Rick’s Rants and Raves

Last year after the Dublin Irish Festival I made a goal for myself–get back stage. I wanted to have the ability to move freely to get the shots I wanted. I wanted to have access to the performers as they prepared. I wanted to be closer to the performance. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but I was prepared for it to take a couple of years.

Much of what I did photographically this year was either directly or indirectly conceived to help me toward that goal. Much of it was building my skills, and a network of relationships. Then I shot 9 Castle Close. My relationship with them forged the ability to shoot Green for Greene. Through that event, I met the director of community relations for Dublin. 9 Castle Close wanted me to shoot them back stage at DIF2010, so I submitted a media access request stating that as the reason. It was approved by someone I’m pretty sure works for the director of community relations. Today, I received the all access media badge. I’m so excited!

Cindy and Dennie, originally uploaded by rick020200.

I’m not a very generous person.

That is painful for me to admit, but I struggle with generosity. I want to be generous, but it doesn’t tend to be my first instinct. I’ll illustrate with a picture and a story.

The picture above was taken at the Creekside Festival while I shot Sanhedrin Move, one of the bands that paid me to shoot their performance. This couple started dancing during one of the songs, and I took a few pictures of them in front of the band. Typically I would hand a business card to someone like this and tell them to send me an e-mail so I could send them a picture. I was very low on business cards, so I didn’t say anything to the couple.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to Comfest, and who did I see sitting on the grass almost right next to me? And what did I have in my wallet? If you guessed “this couple” and “more business cards” respectively, congratulations! I introduced myself, they remembered me from Creekside, and I handed them a card. My standard business card doesn’t have the address to this blog or my flickr account, but instead has my portfolio address. Since I knew the pictures weren’t on my portfolio, I told them to send me an e-mail so that I could send a pic to them.

A couple of weeks went by, and I got a phone call from Cindy. My card had been washed in Dennie’s jeans and all that was visible was my phone number. She really wanted my website address, but I explained the picture wasn’t on it and she should just send me an e-mail so I could send the photo to her. She seemed a little hesitant but agreed to take down my e-mail.

Another week or so went by, and I got an e-mail from someone else asking me to mail the picture to Cindy and Dennie, and provided the snail-mail address. Hrm, I thought, that’s kinda odd, and not really what I had intended. And now I can get to my point.

Rather than printing and mailing the picture, my first inclination was to try to have them pay for the print. I struggled a bit with the idea, and wondered how much I should charge. At my $1 cost, it would seem really petty to ask them to pay me. Could I get away with $5? Not likely. Was it worth trying to negotiate anything at all?

I related the story of my meeting the couple and the subsequent e-mail to my wife. Before I could even mention my struggles with mailing the picture, she asks “So what’s the problem? Just mail them a picture. It’ll cost, what 70 cents?”

Then I realized just how generous I’m not. And I really dislike that about myself. I wanted them to have the picture. What difference does it make if I have to spend a dollar (or less) to get it to them? I’m guessing they don’t have e-mail, which likely means they don’t have internet access like 50% of the rest of the state they live in (Alabama was the only state worse in terms of household internet access in 2007). Here I am in the “digital haves” side of the world wondering if I could squeeze a few bucks from someone on the “digital have-nots” side. Petty in deed.

It took a bit of time to get to it (procrastination!), but tonight I finally printed a picture and put it in an envelope for them. I hope it ends up in a frame on an end-table as a reminder of the fun they had.

RAСEƆAЯ Promo, originally uploaded by rick020200.

Last week I had the chance to do some promo work for RAСEƆAЯ. I had been introduced to them by Scott and shot their reunion performance. Because of their unique stage presence, I knew I wanted to do a promo shoot with them.

But the question that killed me was “what kind of promo shoot?” I’ve recently been looking at every picture posted to the Band Promos pool and had decided that I didn’t want a bunch of guys standing and facing the camera with stoic faces and a nondescript background (like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one [yes, that's mine]).

My favorite pictures were the ones with a , or some bit of action, or even just a bit of over-the-top expression. I had a lull in my schedule so I reached out to Andy, the lead singer, to see what we could arrange.
At about that time, I noticed a house on my drive home that seemed to be getting torn down by hand, one board at a time. This house sits on the same property as another house, and had obviously been vacant for years, so I figured they were finally tearing it out. I’d seen other pics in dilapidated buildings and thought it could make for an interesting setting. I found the owners on the county auditor’s web site, looked up their phone number and left a message. The next day, I stopped by the house and knocked on the door (boy was I ever nervous) and met Judy. I introduced myself and explained what I wanted to do. She explained that her husband was remodeling the house, but that he was out of town and that I should check back the next week. I left her my card. When I checked back, I talked with their teenage son and left another message. I figured anything more than three attempts would be harassment, so I just let it go.
Fortunately, Andy had an excellent plan B. We could do a shoot focusing on his dad’s restored 1955 car (I’m an idiot for not knowing what kind it was). We agreed on a date, and I quickly finished work on my DIY strip lights (hopefully I’ll do a post on those soon) since I wanted to use them in lighting the scene above.
I bought a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, threw it in a cooler and brought it with me, figuring the cans would make great props, and give their hands something to do. Oh, and it was terribly hot and the cold beer made everyone happier.
My first idea was to shoot them doing something stoopid to the car under the hood. The strip lights were necessary here to focus the light on the under-hood area, make it reasonably large (soft shadows) and come from a lot of angles (few shadows). I also had a flash on a stand at the back of the car to add depth to the garage, rather than making it a black hole.
The next idea came up on the fly, and started with someone’s comment “maybe we could do something with the trunk”. So I had the idea to work with a mock abduction scene. I wanted to have the band members stuffing the lead singer into the trunk for a couple of frames, then have him battle back and put them in their place (ha!).

Finally, they wanted a shot of all of them in the car. I was really sweating it now. Light was fading, and I knew anything non-flashed would have them dark in the car, and bright sky behind them. So I placed a flash in the center floor of the front seat with a bounce card, and a second flash in the back seat pointed at the white backs of the front seats.
But that wasn’t enough because of the way the driver was leaning toward the window. So I snooted a third flash, turned it way down in power and had a voice activated light stand point it at the driver from just over my shoulder.

When I got home I played around with the post processing on this final shot a great deal because a) there was a suburban looking garage and basketball pole in the background, and b) the back-seat passengers are a bit too fuzzy. I realize now I need to have the aperture set to f/8 or more to get better depth of field. In the end, I just chopped out the back ground, put in one of my sunsets and called it done.

It was a good time, and an excellent learning opportunity. They guys were a blast to work with and were very flexible. I hope they’re able to make use of the photos in their promotional materials.

Dad, originally uploaded by rick020200.

We had my dad over for dinner tonight. He’s 69 and wants for nothing except time with his son and grand kids. He’s recently made it a habit of paying for dinner every time we go out despite our frequent insistence that it is our turn to pay. So for his birthday this year, we had him over to our house for a quiet dinner of Country Captain Chicken (our favorite made-at-home curry dish) and Krusteaz pumpkin pie bars (they are devilishly good!).

The shot above was a “grab” shot. I spent very little time composing it and the only light is from the overhead ceiling fan with a mixture of incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs. I like the result.