Photography – Page 44 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Zappa – Them Or Us Tour 1984

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Frank Zappa 1984

Back in the 80’s, my brother John gave me a Yashica camera which was the first 35mm camera I ever used. I don’t remember the model or the specs, but it was pretty basic as I recall.

Zappa was coming through Houston in 1984 on his Them Or Us Tour and I wanted to get some pics. I knew I would have to smuggle the camera in and that meant flash photography was not an option. John told me about a technique called Push & Pull Processing where you increase the ISO setting on the camera to underexpose the film and then compensated for this in the darkroom. This would allow me to shoot without a flash and hopefully get something usable from the experience.

I had 7th row tickets to this show so a flash might have been helpful, but would certainly draw attention to what I was doing so I decided to shoot using this method.

Now back in the day security at concerts wasn’t all that secure. Still, if you had a camera bag you could get turned away at the door. And even if you did get the camera in the door, if security caught you shooting pics at a major show they wouldn’t take your camera, they would just take your film, usually pulling it from the camera or canister. I’d seen photographers lose a night’s work this way on several occasions.

With this in mind I felt confident my camera was not at risk, but I wanted to make sure I could pull off my plan and walk away at the end of the show with some photos.

I’d seen Zappa before. It was 1981 at The Fox Theater in San Diego. I noted that many of the fans came to the show dressed up in various costumes. I decided I would attend this concert dressed as a Sheik (a la Sheik Yerbouti). I could hide the camera gear in the folds of my robes and hopefully skirt security.

The plan worked better than I could have hoped. Concert security stood practically next to me during most of the show. They either thought I was supposed to be there, or decided that a guy who was dressed in such an attention grabbing manner could be ignored while they scanned the audience for real trouble. I was able to pull out the camera and shoot uninterrupted for the duration of the show.

The results were “so so” but I was happy enough with the results considering this was my first effort.

Frank Zappa 1984

1984 Them Or Us Tour
Sam Houston Coliseum

Frank Zappa: guitar, vocals
Ray White: guitar, vocals
Ike Willis: guitar, vocals
Robert Martin: keyboards, tenor saxophone, French horn, vocals
Scott Thunes: bass
Alan Zavod: keyboards
Chad Wackerman: drums

Eye Of The Beholder

Click here to view it the way it was intended to be seen

In Bruges (in HDR)

Canal In Bruges

Bruges Windmill

Bridge Over Canal In Bruges

Clock Tower In Bruges

One of the things I promised myself is that I would photograph this trip to the best of my ability. I would strive to utilize not only my skills and knowledge, but also fully exploit my hardware. This included shooting some extended exposures like the ones I shot in Brussels which required me packing my sturdy Manfrotto tripod and lugging it around the city.

I also wanted to shoot some HDR, and while I should have shot those with a tripod, I ended up shooting them handheld. The results (I think) are very good.

Built in image stabilization is my friend.

Toy Cars (Not Really)

Brussels Automobile Museum - Belgium

Having some fun with some pictures I took at Autoworld in Brussels. They just lend themselves to fake tilt-shift foolery.

Brussels – Wrapping It Up

Today is our last day here. What a wonderful trip it has been. We’re a bit weary, but our spirits remain high. Tomorrow we go to the airport and make the long trek back to America.

We decided to catch the Metro to go out to the Cinquantenaire Arch in Jubelpark.

The sky was overcast for the first time on this trip, but no rain.

Connected to the arch are three museums, two of which were open so we decided to check them out.

The first was the Autoworld, an automobile museum that has a VERY impressive collection of cars and motorcycles.

There were some unbelievable cars on display. I bet Joe Linbeck could easily identify most of them.

The other museum was the Royal Army and Military History Museum which has a collection of military memorabilia that spans 10 centuries of military and technological history.

A huge hangar filled with military aircraft is the absolute highlight of the collection.

After we were done with the museums we caught the metro back to the hotel and then headed out to take care of one last thing.

Cynthia came up with the idea of starting a new tradition. We are going to take one of Mr. Zippers feathers with us whenever we travel and let it fall from the highest point we can get to.

We took the feather she was carrying to the top of Place Poelaert and let it go. Fly high Mr. Zippers!

That’s about it for this trip. We are going to take it easy this evening and forego the New Years festivities. We’ve got an early flight in the morning.

Fly high, Mr. Zippers!

Brussels Night Walk

Went for a night walk with the tripod. This is what we found…

Living Window Display

The Royal Palace

King’s House – Grote Markt – Grand Place

Town Hall – Grote Markt – Grand Place

Mirror Mirror

Notre Dame del a Chapelle reflected in the mirror shop across the street.
Cynthia deserves most of the credit on this one. She commented that this would make an interesting photo and she was right.

I used three exposures to accomplish the final result.

Brussels – Day 5

We slept in till 9:30 this morning. Guess we needed the sleep. Got up, had breakfast and headed of just to walk the streets and take in the sights.

We made our way to Notre Dame de la Chapelle, the oldest church in Brussels, it dates back to the 13th century.

I asked Cynthia if we should go inside and she said “Well, yeah. It’s not like we have that many 13th century churches back in Houston.”

We walked down one scenic street and back up another as we just marvelled at this wonderful city.

After a few hours we headed back to the hotel and then found our way to an Italian restaurant we had eaten at the night before and had lunch. Oddly enough, the music playing inside was American country featuring Willie Nelson and Marty Robbins. Still, great food and good service.

More walking around took us past the Chocolate Museum

Then we found our way to the Museum Of Musical Instruments

It’s housed in a very cool art nouveau building and contains just about every musical instrument you can think of.

You get a pair of headphones and when you stand in front of any given display, you hear a sample of the music made by the instrument you are looking at.

We laughed and laughed after I named this thing the “Conflugalhorn”

I guess we are getting pretty punch drunk from fatigue.

We saw old instruments of all kinds and joked about whether or not Al Cofrin of Istanpitta could play them or not. Lutes, udes, pipes of all shapes and sizes. I bet he and Abby Green would have been in early music heavan.

I did find one instrument I would love to have for use in my band

We had a full day and came back to the hotel to rest before going out in the evening for some night photography. I’ll write about that in my next post.