Jason Michael Carroll, 12/31/2005
With the daylight fading on the First Night festivities I made my way down to the main stage where the People’s Procession (apparently someone has a thing for Lenin?) would finish. I figured I’d get some shots as the parade came in. As I approached I heard country music…not a genre I’m not real familiar with, but then I heard an amazing electric guitar and think to myself “that dude is tearing it up.” I move up to the stage, and sure enough, it’s a guy I know: John Lesnik (that’s John in the picture above, not Jason Michael Carroll). A truly bad-ass player doing his thing. He’d told me he was in a country band a while back, but the name hadn’t stuck. It was a happy coincidence, and I was able to get a few good frames of them.
I used the technique I read about here, and I’m pretty pleased with the results. I need to work with it more, but I think it’s going to help me greatly improve my shooting.
You know, I’m generally very bored by concert photography (I’m not sure why), but this one really caught my eye. I love the smoky foreground, the way it catches the light, and I love what it does to the colors. This looks much more like a captured moment than most concert photography I see.
comment at 10. January 2006
Tamara, thank you. I do feel the need to point out that I had a ton going for me. First, I know the guitarist; once you see someone play a couple of times it makes it /much/ easier to anticipate their movements (in this case, how he was going to hold his head). Second, that article from Steve Mirarchi is just fantastic. His instuction on metering made this image possible…up till now I’d been shooting everything manual and consulting the LCD /after/ I shot to verify the exposure. Not a horrible approach, but it doesn’t work great under the changing conditions of stage lighting. Also from the “rules” given by Mr. Mirarchi, I made it a point to get both of his hands in the shot–that’s a compositional choice I wouldn’t have made prior to reading his article.
One last note. This was exactly the second shot I took of their performance. The first one was black because I was still in manual mode and got the exposure wrong.
comment at 12. January 2006
the song
Alyssa lies was really awsome
comment at 16. January 2007
i think the song alyssa lies is a very touching song that brought out alot of heart in people who heard it.
comment at 10. February 2007
Alyssa lies is such a sweet touching song
comment at 16. February 2007
i really think that Alyssa Lies is a very touching some and might even open some ones eyes one of these days.
comment at 18. February 2007