Box Fiddle Player

Box Fiddle Player

This image was taken several years ago during a reenactment. I chose it today, because it is part of a 5-Day Split Tone Challenge and it is my Day 5 Post. I thought it would make a great beige and yellow split tone. This image was originally made in color.

Back to the image itself, this guy actually made this fiddle from a box. Most people in the days that this image represents had to make their own instruments. He played it very well, too!

JD Williams' Restorations and Museum

This is the main house on the grounds where JD Williams, auctioneer and collector, is in the process of restoring his great-grandfather's home and office. Mr Williams spent 20 years trying to buy this home back from the people who bought it from his great-grandfather's estate and turned it into a restaurant. He now is the owner and is diligently working to restore the main house as well as several other houses on the grounds. He plans on making it a museum. The Museum is closed, but Mr Williams will open it and give a personal tour for a $10 donation. Inside, you will see every possible kind of musical playing device from the last 100 years or so as well as remnants from the old restaurant including the original kitchen and dishes. The restaurant facility in the museum is opened for rent for special parties and weddings, but all the food is catered. The original dishes and silver are used to serve the food.

His great-grandfather was an Optometrist. His office and exam room are still in the museum. They are the first thing seen as soon as the door is opened. All his tools and machines including the glass and old eye-glasses are still there.

The Socony Gasoline station, Cummings Railroad Depot, Wells Fargo and Western Union building, and several other buildings, including log cabins and even a caboose are all awaiting restoration.

Mr. Williams has taken on a huge project, but if he can wait 20 years to buy back his great-grandfather's house, I am convinced he has the patience and stamina needed to complete this project. In the meantime, visitors can enjoy the fruits of Wiliams' labor for pennies.

Street Musician

While on a photo walk with my Newbie group on Sunday, I spotted this street musician playing the sax. He wasn't just playing the sax, he's a blues player! I love the blues, and love to photograph musicians.

This guy has been playing for over 35 years and he's really, really good. I gave him a tip and he let us make all the photos we wanted of him.

After processing this image, actually I didn't have to do anything to it other than RAW processing, I decided to fool around with it a bit in Lightroom 2.4. One of the latest trends in photography is the "grunge" or "edgy" look. I fooled around a bit and came up with this. I kind of like it and I think it's a good fit for a street musician. Let me know what you think of it.

The original image was shot with ISO 400 in the late afternoon, actually early evening. I used aperture priority mode at F7.1 which is the sweet spot on my lens, and a shutter speed of 1/60th. I used partial metering off his face and exposed at -1/3 exposure compensation to prevent the highlights on the sax from blowing out. I used a focal length of 154mm on my 55-250mm lens to give him some space and to further blur the background.

Joe on Vocals and Guitar

During my stay in CT, my son told me that he had to play in an emergency and was very sorry. It seems that another band that went on to play for them when Joe (my son) was sick had a death in one of the players families, so they had to return the favor.

Sorry... I was elated! I have only seen them play twice before other than practice, and was anxious to hear them play again. Well, they ROCKED the house.

This is my son, Joe, who plays rhythm guitar, keyboards, harmonica and vocals. He also writes music and lyrics. During this song, he's showing how tired he was. He really didn't want to do this gig, but he made the best of it, and in the end we all had a great time.

Keyboards

This was taken during my visit to CT 3 weeks ago. It is actually a close-up of my son's fingers playing keyboards during practice.

He hasn't seen this one yet, but I plan to publish it to his website once I'm done with all the photos I took in CT, MA and NY on my vacation.

I really like the way this one turned out. I did something similar last year, but this one is much better (at least in my opinion).

I've been thinking about doing a musician's series, or maybe just a music series of digitally enhanced images I've taken through the years. I have many I've done at my son's band's practices. I'll just see what I can come up with.

EarthDance 2008

Saturday, a few of my friends and I participated in the 2008 EarthDance in Safety Harbor. The event was simulcasted in 300 cities and 42 countries by Verizon. EarthDance was held as a dance for peace in conjunction with the many activities commemorating 9/11.

We had an art and photography booth there and I donated a free location portrait.

I originally got into photography seriously when my children were into dance, gymnastics and drum corps. I wanted to be able to take great photos of them to have for a lifetime. Well, due to too many moves, I no longer have the photos I took, but I still have the memories.

In addition to my photography courses, I also took a specialized course called, "Action, Dance and Sports". This is the first time I've had a chance to photograph dance since my kids grew up. I guess I haven't forgotten all that I learned. I was pretty happy with the way these turned out--especially since they were taken at night, handheld, outside on a portable stage. Lucky for me I was able to get close enough that I could use my fast lens.

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