Smith’s Olde Bar, Atlanta, Georgia June 21, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Edmonds formerly of the Swinging Richards and Caesar Speaks.  A very talented song writer with a knack for the perfect rock-pop song hook.  We hope to see more of Chris in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonny Hibbert. 

Sax man.  Record producer. Band leader extraordinaire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Stroud.  Currently in Cheryl Crow’s band.

 

 

   

 

THE  PRODUCERS

Atlanta power pop.  Infectious hooks.  Smart music.                        I have all of the vinyl and enjoy those records regularly.

Tim Smith                                                  Van Temple

     

Wayne Famous

  

The Satellites

Straight-ahead Atlanta rock-n-roll.  If music were food, this is my comfort food.  Like a big bowl of chili and a warm beer.  Awesome show at Smith’s.

 

Rick Price

Rick Richards

Film Noir - Feb 5th, 2009

I was recently listening to a podcast by Brooks Jenson, the editor of “Lenswork” magazine.  I have high respect for the work that he does with his publication.   He was discussing sweet f-stops.  He referred to the typical quote of use “f/8 and be there.”  (I think that may have been an Elliott Erwitt quote.)

It’s not often that you shoot wide-open because of the physical limitations of lenses.  But some seem to be designed to thrive at wide-open apertures.  That’s what I was doing on that cold night in February.   Using a lens at the far extreme of what it was designed to be capable of.

    When You watch a movie, and there are out-of-focus highlights in the background, the shape of those highlights represents the shape of the aperture in the lens at that time.  So, if they are truly circular, the lens was wide open.

This is an emotionally vulnerable place for photographers.  The place where most things can go wrong.  But if it never mattered anyway, it’s a gamble worth taking.

Winter 2009 was a dark time for me. When things would get to be too much, I would set out into the night with a Nikon, Widelux, or a Holga. I just ran across these images from February 5th that I had totally forgotten about. Good dream or bad dream. Seems like when you wake up in the morning, you know that it was one or the other, but you can't remember the details.

That night, I had apparently set out (according to the EXIF data stored in the NEF files) with the Nikon D1h and my Russian Helios 44-M lens. True to Soviet logic, it's not a 44 mm lens but a 58 mm lens. And to top it off, it’s a Pentax M42 mount that I have to use an adapter to mount it onto the Nikon. The Helios is a rare earth glass wonder of Swiss technology that was ripped off by the Russians. And in 1970, they said "Come sue us. See what happens."

I must have been in a dark William Eggleston mood. Mostly store windows with no people around. Lonely, but more "Film Noir" than Eggleston.

I was walking by a bakery and saw a "guard cat" keeping sentry. Strange. Upon closer inspection, the cat is cuddling up to a photo of two dogs ripping into some kind of food. Could be a cat. Or not.

Photographing the window at Eddie's Trick Shop has become sort of a returning (not recurring) theme for me. Here's one where the bokeh of the light reflecting in the window is just awesome. The reflections in the lower left are unseen in real life.