Houston – Page 23 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Houston Roller Derby – Jun 17

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This past Sunday I was back at Verizon Wireless Theater, camera in hand, to shoot some roller derby.

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to try out the 28-75mm 2.8 to see what results I could get. I had quite a bit of luck, as it turns out. I am still processing the images, so it’ll be a bit before I get those posted.

To slow down the already time cosuming process of going through a brazillion shots, I have interrupted my typical image processing workflow to single out some pictures for a bit of stylizing. I have started working some images in Photoshop with some good effect. Desaturate to take the pic to black and white and adding a bit of grain and then tweaking the contrast to come up with some trading card-like pictures.

This is Dementia 13 of the Psych Ward Sirens.

This is The Prosecutor of The Machete Betties

I love the candid shots, more so than the action shots.
I think that will be more of my focus.
We’ll see what the net results are when I am through working this batch.

Step aside Spinal Tap

Something many people may not know about the title track from my band’s CD “Loch Ness Monster” is that it was originally written and recorded as a heavy metal song.

Consider the review from the Houston Press that said:

The album opens with the wonderfully dark ode to the creature lurking beneath the murky waters of Loch Ness. Here the beast is less the benign and almost dopey plesiosaur used to sell trinkets to tourists and much more the accursed beast with “Huge red eye, long sharp tooth / slicing knives, ragged spines” which will drag you from the banks and tear you to pieces despite your screams and struggles. Nessie, indeed.

And that’s in reference to the acoustic folk version! The heavy metal version of Loch Ness Monster is a bonus hidden track at the end of the CD.

The origins of this song go back to when Greg Henkel came up with a band called Rocrament and wrote about 10-12 heavy metal songs and his brother, Jim Henkel, recorded them. Jim laid down all the tracks and mixed it in his home studio.

Recently, Greg has been working hard with a hand-picked group of musicians to bring Rocrament to the stage and his ~~evil~~ brilliant plan comes to fruition this Thursday night, June 21st at the Houston Continental Club.

Show time is around 10:30 and follows the regular Thursday night performance of Jim Henkel’s Beatles tribute band “Beetle.”

Only Greg knows for sure what this performance will entail, but early reports are of elaborate stage props and costumes. Greg let me know that Rocrament has about 45 minutes of live material so you won’t be out all night on a weeknight.

This is going to be a rock show for the ages!

Check out Rocrament’s Myspace page for more information.

Click here to hear the song “Rocrament” from the original CD.

Stacy Steger

Click for full size

Stacy Steger – Live at Bohemios

Additional images in the gallery

Classy Chassis 2007

Empowered by my previous success with the 20mm lens I decided to use it on my photo excursion on Sunday.

Every year my good friend Joe invites me to the Classy Chassis Car Show benefiting United Cerebral Palsy. Joe’s one of the organizers of the event and he’s understandably proud of it. And rightly so. This event brings in substantial amounts of money for the charity and boasts one of the finest gatherings of unique and rare automobiles you will ever see in one place in your life.

This year Joe was also wanting me to provide some photographic services for the event as they were somewhat short on photographers.

I gotta tell ya, shooting cars is not my cup of tea. Even the Art Car Parade, which I go to every year, doesn’t really provide me with much in the way of photographic inspiration. It’s not that I don’t think the cars are cool and interesting because they are. It’s just difficult for me to find a unique way of expressing a car photographically.

On the one hand, close ups can show interesting detail but on the other hand I feel compelled to show the entire vehicle for context. In the end I get frustrated and delete a lot of shots.

Still, I wanted to give it a try. It would be the first time at this event with the new dSLR and I thought this would be the ideal situation to play with my high speed 20mm f/1.8 lens. The lighting in Reliant Stadium is pretty amazing.

Walking in to the event I was struck by the idea that a panorama shot might be an interesting take on this so I shot a series of photos panning from right to left with the thought that I would find a way to stitch them together.

Well, I spent a good part of the afternoon playing with various trial versions of panorama programs and after a load of frustration I ended up with this:

You REALLY should click to see the larger size.
This smaller version simply does not do the picture justice!

In fact, I encourage you to have a look at the full size image which you can view here.

Keep in mind that Internet Explorer and Firefox will sometimes resize the image to fit in your browser window so don’t forget to enlarge it if that happens.

It’s pretty cool to use the slider bar and scan from side to side. The stitching is almost flawless.

The entire panorama is composed of 11 separate images, all shot completely hand held (no tripod).

More images coming soon.

Wide angle, wide open

So I have this Sigma 20mm f/18 lens that I picked up a while back. My thought was that it would allow me to shoot more stage content than the Sony 50mm f1/4

After taking it out and shooting a few shows I was rather disappointed in the quality of shots I was getting so I stashed it away and went back to the trusty 50mm Sony which consistently produces great images in low light.

Not being one to just sit on a few hundred dollars worth of high speed glass I decided to take it out for another run.

The Continental Club was hosting a show commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Monterey Pops Festival and I thought it would be fun to shoot that.

Not as crisp as I like, but I really do like wider angle.

Click for larger image
Allen Hill as Johnny Rivers

This time out, though, I think I stumbled upon this lens’s secret. By getting in close to the subject I was able to get some sharper shots and, with the wider angle, I was getting a bit more than I could with the 50mm.

Click for larger image
Allen Hill as Johnny Rivers

Click for larger image

The above shot is of a member of a Moby Grape tribute band called Grape Jam. Who knew there was a Moby Grape tribute band? Go figure!

At any rate, I’m encouraged and will experiment more with the 20mm.

Praise the Lord and pass the popcorn

Living in suburbia it’s quite common to come home and find that the house has been doorknob spammed in some form or another. It could be anything from a menu and coupons from the local Chinese restaurant, pizza parlor or sandwich shop to any number of home repair or lawn maintenance services.

Saturday I found this hanging from the door handle:

I know there’s no such thing as a free ~~lunch~~ movie and there’s got to be a catch. Obviously it’s a promotional gimmick for something. I flip it over and I see this:

I’ve been doorknob spammed BY A CHURCH!

These leaflets are not cheap ones, either. Glossy and full color, they had to be a pretty penny to have printed.

If I read this correctly they’re holding their services at the movie theater on Sunday mornings.

Wayne “The Train” Hancock

For concert photography I have been favoring my Sony 50mm 1.4 lens quite heavily. It’s a fantastic piece of glass and the results speak for themselves. Last night I decided to break with the 50mm and work with my Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di while attending the Wayne Hancock show at Fitzgeralds.

Click to see full size

As you can see, the Tamron did fine in terms of clarity and exposure. On top of that I was able to capitalize on the wider angle when framing up my shot.

I was still interested in close up work and the Tamron did not disappoint there, either:

Click to see full size

Wayne Hancock at Fitzgeralds
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But the true joy of this lens is the ability to shoot at a wider angle and from a greater distance so I am not having to crowd the stage…

Click to see full size

I am definitely going to experiment with this lens some more in the coming weeks.

Do you find something funny about the word “tromboner”?

Alfred Tam of Clouseaux
Best if viewed at full size