Shoot: The Second Movement show band
Last week I had the opportunity of taking a few pictures for the The Second Movement show band when they got together for their mid-week rehearsal.
A little history... The Second Movement played in and around Canberra in the late 60’s and early 70’s and were resident band at the Civic Hotel Lounge. The group became resident band at the Deakin Inn when it opened in 1969. The band played at the Deakin Inn up to six nights a week for four years until they retired in 1974.
In 1967 the band signed a recording contract with EMI and recorded two singles, which were released nationally. The singles were produced by Robert Iredale (who was Johnny O’Keefe’s’ record producer at the time). The singles had moderate success and made it into a few top 40 charts.
After a thirty years’ absence the original band (there were some personnel changes in the early seventies) decided to get together for a 30th anniversary party bash at the Southern Cross Club Canberra. Some of the band members hadn’t played in a band since the band retired in 1973. Others no longer lived in Canberra so the logistics of a reunion offered many challenges. However the project went ahead and the night was a huge success. The band enjoyed themselves so much it was decided to continue the band which would make itself available for the occasional booking.
Ostensibly to create a few simple pictures to refresh their website, the session was fun and enjoyable and a lovely bunch of guys the majority of whom have been playing together for more than 40 years! The band member whose house was used as the rehearsal space restores old Jaguar cars ... he had an absolutely gorgeous red E-Type Mk2 that you can see the band posing with in a couple of the photos.
The band did insist in standing outside in the bright noonday sun which caused a little squinty action but the sunshine and blue sky certainly set off their matching blue stage suits! I did manage to convince them to pose together in the back shed where the featured image was shot ... that one's my favourite from this little shoot.
Links
PS Cottier - Poet
Earlier this week I had the good fortune to be asked by renowned local poet Penelope (PS) Cottier to take some some new head-shots for a new collection of poems she's about to publish. After the head-shots were done I coaxed her out onto the street with her fabulous green silk parasol :-)
(did you know that she collects fish vases?)
Links:
- PS Cottier
- She has just had a new work published on Verity La
Late Night Call
A little while ago I was up in the (not so) Snowy Mountains region of south-Eastern Australia, taking the kids on a trip to visit the grand Snowy Mountains Hydroelectricity Scheme's dams and turbines, tunnels and towns ... and the mountains of course. One of the places we stayed was a caravan park on the shores of Lake Eucumbene ... there was also no mobile coverage apart from a 50m circle on a patch of road some 13km back up the hill ... you'd see cars there in the morning, connecting ... there was a little shop in the park office, a petrol bowser and this telephone booth.
I didn't think much of it at the time apart from my initial "haven't seen one of those in a while" ... until after dark when I went for a walk outside; and there it was ... a poignant reminder of communication and connectedness bathed in a pool of it's own making. I just had to take some pictures as you do. Truth be told I wasn't actually talking on the phone but I was missing someone and I imagined I was calling them from a place a long way away ... which in many ways this was ... a long way away :-)
The late night call :-)
Bad Pharmer
From a quick band shoot I did at the end of last year of local Polish punk band Bad Pharmer the afternoon before their final gig in Canberra and they up and moved to greener pastures in Brisbane (the shining lights of Bris-Vegas!)
I purchased a copy of their EP Where The Wild Bison Roam ... it's very tidy and contains some great tracks :-)
How's about lead singer/bassist Ania and that yellow couch!
Links
- Listen to Where The Wild Bison Roam
There will be a little period where my posts here will not necessarily follow chronological order as I find interesting things to post from the period I didn't update the blog at all ... does this really matter? Likely not... I just figured I'd let you know anyway 
Gettin' the Groove On
I'm shooting a wedding this afternoon ... it has a Retro theme. I thought I'd best try on my outfit this morning and there was music playing and there was a bit of camera gear about and here are some of the results.
The sky-blue linen safari suit was tailored for my father in Penang in 1972 ... it's going to be a fun afternoon and evening Gettin' the Groove On :-)
PS ... I know I've been vey slack in attending to everyone's blogs ... life here has been very full and I'm only just starting to get on top of that ... I'll be around to visit soon :-)
Talk to the Hand
Outtakes in my recent quest for a new avatar...
Talk to the Hand...
For everyone who has been listening to me talking about winter and cold ... there's this thing called central heating ... it's nice ;-)
Cranes Tweaking My Hair
It's been a little while since I put myself in front of the camera ... all this playing with flowers and having all the gear set up ... well the art just kinda got out of hand. I don't recommend sucking on a gerbera ... they really taste quite foul but for the sake of a loony selfie why not!
This last one pretty much sums up where I am right now ... playfully surprised, speaking flowers and with cranes tweaking my hair ... there's gold and lots of fun too :-)
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
So lucky! You get three and not just one ;-)
The Enchantress
From the water she rose
hands like whispering flame
a face in shadow
elsewhere perhaps
ripples spread circles
the enchantment begins
One of a series of pictures from a session in the Adelaide hills last year.
This is also the first time I've posted wholly using android on my new tablet. Lots to get used to but I think it will work :-)
Gone all Pop! The poster for Los Chavos
I did a shoot for 9-piece Latin band 'Los Chavos' a couple of weeks ago and have been busy processing them up. One of the parts of the commission (the kinda optional part) was to produce a poster for the band in the style Pop Art Cartoon by taking headshots of the band and reducing them effectively to solid colour paintings. I'd not tried it before but I knew it was possible so I agreed. I'd shot the headshots using the intense blue of our autumnal skies to make it easier to mask out later and replace it with whatever colour I chose.
When I first approached the task I thought 'It'll be easiest just to paint these in Photoshop using the original photo as a base.'. But then I'm not the greatest illustrator in the world and in effect I was afraid they wouldn't look any good (I'm sure I'm not alone on that front) so I went for what I thought was the safest option ... trialling and recording a series of actions incorporating various filters in Photoshop. The two main filters were 'Poster Edges' and 'Cutout' which I chose for their ability to effectively reduce the number of colours and tones I wanted in my final image. OK so after a couple of testy tweaky runs I passed all nine of the images through the action ... and? Well, the results weren't great, at least for most of the images. One worked really well, two others were alright and the remaining six were rubbish. I re-tweaked the processing and got a slightly better result: three out of the nine were now pretty close to where I wanted them to be ... that only left six (the same six as before!) still looking rubbish.
When I arranged all nine into the poster and coloured them up yellow, blue or red ... I literally said 'wow!'. I should note that I'm easily impressed with my own cleverness ;-)
Collective Thoughts
I have been getting back into taking pictures again. This follows on from my moving and renovation experiences late last year when I took almost no pictures of anyone or anything except the progress (and at times ... total lack of progress) on the renovations to my flat. It was a period of perhaps six or seven months where I took next to no pictures purely for the pleasure of taking pictures ... it was like my photo-mojo had vamoosed. I like to think of it now as a kind of enforced sabbatical ... a time when I reflected upon other things and new directions ... though I recall at the time finding it confusing and debilitating.
I mean, after a while you start to think about whether you'll be able to take pictures again. You look back on the remarkable things you've captured and published before but they feel like they were taken by a different person and there's so much going on in your mind, things are moving so quickly, that even beginning to write a post feels like it's passed before you even start.
I knew the mojo would return ... I could feel it circling me. I began to see pictures again ... the ones the you compose when you aren't carrying a camera. You see the picture ... the light, the crop, the depth and the colour even though you didn't actually take it. Truth be told that's how most of my pictures are captured ... I have a large mental store of those ones ... the ones I saw but didn't take.
Enter The Ellis Collective; a six piece folk-rock (also referred to as 'Bloke-folk' ;-) ) group from Canberra. I'd shot them before and we were both very happy with the results. I met with Matty Ellis (the large chap with the shaved head) in early March and we tossed around some ideas. There were to be two separate shoots ... the first of the band having a picnic and the second ... well ...
Matty had this idea of a shot with band at night standing in front of a car's headlights and I began to think of how I'd do it. This was one of those times when you know technically how you would take a shot but have never actually taken a shot like it. I knew from my Strobist readings many years ago (that's a great site if you're into using any kind of flash in your photography btw) how to expose for the background lighting and illuminate the foregound with speedlights or flash. I knew I could do it and I wanted to do it and the band were into it but I'd never attempted it before ... and certainly not with paying clients! There was a real risk that we would come away with nothing ... that I'd assembled the group in the dark for nothing ;-)
The shot called for a stretch of deserted road ... I used trusty Google Maps and found a spot amongst the fields of Pialligo out near the airport, arrived at sunset and began to set up. We moved a car into position and I got the band to stand in front but it became clear that I needed more light ... so we moved another two cars to just out of frame ... now we had plenty of light :-)
Now for the speedlights, I used two (Nikon SB-910 & SB-800) atop two mid light stands on either side of the band. The SB-910 on the right of the frame sported a Honly speed grid to provide harsh, directional light across the band. I controlled the power of the speedlights using the the D600 camerabuilt in flash as a commander. The camera uses the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) to alloow the body to remotely control the power setting of speedlights. The camera was atop a tripod and the pictures shot through my 70-200 f/2.8.
The road was dusty and I got the band to kick up some dust to produce a smokey effect. One hassle with that was there a light breeze blowing across the frame from right to left ... I left the camera (with my remote in my pocket) and went down to band to get some dust in the air. However, the remote sensor on the Nikon is on the left side of the body and wouldn't trigger from my upwind side ... for these pictures I threw the dust, ran across the frame, fired the remote and got the picture ... fun! I do like a picture you have to do some work for :-)
I even did a lighting diagram just for you :-)
And some from the picnic shoot too :-)
Lucie Thorne - The Front - 24th February 2013
I had the pleasure, in between passing cells of heavy rain, to see Lucie Thorne perform at my local pub/gallery/cafe The Front yesterday afternoon. Lucie sings finely crafted stories of longing with aching melody and feeling. The Front provides an intimate setting to see performers and Lucie did not disappoint.
Apparently she's become quite famous!
You can visit her here.
Lucie Thorne - The Front - 24th February 2013
With These Hands I Will Make The World
With these hands I will dig
and hold
circle
and fold
shape
and grow
caress, create
with these hands I will make the world
Out in the backyard, playing in the dirt ... the simple joys of finding a creature alive in the soil. Then crushing it and loving it until it's alive no more ... I hope that if there is some kind of spirit guardian of the invertebrate realm that they perhaps look the other way when small children play with their kin.
Family Portrait Session: R&T
From a family portrait session I did just before Christmas. These guys were great fun to photograph ... four families, 12 people including three littlies. There was much running around and chasing and everybody played. This is why I like taking pictures of people :-)
If you're watching ... thank you.
