Walking home from La Fête de Marquette festival last night, I paused to take a couple of night shots of a new bridge over the Yahara River. Pretty at night, no?
View LARGE On Black
Here is a broader view that helps put it in context. There are pedestrian underpasses on either side. I like that there are ducks paddling around making it all so real.
View LARGE On Black
Some technical details about the shots: ISO 800, f/6.5 (first) or 5.0 (second), 1/5th second exposure, hand-held. The first was at 155 mm while the second was 52 mm. The Sigma 18-200 lens does have optical stabilization, and you better believe I used it.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Un arc de lumière
Saturday, July 11, 2009
La Fête de Marquette - Day 2
This weekend is yet another in the stream of fabulous outdoor summer festivals hosted by the city. La Fête de Marquette celebrates the early French traders and trappers who moved through the area, especially Pére Marquette. The music lineup therefore is French influenced acts from around the world: France, French colonies, Quebec, and Cajun. I missed day one, but caught all of day two.
The lineup was as follows:
5:00- 11:00 --- Le Nuit des Étoiles
5:30- 6:45 - Claude Méthé et Dentdelion (Quebec)
7:30- 8:45 - Boukman Eksperyans (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
9:30- 11:00 - Tab Benoit (Louisiana)
The last two were particularly great, with Boukman Eksperyans beating out premier axeman Tab Benoit in my estimation. I posted a sizable set of photos at my Flickr site, and provided a slide show here. Enjoy!
UPDATED: I added images to the set from Saturday and Sunday morning as well. They are in reverse sequence, so if you already looked through the set, you won't have to wade through all the pictures you have already seen (unless you want to, of course). The rest of the lineup was as follows:
Saturday - July 11th
Noon-11:00 --- Le Jour du Monde
12:30- 1:30 --- Tent -Robin Pluer with Mrs. Fun
2:15-3:15 Tent - Robin Pluer with Mrs. Fun
3:15- 4:30- Stage-Chic Gamine (Winnipeg)
5:15- 6:30 Stage -Watcha Clan (Marseilles/Algeria)
7:15 - 8:45 Stage - Balla Tounkara et Groupe Spirit (Mali/NYC)
9:30- 11:00 Stage - Lura (Cape Verde)
Sunday - July 12th
Noon - 9pm- Le Jour de Louisiane
9:00- Noon-MMM "Acoustic Café" Breakfast w/ Chic Gamine and Claude Méthé et Dentdelion
Noon -1pm -John Chimes (Madison)
1:30 -2:30-Mama Digdowns Brass Band (Madison)
3:00- 4:15 - Feufollet (Lafayette)
4:45- 6:00 -Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole (Lafayette)
7:00- 8:30-The Radiators (New Orleans)
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Release energy wisely
The July 4th Jam at Earthdance is a pretty amazing experience. Put simply, there are two dance studios and approximately 100 people. If you want to dance, the odds are pretty good that there is someone willing to move with you any time, day or night. Contact improv can be a pretty athletic dance style that consumes significant energy. It can also be quiet and meditative, more like a mobile massage than a feat of kinetic energy. Yet, being in motion, ebbing and flowing, for 12 or 14 hours a day for 5 days is pretty significant. Sooner or later, you need a rest! This is a contact improv dancer recharging her batteries:
Potential Energy
Marathon dancing:
Release energy wisely -
It is not a sprint!
Contemplative Moment
The guiding principle at this jam was self-care. If you are not sufficiently rested, hydrated, relaxed, and present, the experience can become less pleasant. You are less able to connect with others or be attentive to their needs and desires. By taking care of yourself, you are more able to give and support and savor.
Here is a look at the main dance space, a round yurt-like structure with a beautiful floor.
Umbrella Studio
Ceiling in the Umbrella Studio
Beautiful environment housing beautiful spirits begets beautiful experiences. Considering all my significant life experience, I have found nothing that compares to a 5-day jam at Earthdance. This is my fourth, and it will not be my last
Monday, July 6, 2009
This Divine Moment In Time
A tentative touch to say,
Hello, may I share this dance?
Your body moves away
leaving behind the bit
that's touching me.
A coy response that intrigues
and invites me to follow
where you will lead in
this dance with no steps.
And so I connect with you.
Our dance weaves and winds;
Who is following whom is
never entirely clear,
nor is it important
in any meaningful way.
You take my weight away
and enable me to soar.
Just as swiftly you collapse
and draw me down as we
lead each other astray.
Our communion is a paean
of mirth, reverence, love,
inertia and gravity,
to each other and this
divine moment in time.
I just spent five days at a contact improv dance jam at Earthdance, a retreat center in western Massachusetts. My bestest dance partner Megan and I drove out, 24 hours each way. The event is a combination of a jam - unstructured dancing - and some classes and structured dancing. There are approximately 100 people at the event, so there are a large number of possible experiences to have.
The sense of community is astonishing at Earthdance. Everyone feels a strong sense of connection; people CARE about you there, even if they have just met you. It is a rarified community experience sorely lacking in many people's lives. Some find it at a church. Some find it in a softball league. For me, it is about dance.
Five days of living in community is like a drink of pure, cold water to a parched soul. If you ache, someone is there to comfort you. If you are grieving, warm arms hold you while you cry. If you are filled with the promise of a new start, faces alight at your potential joy. If you need to be held, you will be nurtured and cradled. If you have strength or compassion to spare, there is frequently a need. Sometimes it is simply your turn to just dance and connect with another at a deep, deep level.
Tasty food is lovingly prepared and gleefully served. Everyone cleans up. Music happens. Art happens. Love unfolds. There is magic at the core of Earthdance. Magic is the act of causing change to conform to one's will.
Is your life like this? Could it be if you fostered it?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wild Kingdom
No words needed really. This bee thought he was safely gathering nectar.
He was surprised by this spider, caught unaware.
He struggled for two or three minutes, but I suspect the spider bit first and got some poison or paralytic into him.
His struggles weakened while the spider maintained an over-the-back hold which made it impossible for the bee to sting back. In short order the spider carried him off.
View Large On Black
It is a wild world out there!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Things Are Looking Up
It is Friday! It is Summer! There is cold beer and interesting music to be had in town tonight. Things are looking up.
View LARGE On Black
With a hot night ahead, who knows, you might even get lucky.
(In case you REALLY want the skinny on this hot bug-on-bug action, GO WILD.)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bathing Beauty - NSFW
While I was camping with friends at a remote location, the temperature and humidity were both very high. The afternoons were brutal to those of us from northern states where spring had not really let go yet. We were used to overnight lows in the upper 40's (F) and daytime highs of upper 60's. While camping the overnight lows were in the 70's and daytime highs were near 100. To beat the heat, we spent a lot of time wearing little or nothing (I did say remote location) and there was a delightful creek quite close by.
At one point while we were sprawled out in the cool shallows of the creek, I looked over at the furthest downstream person and was struck dumb. Asking her to stay put, I trotted back to grab my camera.
This post really does continue, so follow the link!
View LARGE On Black
Wow! I knew the moment I tripped the shutter on that one that I had a good one. I shot more, of course...
I cannot decide which of these last two I prefer. Do you have an opinion?
I love that I hang out with friends who like to get naked. I love even more that in general they are cool with me taking photos of them. And I especially love it when they give me permission to use them here.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Marko in the Spotlight
Every once in a while I get to take photos that get someone Just Right. While it is true that is something of a knack of mine, I cannot always make it work. In this case, I got some good shots of Marko from Pagee Go Go. He often stands in the second row, further back from the front of the stage, so it is tougher to get him. Add to that his tendency to stand in places where stage lights are not pointing, and it makes it challenging to get good images of him.
The band recently played an outdoor gig at a festival with a pretty nice stage, and Marko managed to be in front for a while.
The lights were hitting him just right, sculpting him dramatically. I shot a bunch, knowing that this was an elusive opportunity.
Thanks for coming up front into the spotlight once in a while, Marko! The rest of the set can be viewed in this slide show:
Monday, June 22, 2009
Ahh, vacation!
I was gone last week for a bit of a holiday. Reena and I rendezvoused with friends to celebrate the summer solstice. The week passed way too quickly, though much fun and bonhomie was enjoyed by all.
While I did not take many photos to share with the world, I did take this shot of a friend making his version of Glühwein, a mulled and spiced wine.
Normally the recipe calls for simply steeping, but what fun is that when you can FLAME it?! In this case, over-proofed rum is used along with brown sugar. After the basic ingredients are steeped, the sugar and rum are added, then the mixture is ignited. As it is ladled, burning, back and forth between two pots, the excess alcohol burns off and caramelizes the sugar. Served warm, it is a delightful treat. This is definitely one to remember for fall camping.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Becalmed at the Terrace
Summer is just around the corner at last! A recent trip to the Terrace on a fine evening found evidence to support that claim. Lethargy and sun-soaking dominated the scene.
It was great to notice, however, that a good number of those slothful people seemed to have arrived on bicycles. Could it be...balance? Work and play, Labor and leisure, Beer and Popcorn?
I had a chat with a couple of young men from Greenland who were in Madison, after traveling throughout the US. They were on their way to a summer job in Wisconsin Dells. They enthusiastically pointed out that Madison was the "most European city they had encountered." The friendliness, the abundance of both bicycles and beer, the acceptance of people who were "other". Yeah, way to go Madison!
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Barry C. at Cafe ZuZu
A friend had his public debut as a singer-songwriter last night at a local cafe. A friend of his shared the stage with him during his hour-long set, and they traded around between duets and solos. All said, a fun performance to see and hear.
Great job, Barry!
Friday, June 5, 2009
Peony and Bee
I took a pretty good picture this afternoon in the yard. I got a shot of a bee coming in for a landing on a peony. As I looked at it with my editor eyes I thought how nice it would be if this or that were a little different. Being a neophyte with Photoshop, I thought, "Ah, a teaching moment." Here is the end result:
View LARGE On Black - it's worth the look.
I'll post the original at the end, but in summary, here is what I did to the photo. Most obviously, I flipped it so that the bee was coming in from the left. We read L->R so our eyes tend to work that way by default. This way your eye finds the bee as it goes to the peony. Next I selectively reduced the brightness of the yellow part of the flower, taming the overexposed highlights. I did the same for the top right leaf, and the two unopened buds. I wanted to soften how much they drew the eye. Finally I selected the bee and added a touch of brightness and sharpness so that he popped a bit more.
In the Darkroom Ages, I could have done those same things by dodging or burning as the negative developed. I think this is well within the bounds of using Photoshop, yet still calling the result a photograph. Once one crosses the line and begins moving parts of the image (relocating the bee for example) or adding elements from other photographs, the line gets fuzzier and I wonder if it is still a photograph or is it collage or (to borrow a phrase from local shooter Chris Norris) photo-illustration? This is something I think about a lot these days. I don't know if there is a definitive answer, and it certainly is a continuum rather than some either-or situation. If you have thoughts on the topic, I'd love to hear them.
Here is the original image, straight from camera:
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Kait in the Garden
Way back in February I met a young woman named Kait at the carnaval show (Brasilian Mardi Gras) at the High Noon Saloon. She was with a bunch of pals, and they were having a great time together. I took a couple of shots of their group and sent them to Kait since it was her email addy I got. She was wearing a bra top that was covered with silk leaves and it looked great on her. She mentioned that she had similar bottoms but had been reluctant to wear it out since she didn't know if others would be so scantily clad. I suggested a photo shoot, and she thought it might be fun.
Time passed, and life happened.
Yesterday both our schedules were finally in sync, so we got together at last. We started in the studio, but that proved to be uninteresting (or at least, not really WOW). So we went outside to shoot in the lush ferns. That was much better! A sample of the results are linked below in a slideshow posted at my Flickr site. If I had had an apple in the house I would definitely have played the 'Eve' card!
View the slideshow large by following this link, or by going to my Flickr site.
Feel free to leave comments, especially if you are a shooter willing to offer constructive criticism (of me and my work, not her) or after-the-fact outside eyes.
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