Houston – Page 17 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Houston Roller Derby

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The Houston Roller Derby has been generating quite a lot of buzz lately. Seems that you can’t turn around in this city without bumping into someone who is either a roller derby girl or one of the myriad volunteers, hanger’s on or ever growing minions of rabid roller derby fans.

I work with a roller derby girl, my friend Bill Shirley puts together The Colonel’s Roller Derby Roundup, a combination blog and podcast (of all things) with David Beebe, there’s Myspace after Myspace page for leagues, teams, team members, volunteers and fans. Roller derby seems to be everywhere.

It has been suggested on several occasions, by those who know my love of photography and are affiliated with the derby, that I try my hand at some derby photography. I finally decided to follow up and I contacted the organizers and offered to come out and shoot on spec, the idea being that if I produced pictures they liked and could be used to promote the derby I might be afforded the title of Official Houston Roller Derby Photographer. Basically that would mean that I would have full photographic access to all aspects of the local derby.

This past Sunday I made my way to The Verizon Wireless Theater for the bout. I arrived pretty early so I could get my credentials and get the lay of the land. I wanted to check out the layout and get familiar with the lighting.

After a bit of experimenting I decided to shoot with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I thought this would be the best for no flash and fast action. As it turned out, I got some great portrait shots.

But I struggled with the action shots. Shooting without a flash meant that I had to try to time the shots for when the subject was going to be illuminated. Also, the 50mm lens is challenging at extended distances. I can crop to increase the size of the main subject, but the results are not as good as I would like.

Still, they weren’t all bad…

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With a bit more practice I think I can nail it down. I may whip out the Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di lens next time and see how it performs in these conditions.

The response from the derby organizers and the members has been positive. I have been asked to come back and shoot again, not only at the bouts but at other derby events.

We’ll see how the schedule shapes up. I would like to explore this further.

Cindy Raschke

Cindy “Crash” Raschke

Thomas over at Sig’s Lagoon had asked me about shooting some pictures at an event he was hosting at the shop. It was a Tiki themed art show featuring the works of Cindy Raschke from Austin, TX.

I’m always up for this type of thing so I agreed to come out early and be the designated photographer. Besides, The Flying Fish Sailors were already signed up to perform a short set opening for Clouseaux over at the CC later the same evening so it was no big deal to get down there early.

It also didn’t hurt that there’s a chance my pics could be used in a story about Cindy in Tiki Magazine. Nothing wrong with getting my pictures in print, even if it is an obscure periodical that caters to an eclectic sub-culture.

Cindy’s artwork was really quite good. Her tiki themed pieces were unique and vibrant.

Cindy herself was outgoaing and personable and even came to catch a few songs while my band played over at the Continental.

She did have on rather unusual piece on exhibit. A child-sized mannequin that she had “transformed” into what can only be called a tattooed demon boy.

I was actually rather fascinated by the demon boy and briefly entertained the idea of purchasing it. I then fast forwarded the scenario in my brain and, knowing Cynthia, knew that this piece would not be allowed in our house.

As it turns out, the piece was already sold to a tattoo artist in Florida so that put an end to my dilemma.

The turn out was fantastic and many of her pieces were sold. There’s going to be another show in Austin on Thursday, Aug. 2nd at The Gallery (next door to the Austin Continental Club) and I may be the designated photographer for that event as well.

More pictures (including Demon Boy) in my gallery.

Houston Zoo – Reflection Pool

St. Pats gone for another year

As mentioned previously, the band had a busy schedule for St. Paddy’s day this year. The Wholefoods gig was surprisingly fun and there were some old fans in attendance which was very nice.

Saturday we knew we taken on a lot. Downbeat was 8:00 am at Brian O’Neill’s so we all met up there around 7:00 am. Spirits were high as we prepared for our 4 hour show.

If you ever want to see another side of St. Paddy’s day, go to an Irish breakfast. There were quite a few people present and many were getting off to an early start with a hardy breakfast Guinness or two.

Goose’s Acre after that for another 4 hour show and we wrapped up at The Big Top and did a few hours then packed it in and headed to the house to get some much needed sleep.

Sunday Morning Cynthia and I slept in a little bit, but not much. We had to take care of a few things before heading over to Jones Hall to attend a performance by the Houston Symphony. We had been invited to be the guests of someone we had met previously at the Chieftains concert.

The program included Bernstein’s Overture to Candide and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring pianist Yuja Wang in the first half and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story to wrap it up. The seats were up close and personal and it was a very enjoyable experience.

It’s been a long time since I can remember being this tired.

Good Morning Houston

So the interview on ABC 13 went well, I think. 2 minutes and 27 seconds was the total time. You can view it on Jeff Ehling’s blog by clicking here.

I enjoyed the experience. The staff that makes up the Sunday morning crew made me feel welcome and at ease. Elissa Rivas conducted the actual interview and she made it very pleasant.

When the interview was over Mark Garay (who, by the way, was wearing tennis shoes behind the anchor desk) asked me to stop by and speak with Carmin the producer on my way out. I figured they must want me to sign something or I don’t know what, but I stopped by. No paperwork, oh no. Carmin was having a computer problem and they wanted my assistance.

Turns out that Carmin’s workstation was having a problem with the time change. This was the computer she was using to manage the current on air program with all the various time blocks, story segments, commercial breaks and so forth and every couple of minutes it was reverting back to pre-DST time after she would manually set it to the correct time.

My ~~guess~~ expert opionon was that it must be synching to an NTP server and also not have the current software update to allow it to sort out the time change.

How ironic. Here we are making light of the Y2K7 problem and how it’s no big deal and the very show hosting the interview is in danger of collapsing in a Microsoft-induced DST wormhole.

There’s no way to patch the machine what with it being used to mange a live program. It would have to wait till after the show and wait for one of the ABC IT staff as I was on my way out the door.

It was a great fun and I hope to do more work with ABC in the future.

Video called the radio star

Speaking of Y2K7, I will be in ABC Channel 13 this Sunday morning at around 9:00am. If you remember to spring forward and are awake at that hour be sure and tune in. They’re using me (again) as a “technology expert” talking head. This time for a piece they’re doing on the Y2K7 issue.

You know when I said being on camera terrifies me? Being on live television is about a million time more disconcerting. Hopefully they’ll have the AC turned up and I won’t be covered in flop sweat.

I did get a trim on the old chinfro (beard) so as to look my best.

Meet me on the dark side of the moon

I found myself uncharacteristically informed in advance of a significant celestial event for a change, rather than hearing of it after it was over. That event was the total lunar eclipse on Saturday, March 3rd.

Even though the full eclipse would not be visible from the central U.S., the moon would be over 75% obscured at moonrise and would pass from eclipse over the course of about an hour.

I thought this would be a truly unique photographic experience and set out to make the most of it.

First I would need a good place to view the event. I considered Galveston and even Matagorda. Not really wanting to drive any great distance, I decided to ask my friend and co-host, Barrett, if he thought the roof of his downtown loft might be a suitable viewing location.

He informed me that there was a mostly unobstructed view of the eastern horizon from the roof and that he had seen the moonrise on several occasions.

This suited me just fine and we made the arrangements.

Cynthia and I arrived at Barrett’s loft around 6:00 pm and before long we were on the roof. Barrett had told a few friends who also joined us. It’s a precarious climb involving a straight ladder to the roof from the 10th floor.
Cynthia and I schlepped our cameras and I carried a tripod. The temperature was dropping into the 50’s with a nice stiff wind but we were determined.

According to what I had read, the moon should be rising in the east at the exact time the sun is setting in the west during this eclipse. Well, the sun went down but no moon came up. It must have been obscured by one of the buildings. I asked Barrett if he had seen the rising of the moon during winter and he said he didn’t know.

Apparently Barrett failed druid school and did not realize that the location of the moonrise changes over the year.

Ah well, it was a good time anyway. I got some great shots of downtown.

These three pics are of the east (where the moon should have been rising) and demonstrate the 75-300mm lens going from shortest to longest focal length.

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I just love the Maxwell House building.

This is Main St. You can see Dean’s Credit Clothing on the left in the distance.

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As the sun set I pointed the camera west to grab this shot:

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After conceding defeat regarding the eclipse we made our way back down and Cynthia and I said our goodbyes and started to drive back home. Just as we were entering the freeway we looked up in the eastern sky and there it was:

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I found the exit and pulled over to shoot it handheld. Not too bad, but not what I was aiming for, especially after all that planning.

Ah well, maybe next time

The Continental Club – Houston

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