…came out in the rain overnight (except that after I posted this, somebody pointed out these are not dogwoods. Crab apple, pear, or cherry… nobody seems to know for sure).
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Category - photography
…brave soul of the season.
#LifeGoesOnBrah
As seen on my Morning Constitutional yesterday morning around 7AM. Shot w iPhone 11 Pro.
That time when it pays to ignore the snooze function and just get out of bed.
Remember when I was writing about “Music 3.0“?
Of course you don’t, that was almost 10 years ago, before I folded “celestialjukebox.org” into one of the archived elements of this CohesionArts website.
My idea of “Music 3.0” (there are others, but they’re not nearly as prescient or comprehensive… 😜) was the culmination of what I still occasional refer to as my “Grand Nebulous Theory of The Future of Music” – a concept both “grand” and “nebulous” because, while I think the historical trajectory offers some useful clues, I don’t really have a solid grasp of the ultimate destination.
Whatever the ultimate destination, I think I walked into a fresh landmark along the route this past Saturday when I spent the afternoon at the City Winery in Nashville for something called the “Guitar Mash.”
The concept is hard to describe, but is summed up in the project’s stated mission to “change the way you experience music.” Follow this link to get a better idea of the concept (simplified version here).
As I wrote in a Facebook post the following day:
I got to be present for – and photograph – a rather extraordinary event yesterday at City Winery.
It’s called the “Guitar Mash.”
It starts with a “house band” of A-List musicians – like Jerry Douglas on dobro, Mark Stewart (musical director for Paul Simon, among other things), Victor Krauss on bass, Larry Atamanuik on drums and John Deaderick on keys.
As the afternoon unfolded, the band was joined on stage by featured players including the likes of Brent Mason, Keb Mo, and John Oates.
But the really unique feature is: the audience is encouraged to bring their own instruments and… ohmigod… play along with the stars! Chord-and-lyric charts are displayed on the video screens and “Chord Coaches” (from the W.O. Smith School) wander the audience helping the guests suss out what they’re trying to play.
There will be more to come after I’ve sorted through all the files, but this morning I want to share this one shot of MV Gauthier, as she performs Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” and looks out at a venue full of people playing and singing along with her. Her reaction here captures the entire essence of the event. Long story short, it was a blast for every one.
While technology continues to disrupt the “virtual” music business, I felt like this was an indication of what’s possible in the “real” world of music: empowering more people to make music themselves. I kinda think Mary is catching that spirit in this moment and realizing what a wonderful thing that could be.
It oddly frustrates me sometimes when I go to a concert or a club, and there is so little for the audience to do. The performers put their best effort into a song, and the rest of us sit there and repetitiously flap our hands together in appreciation. Rinse and repeat. I don’t know that there is any viable alternative to that, but here’s a venue full of people doing something other than waiting for their chance to applaud:
Digital Caveats re: the above slideshow: I’m having some issues with ZenFolio – my web gallery/service provider – over their continued reliance on Adobe Flash for these slide shows. 10 years after Steve Jobs wrote the epitaph on Flash, ZenFolio only lets me create an “embeddable” slideshow if I use Adobe Flash. HTML5 has been the de-facto standard for nearly a decade, but when I try to embed the HTML5 version of this slideshow in my WordPress post, only half of the images appear in an otherwise half-black screen. I love ZenFolio, but this one rates a big WTFF? I don’t have Flash on my new MacBook Pro, so I have no idea if the embed above works or not. If not, follow this link to see the entire gallery; there is a button to display the HTML5 slideshow in the upper right corner of the gallery page.
(…which we were talking about three posts ago…)
While watching “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” I took particular note or the location where the words “the chamber of secrets is open” appeared in blood on a stone wall. What caught my eye was the extraordinary “fan vaulting” in the ceilings of what I tracked down to the Cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral in the English Midlands.
When I returned to the UK in the spring of 2017 to “Chase The Light in the Celtic Latitudes™,” I made a point to put Gloucester on the itinerary. I also made a point to get to the cathedral before it opened, so that I could be there before the crowds started showing up – Gloucester Cathedral is now a very popular destination for tourists, and takes some pride in its “Harry Potter” connections.
The Cloisters (an isolated quadrangle of corridors with access to a garden where monks and priests could retreat for solitude and meditation), did not disappoint. Although medieval gothic architecture originated in France and Italy, “fan vaulting” like this is unique to England, and Gloucester Cathedral is arguably the most elaborate expression of the form. (Henry VII’s Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey is pretty cool, too, but they don’t permit photography there at any time of day… )
Since I was there early the corridors were empty, and after a few minutes of wandering, I found this perfect angle capture the vaulting and some stained glass with a fisheye lens and five HDR exposures.
photo ©2017 [email protected]
Back in the early 1970s I saw a student film called “Hot Dogs for Gauguin,” written and directed by Martin Brest, who went on to have a notable film career. He directed such memorable hits as Midnight Run, Beverly Hills Cop, and The Scent of a Woman before becoming a Hollywood persona-non-grata for directing a fiasco called Gigli in 2003; Marty’s IMDB bio ends there.
Oh, the humanity!
“Hot Dogs for Gauguin” is about a photographer – played by a then-unknown actor named Danny DeVito – who wants to replicate the kind of acclaim that he thinks befell the photographer who shot the Hindenberg disaster (Oh, the humanity!). DeVito’s character figures to achieve similar acclaim by blowing up the Statue of Liberty – and being on-hand to capture the moment with his camera. Suffice it to say it doesn’t end well…
This is a story about my own “Hot Dogs for Gauguin” moment.”
Or maybe it was more of a “Gigli” moment, if not quite on the same scale.
There was a period a couple of years ago when I was making a concerted attempt to market myself as a photographer, in particular of music-related subjects.
With some coaching, I’d set up a program at thejoyofmakingmusic.com (it’s still there) and created a couple of ‘packages’ for shooting stills during studio recording sessions.
Not long after I set all that up I was invited into a studio by an A-List, first-call musician, a side-player to the stars, who was recording her own album for an indie label, and had called on some of the town’s top A-List players in support. I did not know most of the names, nor of the many-arms-lengths lists of credits they all carried. I was a bit of a fish out of water. They all knew each other, and I only barely knew the woman who’d invited me to the session (I’d met her when we worked together on another project).
I will mention just one actual name, because it was the effort to capture his thousand-watt smile that got me in trouble (I think). Read More
I confess, I don’t quite get a lot of what passes for women’s footwear.
Which is what was going through my mind last Saturday at the Downtown Art Crawl, where I have a wall of my photography on exhibit at Erabellum, a coop gallery in The Arcade.
The temperatures were in the low-20s that night, but one woman apparently thought that open-toed pumps were entirely suitable for the occasion.
Brr.
But what do I know about women’s fashion (or women, for that matter….)
Let’s hear it for sensible shoes. And David Lee Roth…
Well, maybe you weren’t wondering. But I’m the kind of guy who looks at a movie and wonders “where’d they put the camera?”
So if you’re are wondering how – or more importantly where – they shot the scenes of Luke Skywalker’s ancient Jedi Temple in “The Last Jedi,” here’s your answer.
A rocky island called Skellig Michael, 7 miles off the coast of Ireland, served as the location for the final scene at the end of “Episode VI, The Force Awakens.”
But the site is much to fragile to accomodate the rigors of a lengthy location shoot, so the 7th-century dry masonry beehive huts of the abandoned monastery on Skellig Michael were recreated on a cliff over the Atlantic Ocean on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula.
Dont bother looking for the location now, though. Everything was struck from the site once the filming was completed.
I made a “painting” today.
This original photo is from a road trip that Ann and I made around Lake Michigan in the spring of 2009. We went up the Michigan side, stopped at Mackinac Island for a couple of nights, then crossed over the Upper Peninsula and went down the Wisconsin side.
This scene was somewhere on the Leelanau Peninsula.
All digital, of course.
But hey, at least I’ve got something too show for my day off…
Click to embiggen:
The old Day Farm in Sleeping Bear Dunes Park