Winnipeg Folk Festival - 2010-2012
May. 26th, 2013 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guppiecatI took some of these photos ages ago, processed them months ago and somehow never got around to sharing them. So, really, if I don't do it now, I never will.
Here are three sets of photos of performers at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. They are from 2010, 2011 and 2012. Flickr has greatly changed how sets look and I kinda like the new layout, so check out the links. I'll post some highlights below.
I mostly bring my camera with me so I can practice technique and timing. They're not very creative because I don't get a Press Pass, so I am limited to taking photos from where I sit. When you have the magic credentials, you get to (carefully) go places others can't and can get much better and more candid photos.
Del Ray - I like the non-standard "portrait" photos (though I take a lot of those). Music is work. Photos should reflect that.
Ghostkeeper - I like doing "musician over time" photos. Most photos of music don't capture the dynamics involved.
Bette et Wallet - The lighting and heat at the folk festival makes it hard to make people look good. There's almost never any makeup (good, IMO), but that means that skin is shinier, more mottled and flushed. Since photos in the shade white-balance in favor of the red, I have to do work with the histograms to hope I get it adjusted right without making people look green.
Bette et Wallet - It's rare for performers to look directly at the camera. Usually, when they do, it doesn't work well, because people don't know how to pose (which is why we have professional portraiters). Sometimes, though, it makes one heck of a photo.
Geoff Muldaur - This is not what is typically thought of as a flattering shot. What it is, however, is a photo that shows experience. I like what happens to people's faces as they age. I like how the eyes reflect the moment (literally) and the things they've seen (figuratively). I take a lot of photos of eyes.
William Elliott Whitmore - A lot of performers have tattoos. Many of them seem to be ill-chosen, selected when drunk or done by poor artists. Once in a while, though, you see some that have meaning. There's a higher threshold of this at the festival, so it's nice to see.
Charlie Parr - I really like capturing bending strings. It's the moment before the note sounds and you can almost, but not quite, hear it. Fingerpicks make this even better visually.
Connie Kaldor - There are quiet moments on stage. If you look for them, you get a better sense of what's going on. An instrument that's not in use has a sort of potential to it that can be appreciated because you know it soon will be.
Connie Kaldor - Another moment of quiet.
Connie Kaldor - There was a moment in the song when a drummer began playing the mic stand. I was lucky to capture this, having the microphone in perfect focus, but the longish exposure showed the actual playing. This is quite difficult to do handheld.
Crooked Brothers - Another moment of potential.
Dirk Powell - Another "musician over time" shot. Fiddlers are great for this because they are so dynamic when they play, but the method play requires that the bow hold a position to sustain a note. If they play acoustically, the fiddle stays fairly static so as to drive sound into the mic, so you can get shots like this.
Lucy Wainwright Roche - Sunglasses and the festival work great. If the light is right, you can see the entire crowd as the performer sees them. The success of such a shot requires timing, depth of focus, focus lock and a good optical curve on the sunglasses. This is one of the best photos of the sort I've ever taken.
Mountain Man - It is easy to get good photos of young adults. It is, however, hard to get great photos. People between the ages of 20 and 30 seem to be more guarded and aware of how they appear, so getting photos that are natural and don't seem posed are difficult. People this age look good because they match our social norms, but photos of them tend to lack a truth that is present in photos of older people and a sense of moment that children have. I like this one because she's caught up in singing and isn't hiding.
The Once - This is another rare "in the moment" capture of a younger person. I threw out a lot of bad shots to get this one.
Twilight Hotel - Another great tattoo. It's the roots that make it. I'd have loved to get a few minutes with her and discuss the reasons behind her art choices. There seems to be both a Norse and Southern Native American mythological theme to them. I want to know if they're personal choices and, if so, what the stories are.
Drummers are great at "over time" photos, but are really hard to get because they hide behind their drum sets and, usually, a guitarist or two. I was lucky they positioned this one for me to get a good angle on him.
Photographer - Not a performer, but she was near the stage, so she's in this set. A dragonfly landed on her camera so, naturally, she used her other camera to try for a photo of it. I'm not sure how well it would have turned out, but I appreciate the fact that she tried. That's the kind of thing I'd do too.
Adam Cohen (band) - I like musician's fingers. There are a lot of face shots, of course, because we associate faces with individuals, but hands are just as distinctive. In photography, you can see the personality in some people's hands. Good painters show it too. Look at the hands of people posing for portraits in the Master's oil paintings and compare them to people that haven't achieved mastery. This is even done in literature. Read "Bianca's Hands" by Theodore Sturgeon for a good example.
Dry Bones - Some performers give it their all. Nathan Rogers is one of those. It is astonishing to watch him perform. He's like a method singer, having to become the person he's singing about in order to sing.
Dry Bones - Another great hand shot, this time with a good guitar backing it up. I'm generally not a fan of the "made pretty" guitars. You should be able to tell quality without adding bits and bobbles to it, but I really like this inlay job. When you juxtapose it with a simple brass slide and the duct tape on the finger, it shifts the guitar from a static piece of art to a beautiful tool.
It's subtle, but what makes this photo for me is that reflection of his keyboard in his sunglasses. He's having fun, but he's having fun playing something.
Ellis Paul - Many singers make this face. I'm not sure if it's necessary for the microphone (it is with some that sit next to it, of course) or if they're intentionally channeling Elvis.
Justin Rutledge (band) - Another quiet moment.
Kim Churchill - Personally, I found his music over-rated and not deserving of the (at times, scary) fanbase that surrounded him. However, his playing style was great to see. He did fingerpicking on the neck with selective but incomplete damping of the strings. He made his guitar sound like a harp. Personally, I'd have just learned the harp (really, it's not that hard), but hey, it worked for him.
Madison Violet - Another moment of potential. The slight graininess due to the low light, I think, enhances the photo.
Sam Amidon - This is one of the few younger performers who was unselfconscious. I hated his music. It was awful, but it was also aweful. He did things I've never seen done and, while it didn't work for me (at all), I greatly respected him for it. He reminds me of a person I went to college with who wrote in a way I'd not seen before or since. I hope the realities of life don't make him give up his art. He's more of a true experimental artist than anyone I'd seen on stage since Taqaq.
Here are three sets of photos of performers at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. They are from 2010, 2011 and 2012. Flickr has greatly changed how sets look and I kinda like the new layout, so check out the links. I'll post some highlights below.
I mostly bring my camera with me so I can practice technique and timing. They're not very creative because I don't get a Press Pass, so I am limited to taking photos from where I sit. When you have the magic credentials, you get to (carefully) go places others can't and can get much better and more candid photos.
Del Ray - I like the non-standard "portrait" photos (though I take a lot of those). Music is work. Photos should reflect that.
Ghostkeeper - I like doing "musician over time" photos. Most photos of music don't capture the dynamics involved.
Bette et Wallet - The lighting and heat at the folk festival makes it hard to make people look good. There's almost never any makeup (good, IMO), but that means that skin is shinier, more mottled and flushed. Since photos in the shade white-balance in favor of the red, I have to do work with the histograms to hope I get it adjusted right without making people look green.
Bette et Wallet - It's rare for performers to look directly at the camera. Usually, when they do, it doesn't work well, because people don't know how to pose (which is why we have professional portraiters). Sometimes, though, it makes one heck of a photo.
Geoff Muldaur - This is not what is typically thought of as a flattering shot. What it is, however, is a photo that shows experience. I like what happens to people's faces as they age. I like how the eyes reflect the moment (literally) and the things they've seen (figuratively). I take a lot of photos of eyes.
William Elliott Whitmore - A lot of performers have tattoos. Many of them seem to be ill-chosen, selected when drunk or done by poor artists. Once in a while, though, you see some that have meaning. There's a higher threshold of this at the festival, so it's nice to see.
Charlie Parr - I really like capturing bending strings. It's the moment before the note sounds and you can almost, but not quite, hear it. Fingerpicks make this even better visually.
Connie Kaldor - There are quiet moments on stage. If you look for them, you get a better sense of what's going on. An instrument that's not in use has a sort of potential to it that can be appreciated because you know it soon will be.
Connie Kaldor - Another moment of quiet.
Connie Kaldor - There was a moment in the song when a drummer began playing the mic stand. I was lucky to capture this, having the microphone in perfect focus, but the longish exposure showed the actual playing. This is quite difficult to do handheld.
Crooked Brothers - Another moment of potential.
Dirk Powell - Another "musician over time" shot. Fiddlers are great for this because they are so dynamic when they play, but the method play requires that the bow hold a position to sustain a note. If they play acoustically, the fiddle stays fairly static so as to drive sound into the mic, so you can get shots like this.
Lucy Wainwright Roche - Sunglasses and the festival work great. If the light is right, you can see the entire crowd as the performer sees them. The success of such a shot requires timing, depth of focus, focus lock and a good optical curve on the sunglasses. This is one of the best photos of the sort I've ever taken.
Mountain Man - It is easy to get good photos of young adults. It is, however, hard to get great photos. People between the ages of 20 and 30 seem to be more guarded and aware of how they appear, so getting photos that are natural and don't seem posed are difficult. People this age look good because they match our social norms, but photos of them tend to lack a truth that is present in photos of older people and a sense of moment that children have. I like this one because she's caught up in singing and isn't hiding.
The Once - This is another rare "in the moment" capture of a younger person. I threw out a lot of bad shots to get this one.
Twilight Hotel - Another great tattoo. It's the roots that make it. I'd have loved to get a few minutes with her and discuss the reasons behind her art choices. There seems to be both a Norse and Southern Native American mythological theme to them. I want to know if they're personal choices and, if so, what the stories are.
Drummers are great at "over time" photos, but are really hard to get because they hide behind their drum sets and, usually, a guitarist or two. I was lucky they positioned this one for me to get a good angle on him.
Photographer - Not a performer, but she was near the stage, so she's in this set. A dragonfly landed on her camera so, naturally, she used her other camera to try for a photo of it. I'm not sure how well it would have turned out, but I appreciate the fact that she tried. That's the kind of thing I'd do too.
Adam Cohen (band) - I like musician's fingers. There are a lot of face shots, of course, because we associate faces with individuals, but hands are just as distinctive. In photography, you can see the personality in some people's hands. Good painters show it too. Look at the hands of people posing for portraits in the Master's oil paintings and compare them to people that haven't achieved mastery. This is even done in literature. Read "Bianca's Hands" by Theodore Sturgeon for a good example.
Dry Bones - Some performers give it their all. Nathan Rogers is one of those. It is astonishing to watch him perform. He's like a method singer, having to become the person he's singing about in order to sing.
Dry Bones - Another great hand shot, this time with a good guitar backing it up. I'm generally not a fan of the "made pretty" guitars. You should be able to tell quality without adding bits and bobbles to it, but I really like this inlay job. When you juxtapose it with a simple brass slide and the duct tape on the finger, it shifts the guitar from a static piece of art to a beautiful tool.
It's subtle, but what makes this photo for me is that reflection of his keyboard in his sunglasses. He's having fun, but he's having fun playing something.
Ellis Paul - Many singers make this face. I'm not sure if it's necessary for the microphone (it is with some that sit next to it, of course) or if they're intentionally channeling Elvis.
Justin Rutledge (band) - Another quiet moment.
Kim Churchill - Personally, I found his music over-rated and not deserving of the (at times, scary) fanbase that surrounded him. However, his playing style was great to see. He did fingerpicking on the neck with selective but incomplete damping of the strings. He made his guitar sound like a harp. Personally, I'd have just learned the harp (really, it's not that hard), but hey, it worked for him.
Madison Violet - Another moment of potential. The slight graininess due to the low light, I think, enhances the photo.
Sam Amidon - This is one of the few younger performers who was unselfconscious. I hated his music. It was awful, but it was also aweful. He did things I've never seen done and, while it didn't work for me (at all), I greatly respected him for it. He reminds me of a person I went to college with who wrote in a way I'd not seen before or since. I hope the realities of life don't make him give up his art. He's more of a true experimental artist than anyone I'd seen on stage since Taqaq.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-05-27 03:50 pm (UTC)K.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 02:49 pm (UTC)Ideally, they'd just give me a press badge and a contact person to send the finished photos to. I think that'd be a win/win scenario. All my efforts to make that happen, though, have been for naught. So I've given up.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 05:14 pm (UTC)I do think given the limitations you have to work within that your photos are very creative and show you do have an very good eye for composition and for the tactile feel of your subjects.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-28 03:47 pm (UTC)