Image by me, post-processing by Lydia Brownfield

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been incredibly busy photographically. After I tired of street photography in the Short North, I ventured back to a local bar which I figured would have decent music based on my previous experience.

As I arrived, Peace Time Riot was taking the stage, and it really makes me wish I was a music critic, because I really enjoyed their music, but I don’t really know why.

Maybe it was the bone-crushing bass delivered by Myke Rock.

Maybe it was the ear-splitting guitar. And I mean that in the best way.

Maybe it was the over-the-top drummer who loved aping for the camera. When I showed him some images after the performance he said with faux concern “I don’t like my hair in those.” I laughed, took a swig of Yuengling and retorted “Dude, that’s the way it looks!”

After Peace Time Riot finished their set, local legend, Willie Phoenix, took the stage.

Comparisons to Hendrix were appropriate. He and his band were great. I loved every second of it.

I’ve gotten a number of very nice compliments recently, and generally I feel like sharing those compliments is a bit of distasteful self-puffery. This time, however, I’m going to highlight a comment that Willie left on Facebook for me:

great shots rick…i’m loving the black and white…it bleeds depth and mystery….i’m digging the feel of the jammin’ happening that you captured…very cool…extremely fun rockin’ stuff…you rock! you make us look like LIFE magazine…. big time….through your photos i can still hear the electronic noise that we made friday night…again thanks. PEAceLOveHAPPIness…be of good health.

I dearly love that he took the time to write that much. Although “great shots” comments are nice, and I’m a bit of a like-slut, this kind of comment left me grinning for hours. So, if you really do “like” something that someone else has created (and this isn’t about me ..) please try to leave them a thoughtful comment. In the creative process, it really does help. When people are struggling to find that inner voice, and that drive to create, this stuff helps. If you saw a local band and enjoyed their performance, try to meet them, talk to them, and thank them for their performance. They will appreciate it as much as (or maybe more than) I did.

OK, one last image from the Willie Phoenix performance, not mine.

Image by Brian Griffon

Yeah, that’s me, doing whatever it takes to get the shot. And again, this is what I love about local music–I can get that close. What I hate about the local music scene is that it is that easy for me to get that close–I really wish there were a ton of people around me enjoying this music.

The day after the Peace Time Riot and Willie Phoenix performances, I went to a promo shoot for Trouble with Brownfield. One of the images leads this post, which I’ll repeat here.

And this starts to get me to the title of the post. This shoot was done in Lydia’s duplex, and I was seriously concerned that we wouldn’t get anything terribly interesting from the shoot. Lydia has been performing and doing promo shoots since, well, I shouldn’t say. So I was incredibly intimidated, and a whole lot nervous. Would I be creative enough to pull something out of a kitchen and stairwell? Above, a shot from the stairwell, backlit by a flash placed at the top of the stairs. Lydia applied the split-toning, and I really like the treatment.

I spent a lot of time in the shoot using my newly acquired Tamron 10-24mm lens–both of these images were shot using that lens, owing to the dramatic difference in size between Lydia and her band-members. I’m glad she’s happy enough with a couple of the images. Was I creative enough? Yeah, just barely, I think.

A couple of days later, I did head shots and a group portrait for a local startup. I can’t mention their name, but it was a fun late afternoon.

Last, but definitely not least, this past weekend I had a shoot with Bobby Floyd. He’s another local legend, this time in the Jazz scene. And when I say local, now I’m talking about all over Ohio, and probably more. He’s the father of the lead singer for Fresh Wreckage, and had seen my recent work for them. As we were getting ready to do his portrait session, he told me about a conversation he’d had with his daughter, where she told him that I was the most creative photographer she’d ever worked with. There are precisely two possible reactions to that kind of comment: ego inflation or pants-shitting at the thought of trying to live up to the expectations. Lets just say I did the latter, metaphorically, of course.

We worked in his living room with his personal baby grand piano. It has a beautiful black lacquered finish, and is pretty imposing in his suburban home. Fortunately, I was able to set up a white background to block off the dining room, and his living room was painted a near-white neutral (behind him in the picture above).

When I saw the set in Lightroom after I got home, I felt pretty good. I stopped and smiled at the image above. I really felt like I had demonstrated that I knew what I was doing. Did I feel creative? Sometimes.

Was I creative enough? Only Bobby can the be judge of that.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to GOYA and do some nighttime street photography in the Short North, a popular destination for hipsters, 40-somethings, and hipster-60-somethings. I shot with just the newly-acquired Tamron 60mm f/2, primarily to spend some time with the lens, attempting to learn its quirks.

I wandered, looking for opportunities, not really with any particular image in mind. I was feeling just a bit nervous making the above image: I had walked by this guy once, stopped, pulled my camera out (more on that in a bit) in front of a police car, turned around, walked back and composed the shot. The dude was still there, standing on the edge of a 7-Eleven parking lot, fully engrossed in his #de-vice.

I didn’t always walk around with my camera in hand. I really hate calling attention to the fact that I’m hold a thousand dollars worth of gear (pro photogs will snort with derision at that number, happy snappers will shake their heads disapprovingly) so I would frequently stash the camera in my messenger bag while walking. Plus, when I was eleven, I was with my mom when she was robbed at gun-point in a dark parking lot (neither of us was hurt). I’m pretty much always paranoid on dark streets.

Sometimes I went looking for light. For being such a cool part of town, the sidewalks are very dark, and only a few pools of light were readily available. I tried really hard to not spend a lot of time “creepin”.

Speaking of ‘creepin’, when the light is this gorgeous, it was really hard to not linger outside this ice cream shoppe.

If I may paraphrase Dylan Thomas: Woman trying her new cigar, holding it out judiciously at arms’ length, returning it to her mouth, coughing, then holding it out again as though waiting for the explosion. Could. Not. Resist.

I kept wanting to stalk people in restaurants from the sidewalk. One young woman in a diner was clearly distressed and crying to a friend. My inner stalker tried to make an image, but she buried her face in her hands. Several other images appeared and went in the blink of an eye. So I settled for this animated woman, gesturing to the waitress with a menu, while her date was absorbed with counting the nicks in the tines of his fork.

Again, looking for light, I noticed that I was near a decent street light, and that there were frequently bicycles going by. I wanted motion blur. I tracked several bicycles as they went by. And then this motorcycle zoomed by.

I finally headed back to my car when my inner fear of getting mugged was outweighing my desire to make images. All it would take was a snatch-and-grab, and I would be totally hating life.

What did I learn about the lens? It has trouble focusing. I wish I knew more than that. But when it focuses, I’m really pleased with its results. That’s what I know for now.