Rock Concert

When I walked into the club concert venue, I figured it might be tricky getting images for the newspaper. The band was playing, but the lights were off, as in no light at all.

Sure, there was a faint glow from the streetlights outside coming through a window, but that was only good enough to keep me from tripping over people. Even at a high ISO, no light is no light. I had a flash in my bag, but I hate to use that at a concert. Wrecks the mood and the resulting image only captures that wrecked mood.

So I waited. Surely there must be SOME lights, sometime, right?

Fortunately, there were two strobes set up on the side and slightly behind the band that would go on for a second or two every few minutes. I positioned myself to take best advantage of those lights, adjusted my settings, then waited some more.

Sure enough, the lights blinked again. When you're shooting at 1/100th of a second, a full second of light is really plenty of time to get an image. Two seconds is plenty long enough to wait for some decent emotion, especially when your subject is an energetic rock band.

The images below are of one of the bands, Ice Nine Kills. The image up top is Mercury Sky.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

For Monday morning's assignments, I hopped between neighboring New Canaan and Norwalk, CT for MLK Day celebrations. People in both towns seemed eager to embrace the teachings of Dr. King. It was heartwarming to see how one man has touched so many lives.

New Canaan (1% African-American, median houshold income $142K):




Norwalk (16% African-American, median household income $60K):

Trumbull Band at Obama Inauguration

The Trumbull High School Band will perform at Tuesday's Obama inauguration. Here they are last month at Trumbull Town Hall, performing for Good Morning America and loading donated coats into a truck:

High School Ballet Dancer

It's not so surprising that many photographers enjoy photographing dancers, especially a dancer as talented as Raymond Pinto. It's a challenge of trying to capture such grace and beauty in a fraction of a second. Perhaps it can't really be done, but I enjoy trying.

Sunset Runner

Recently I photographed some high school athletes during pre-season practices. I had finished up all my assignments, thinking how happy I was that I got everything done before dark, and before the predicted rains came.

As night began to fall, I was walking east toward my car with my gear. I turned around and enjoyed one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in a while. I hurried back to the high school track, pulled out a small flash, and snapped a few frames. The red sky lasted maybe 3 or 4 minutes. As the sun dropped behind the horizon, the sky turned black and the clouds opened up. Everyone scurried for cover, and it was over.

Cascades in Winter