Accidental Portraiture

From the metal band, Spiral Fracture. This is their lead guitarist. Nice guy and one heck of a shredder. The lighting when they were on stage was very iffy and most of the pics weren't very good, but I liked the way the rig backlit his hair.

Had my camera cranked to the max settings for this. 50mm f/1.8, 1600ISO, 1/100 sec shutter.

The Apocalypse is upon us

 A good friend of mine is in a metal band. A proper thrash metal band and was playing at a local club known to have good lighting. Naturally I had to be there, I've been away from concerts too long and I needed to get back into it.

The show was hampered by two things, my rustiness for one, and the lighting guy was asleep at his job. He only woke up when Hypokalypse (my friend's band) hit the stage. About that time I got my skills back, and here are some of the results.

The band knew how to interact with the audience, which always helps to make good shots, and they had a fog machine which diffused the light, making it better to shoot by.

Nikon D2x, 50mm f/1.8 at 1600ISO with a 1/100sec shutter speed. Run through PhotoShop to reduce noise.

Back to Cheating

 This weekend it was still raining cats and dogs (I know, I just stepped in a poodle) but the Alex Meixner Band was back to rock the local folk fest. Although I wanted to do more film work, I also wanted to save my remaining roles of BW400CN for other things, so out came the D2x and 80-200mm lens.

The lighting at the show was a mix of ambient light from the side of the tent, and white lamps mounted near the ceiling. The pictures I took in colour were uninspiring. The colours were muted and the overall feel lacked punch.

So, out came the B/W conversion tools built into Lightroom. After conversion of a few I felt they were much better, so I converted all of them to Black and White. Here are two of my favourite shots.

By the way, if you look up Alex on youtube, his live shows are much better than his CDs. He really interacts with the audience and gets them going.

An Assortment of Oddities

Around June of this year, my system finally gave up the ghost. Admittedly it was an ancient rig and while I had all my data backed up nine ways from Sunday, re-installing all my software onto a new PC was tedious. Setting things back up the way I was used to (preferences in Lightoom, Chrome, etc.) was a real pain.

Just prior to my PC taking a nosedive I'd shot a large gathering of bands and never really finished processing them after the new PC was up and running. By that point I'd moved on to the Belize shots, Colour Runs and taking care of the new house. So given a rainy three-day weekend (let's hear it for State work) I managed to force myself through them and pick the best.

Here is a selection of them. ISO 1600, 50mm f/1.8 and around 1/125sec shutter speed. The concert was crowded, given Nile were headlining but the lighting was flat, mostly white which made for dull shots. 

Salvage

 So today I was supposed to go to an archery competition to photograph the event. It was quite a drive away and I confirmed the prior night that it was still on...

This this morning I make the drive only to find out it had been canceled at the last minute. Shucks, rats and other rated G comments.

I did, however, find this pair of deer skulls and decided to make a series of shots from different angles to explore their detail.

All shot with my Nikon D2x, 50mm lens set at f/2.8.

Horses!

 Local horse track from this past Sunday. Weather was iffy but it held off enough to catch one good race. Here are the results. I've brightened up the image a bit because of the weather, otherwise what you see is what you get. Shot with my 70-200mm f/2.8 (beast of a lens) and Nikon D2x (beast of a camera)

Richmond Colour Run

 As you can see, a whole lot of happy faces here. This was a 5 kilometre fun run for charity. No time limits, just start in white and end up as multi-coloured happiness. I ran the race last year for time, this year just for the fun of it, stopping for the in-run pics. I didn't have a Nikon body to use this year, so I used my emergency backup, a Canon 10d. It held up well and was reasonably accurate in focus. A lot colder this time around than last one, but the results were well worth it.

Day 2: Heading Home

 First off, forgive the terrible quality of the pics. They were taken from the bus, through tinted smudged windows, at 70 mph (there isn't technically a speed limit in Belize)

On the way back from the docks, I grabbed a window seat in the tour bus and wanted to get some real estate shots. What you see in picture 1 is a typical house available to live in (and for sale) in Belize. They are on stilts because a lot of Belize floods during the rainy season.

Pic 2 shows some of the outlandish colours the houses are painted. This is commonplace to use whatever seems to be at hand, whether or not they go well together. 

Pic 3 here is an unfinished mansion. There were more than one that I saw during my stay in Belize. My guess is some rich couple started building it, and then lost their fortune in the stock market.

Day 2: The Return

Once we were done being in total awe of Lamanai, we still had the return trip by boat down the New River, back to the tour bus, and the ride back to the hotel. Most of my tour folks were worn out from the hike, climb, and heat, as evidenced here. 

The shot was a little too close, as I had my 80-200mm lens on, and didn't want to disturb them by changing lenses.

Our tour guide was kind enough on the way back to let them sleep all the way back to the docks.

Day 2: Lamanai

 So after lunch, it's a brisk walk to and through the ruins and surrounding areas. The original city of Lamanai has only been excavated to about 8 percent of original. It's difficult to explain the sense of age and permanence of the structures. When near them, and climbing their stairs to the top, you get a sense that they were built to last forever, and will be here long after mankind is gone. There is also the reminder that at some point in their past, they were used for sacrifices, and enough blood was shed to permanently stain the stonework.

The stairs were steep and built for the ruling caste, who were clearly much taller than my 6' frame, going up the stairs to the top was tiring, and heading back down was only accomplished with the utmost care, and usually in the squatting and scooting motions.

In the next to the last picture here, taken from the top of one of the ziggurats,  you can just barely make out a few people in the middle left of the picture. It was a long way down and I didn't mind one bit taking my time scooting down to get to the ground again. As a possible point of reference the palm trees were about 60 feet tall. We were up over 100 feet in the air, and I could plainly see just how flat most of Belize is, see the last picture for example, we were well above even the tallest trees, looking out past the New River and into the countryside beyond.  Nearly as flat as Texas, but much more interesting (sorry Texas.)

Recap from the trip: Day 1

 So we arrive in Belize and right off the plane, things are different. For one, there is the old fashioned mobile staircase that attaches to the plane that you walk down. Two, the terminal has a live band playing while you go through the very light customs. A refreshing change from the sullen paranoia that permeates airports in the US.

By the time we got to the hotel, it was about 2pm and according to the desk clerks, Belize kind of shuts down at 5pm, so it's really too late to go out on an excursion into the wilds of the country.

So it's off to the pool instead. Here is where the reality of being in another country sets in, there are parrots flying over squawking at much larger birds of prey (some kind of vulture perhaps. The locals call them "eagles.")
And of course all the palm trees are laden with fresh coconuts. Anyway, here are two shots of the interior courtyard of my hotel. The pool never had anyone in it, so I had it all to myself the entire week. Now that's a vacation!
In addition, the bar that night (I don't drink, but I did visit to check it out) was playing calypso music. Fair enough, but the lyrics of the song were about the movie Terminator.
Sung by a woman who sounded a lot like Sade.

I could get used to this place...

Brave

According to Wikipedia, Emilie has had a very rough life, and uses her music to excise the demons. She's a very brave girl for putting her personal problems out there in front of strangers, for all to see and hear. You can see the emotions play across her face in this shot, she was singing about her time in a mental ward, and the difficulties of getting out of there intact.