response I got one more yes. So, going into the weekend, I had four performances lines up as paid shoots. Though I had higher hopes for the success rate, as cold marketing goes, a 20% return is pretty darn good, I think.

I made sure that they understood that I was expecting half of the money up front, before I started shooting the performance, and that the other half would be due after they’d seen a sample slide show. I was really concerned I would get a response like “Yeah, sure, go ahead and shoot our band” from someone who really didn’t intend to pay. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to happen.

I had three bands to shoot on Saturday, and one on Sunday. I arrived pretty early so that I could get the layout of the festival and look for photographic opportunities. The sun was beating down causing most of the festival goers to huddle in the shadows on the edges of the performance spaces. This also meant that group portraits in this light would look horrible.

While waiting for my first gig, I decided to shoot a few of the other bands as a bit of marketing. I figured I’d make a few pics and send them to the band as free samples. So I grabbed a couple of Trombones Plus and Terra City Blues.

First up was Vernon Hairston Trio. I showed up in the performance area well ahead of their performance time, and was able to pick them out as they brought their gear to the stage preparation area. I introduced myself, chatted about what kinds of photos he would like (no strong preferences) and he handed me a check. Woot! So far so good!

I shot their performance all ambient. Fortunately, they had a translucent temporary stage roof/tarp over their heads. So the light on them was nice and even, and there were trees around 1/2 of the back of the stage, producing some really nice bokeh in the shots.

As soon as they were finished, I ran back to my car to pick up some portrait gear–extra flashes, light stands, tripod, etc–because Long Tall Deb and the Drifter Kings had asked to meet an hour before their performance to do the portrait shot. So I lugged all that stuff over to their stage (did I mention it was hot?) where I found Deb in the prep tent. Unfortunately one of her band members was going to be late, so they wouldn’t be able to do the portrait session today. But she did have cash ready!

After killing an hour, I came back to shoot Deb. She really likes to play up the “tall” part by adding some killer heels.

The stage for this performance was west facing with a black background. For me, this was perfect because I could expose for the performers (nuked by the hot late afternoon sun), and the background would disappear.

Deb and her guitar player clearly had a special relationship on stage. They were frequently jamming together, making “music moments” like this easy to capture.

There was a trio sitting behind my seat (where I plopped my camera bag) that would periodically get up to dance. They were great dancers who really knew what they were doing, and were really enjoying the LTD performance as well. I immediately noticed they were all wearing ear plugs like I was, which to me, said they were serious festival goers–sitting up front to experience the full force of the music. I handed them one of my business cards and encouraged them to send me an e-mail so that I could send them some pics. After we left the LTD performance, I noticed the wording on one of their shirts: SwingColumbus.com. No wonder they looked like the knew what they were doing. Today, I got a message and happily sent them a bunch of pics.

After my editing, I still had 130+ good photos from the 75 minute LTD performance. They were a real treat to shoot.

I had a long break until Capital Sound performed so I went to shoot a bit of the Sonny Moorman Group performance. The crowd had grown significantly since the beginning of the LTD performance making it a bit challenging to get to the front of the stage. But I had learned during LTD that even though most of the seats were taken, and a lot of people had filled in with their own chairs, the front rows were largely empty. So I made my way to the front like I knew what I was doing, plopped down my camera bag and started shooting. Experience and a bit of “I’m supposed to be here” behavior meant that I could walk into the “MUSICIANS ONLY” area with impunity so that I could get shots from the side of the stage.

I wandered around to watch a couple of other bands briefly, but didn’t shoot because they weren’t visually appealing to me. They were musicians, not performers, sitting on stage playing their instruments, with stoic faces of concentration +3. Bleh. Those don’t make good photographs.

I meandered back to the stage where Capital Sound was to perform. I’d been interacting via e-mail with Tyler, their drummer and organizer ever since my first e-mail solicitation. He had declined the portrait offer at the festival because he knew it wouldn’t be that great photographically (he’s right, of course). But he did want to pay me for a portrait session. We’ve been trying to work out a time for all 10 of us to get together, but that has been a bit of a challenge. Tyler and the rest of the band were gathering, and Tyler handed me a check for the full amount. He figured that would just be easier for him, and it seemed he trusted me to make good on the deal.

As Capital Sound was preparing to take the stage, I set up light stands and flashes near the risers for the temporary roof structure on either side of the front of the stage. The stage lighting was pretty good for the front row of performers, but sucked for everyone in back. So I knew ambient was not going to cut it for this performance, especially considering daylight was fading fast at 9:30PM.

“Fat Mike” paraded on stage with a young woman on each arm (his wife captured the moment with video on her point&shoot) at the beginning of their set as part of their stage shtick. Since these guys were intending to spend more with me, and had trusted me with their full payment, I really wanted to make good on the shoot. But capturing four horn players, either individually or together, is very challenging.

I camped out in the position to grab this shot for minutes at a time, waiting for a) them all to be playing, and b) all their faces to be visible, and c) for my finger to press the shutter fast enough to capture it.

I also really enjoy the challenge of capturing drummers. My ability (and determination) to capture drummers is one of the major facets of my work that sets me apart from “lead singers wife with a camera”.  This one was shot ambient because I wanted to capture the motion of his sticks. The real challenge is getting stick movement but not too much head (or worse, drums) movement.

ISO800 f/1.8 1/15s

I dearly love this shot.

I try very hard to not be obtrusive or a distraction when shooting a performance. My knees and butt are typically dirty after a shoot because I’m down low to stay out of the way of other spectators. Or I’m hugging against a wall, or I shoot as I walk  in front of the stage hoping to grab the composition but not stay in the way. Occasionally I can grab shots from behind the stage that turn out well, but I don’t do it frequently because my presence can be a distraction to the performers and the audience. This one of Fat Mike is another favorite from the day.

I love the lights on the brick wall and the smoke in the air. I love how the light wraps around him (flash on either side), and how the symbols help to frame him in.

I went home that night feeling like I’d done a good job and had definitely earned my fees.

Sunday at Creekside will have to be another (shorter, thankfully) post.

As I was walking into my local library to pick up a reserve, I was confronted with a “great parent” moment. This is in contrast to what Anne and I typically call a “critical parent” moment–where we see another parent acting stupidly/harshly/ignorantly, i.e. exhibiting poor parental skills. This “great parent” was walking out of the library with her three kids: a toddler in an umbrella stroller being pushed by a 3-4 year old, and another 3ish-year-old being led by the hand. The one being held by the hand was crying “Mommy, let go of my hand! Mommy LET GO of my hand!” The mother was reasonably calm looking, and was leading the young boy, not dragging him. In between his sobs I heard her say “I’m sorry, but it is time for us to leave now.” That was a “great parent” moment in my book. The parent was in control but not being rough, and they were both “using their words”. I smiled as I walked by her to attempt to convey a “good job” from one parent to another.

As I approached the reserve area in the library, I overheard a man ask an employee how much it cost to rent a CD. “You’re at the library sir” was her initial response. She went on to explain borrowing and late fees, but no, there are no rental fees. I almost laughed out loud at her first sentence. It made me think “I’m sorry if this hurts sir, but you clearly need to be hit by this clue-by-four.” After he left the area, I told her I loved her response.