One example was the previous post on the World War II photos that were in my father's personal collection ... and the associated organizing and scanning of scores of other pictures (few of which carry identifications) of ancestors.
Another task is far less serious, but it’s what this post is about.
But recently — perhaps because I've had too much time on my hands — I’ve been giving a lot of thought to changing the blog brand art. Freshen up the room, in a manner of speaking. I've always liked the monochrome approach; I remember tinkering with a color photo in the header quite a few years back, and I didn’t like it at all. It was too busy, too distracting.
I also like the idea of sticking to an image from my music repertoire, and since I had a male singer on the home page in the brand anchor spot for so long, I wanted to use a woman in any new photo if I made a change. The first person who came to mind for that ... was singer Georgette Fraction of the metro Indy corporate band The Bishops, for which I did several shoots in the early 2010s. Georgette is a sweet woman, too; she’s certainly deserving of such an honor. That’s her in the new header; the source color version of the shot appears as in the lead-off position of this post.
The image of Georgette was taken at the band’s performance at what was then known as Mickey’s Irish Pub in Carmel on Jan. 14, 2012. (I don't know what the site is used for today, but I know it ceased being Mickey’s quite a few years ago.)
I remember that show very well because it was the night was the time I got to use a newly purchased Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. Canon’s “L” series lenses are their top of the line, and it was my second L series lens; I’d acquired the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS in May 2009. I was very impressed with the shots the new lens snagged for me that night.
In fact, probably my favorite crowd shot at any concert I’ve shot was taken at Mickey’s that night (above). I remember these ladies had been dancing in front of new band guitarist Matt Ley for a while, and I'd gotten a few shots of them from the side of the stage, but I didn't like that perspective very well.
I noticed there was some wiggle room at the back of the stage, so I went there and dropped prone to the floor (to minimize my conspicuous position). Almost immediately, I was delighted by the straight-on shots this new perspective was delivering. Like this one. The facial expressions and hand gestures on the two gals closest to Matt were reward enough, but being able to include the equally joyous third woman on the far left — outside the cover of the main stage light — proved to be what photographers like to call a “golden nugget” — an element (often unplanned) that serves as a bonus in the composition.
This morning, I went back to the blog post I had put together for the show in 2012 to remind myself of what I said about it, and the narrative is pretty thin, which is unusual for me and my posts. I didn't mention the new lens or say too much about the dancers image above -- other than it was my favorite of quite a few shots I took of dancers that night.
But then I read, in that same Feb. 12, 2012 post, that I'd shot three concerts that night -- which was a month earlier. Then a lot of it came back to me. I'd started the evening at the Indy Acoustic Cafe series performances by James Griffin and Vince Gilbert. Those shows were in Fountain Square, which is on the near-Southside of Indianapolis. I'm sure I left Gilbert's performance early so I could hustle to Mickey's in Carmel for the Bishops show. So it took me almost a month to process images from those three shows!
For the Feb. 4 post that I did on the Griffin and Gilbert shows, I did mention the new Canon lens. But I also mentioned that I had decided on trying a new approach to shooting the Griffin show -- to use my Sigma 85mm f/1.8 lens almost exclusively. I wrote that I went back to the Canon lenses (24-70 and 200mm f/2.8L IS) for Gilbert's show.
Reminded of that experiment with the Sigma 85mm lens, I will have to go back to my gallery on the Griffin show to see how that worked out ... and assess whether it was worth it. I can think of only one other time when I shot a concert with only one lens. That was the Epic Fail show at the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis in July 2011. I tried starting the shoot using my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens, but the stage lighting for that performance was so inferior that even with a 2.8 maximum aperture, I wasn't getting enough light to give me decent exposure.
The only faster lens I owned at the time was a Canon "Nifty-Fifty," the affection name for the versatile 50mm f/1.8. The 1.8 aperture got me the exposure I needed, but it limited my focal range (I stood next to the stage -- or close to it -- for most of the shoot), I still had to use a relatively slow shutter speed (approx. 1/100), and it reduced my depth of field significantly beyond what I ordinarily want and need. I ended up with way more out of focus shots than I was accustomed to.
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