A.D. Drumm Images, LLC – Landscape, Portrait, and Fine Art Photography in Rochester MN Photography

October 30, 2010

Americana Showcase – October 2010

Filed under: Rochester Civic Theatre — Tony Drumm @ 9:39 pm

Last Wednesday, RCT held one of its American Showcase series of intimate singer, songwriter shows. I thought I’d attend, and I considered whether to take the camera. I considered it for maybe 10 seconds. If I don’t take it, I can’t take any photos. If I do, then I can decide not to take photos (yeah, right!).

Brandon Sampson was largely responsible, I’m told, for the existence of this series of concerts. He’s a terrific singer/songwriter, almost exactly what you think of when you hear that term. I had just seen Brandon a few days earlier at a benefit for flood victims from our recent huge rain storm. Folks who give back to their community are special, and those who bring such a rich talent to such events deserve our admiration.

Two of the other musicians were both named Ben. This Ben had a huge flower attached to his guitar. Yes, I was absolutely required to take a photo of the flower. How could I not?

Martin Zellar has been to these concerts before. He’s a wonderful songwriter and, judging from the response, has a large local following. Local boy makes it big. I believe he’s from Austin, MN although, as something of a newcomer to Minnesota (only 18 years), I don’t know all the lore. But I thoroughly enjoyed Martin.

I enjoy shooting concerts. I always have. I remember shooting at some big name concerts years and years ago, when no one cared if you took photos of Chicago or The Beach Boys. Or Bob Dylan. Shooting concerts is challenging, but it’s not a whole lot different than the show photos I shoot at least as far as the lighting is concerned. When shooting show photos, I can have folks stay still and push my shutter speed a bit. You don’t have that luxury at a live event.

I sometimes notice something that just strikes me. It’s different, unlikely to be photographed by others, and it still is a part of the event. I doubt anyone would pay me for a big wall print of this, but it pleases me in some weird way.

Something I like to do at concerts is find moments that are more reflective. A glance, or in this case, Martin just listening. We sometimes are completely focused on the person performing, or the lead, or the guy doing the guitar solo. But there are other people on stage, and I like to capture their moments outside the spotlight, as it were. Being people. Listening. Contemplating.

Probably what I enjoy the most at these concerts are the songs that become more of a jam. Each performer takes turns singing one of his (or her) songs. They do this round robin. But sometimes, usually starting with Brandon, others will join in. A bit of harmony on the guitar or maybe voice. A light background harmonica. Years ago, I played percussion and loved when a group of musicians just makes great music together, unrehearsed, spontaneous. It’s magic. And that’s the feeling I have again at these events when that happens.

After they ended, the applause continued and the group came back on stage for an encore. They played Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison, led by Martin. It was a great end to the night. I think some of the patrons stuck around, but it was a work night. So, I grabbed my camera and headed home with a few hundred images to sort through. I hope you like my favorites here.

October 20, 2010

A Session with Andy

Filed under: General photography,Portraits — Tony Drumm @ 8:13 pm

In July, I attended the Artists Happy Hour at RCT which I wrote about. I was intrigued by the forms, the guitar, the tattoos, the color. The fellow whose arm this is, Andy, contacted me about maybe shooting some other photos showing his tattoos. They all have some meaning for him, and he designed several of them.

I liked the idea and thought it would be an interesting creative exercise. In August, Andy came by and we did a photo session. I had a few ideas in mind, and we tried those. I also found a tripod way too confining and pulled the camera free to let me move around.

This basic pose was one I had pictured in my head. I used two lights for all these photos. Many of the shots just screamed for some creative post-processing work, although all of the Lightroom and Photoshop work was fairly straight-forward with little to no special masking or touch-ups. Basically, I just applied global effects to add to, or hopefully enhance, the character of the photograph.

It is my favorite photo from the session. I’ve printed it on canvas – it looks great that way. I then pulled out some gels to see what we could do.

The combination of red and blue gels was awesome. The colors look good together and blend into a wonderful magenta. I think they add drama to the shot. When I later removed the gels, I had to adjust to the colorless images I was taking. It forced me to think through the shots carefully, since I no longer had the bold colors.

This was my favorite of the gel’d shots. After processing this image, smoothing it quite a lot, I decided it would make an interesting metal print. These are prints embedded into aluminum. They have a hard, very glossy finish with rich, deep colors. I don’t think they work for every photo – far from it – but this shot looks good on aluminum.

I was looking for ways to highlight the tattoos on Andy’s hands. I asked if he had a harmonica, which he did. He says he uses it more as a tuning tool, but he sounded pretty good playing it. I like that this prop gives him a reason to have his hands there, and I used the lighting to show that tattoos.

Andy knocked the harmonica against his hand to dry it, and that presented a new photo. Strong, warm light works here.

How do we get a natural pose and show these tattoos on his hands? This one works, I think.

I took a few shots at the end of the session that really focus on Andy and his face rather than the tattoos. This photo is my favorite of those. I like the lighting and his concentration.

A musician and poet and a photographer. I like to think it’s art that makes us human and unique among the animals on Earth. I like to think of photography as an instrument to make visual music. Whether anyone else agrees, I guess, doesn’t really matter. But that evening, two artists made some music. Of that, I’m sure.

October 13, 2010

LDR? Painterly image from a low dynamic range

Filed under: Beautiful Earth,General photography — Tony Drumm @ 7:12 pm

A particularly hot type of photography – really, a type of photography post-processing – these days is HDR, or High Dynamic Range. It’s sort of a misnomer. Let me explain…

Human vision is incredible. In a way, digital cameras are somewhat similar. There is the eye, or the sensor, and the brain, the processor. The sensor just gathers the light and the processor makes sense out of it. Our human vision uses a processor unlike any other. We take in the light around us, but we mix it with the input from our other senses plus our expectations and moving eyes and head and convert it all to what we call vision. We can see all sorts of images unrelated to our subject, and we can instantly tune it out. We see what’s important.

We see over a huge range of light and dark. Technically, this is known as dynamic range. It’s the same term used for audio – the range from the softest flute to the pounding drum of a symphony. In the visual realm, it’s the range of light we, or our cameras, can see and differentiate detail. Human vision has a large dynamic range, but our cameras do not. Not only our cameras, but our displays and printing technology are limited in the range from lightest to darkest.

For HDR imagery, we cheat. We take several exposures which allow us to capture detail from both highlights and shadows, then combine those images using a technique called tone mapping. Remember, we don’t really have a way to show or display the dynamic range our eyes can perceive. Instead, we map the highlights and shadows into this smaller range. Two parts of the image which should be different – one lighter than the other – are shown with the same intensity allowing us show all the detail we wish.

The images can look unreal because, well, they aren’t very real. But they can look very interesting and can be captivating. The term painterly is often used to describe these images.

When I was at Whitewater State Park last Saturday, I took the photograph above. At the time I shot it, the sun had disappeared below the bluffs. The light I was capturing was sunlight reflected by the sky. This light is very even, coming from everywhere in a way. The result is an image with a fairly low dynamic range. The camera is able to capture the entire range of lightness with no trouble. Without applying any postprocessing, the photo will be flat. Another word for flat is boring.

In Lightroom or another photo editor, we can punch up the image to add contrast and color. What we’re doing is sort of the opposite of HDR, but we’re tone mapping just the same. Rather than compressing the dynamic range, we’re expanding it. I nearly always do that with flat images, and the result is often very nice. I liked the photograph I made. (Ansel Adams said, he didn’t take photographs, he made them.)

But we have more options, more possibilities. We can push the limits and see what happens.

When I took this photograph, I saw strong vibrant golds that glowed. That’s what my brain told me. I knew this was a low dynamic range situation, and I knew I would punch it up in Lightroom. But the more I looked at it, the more I wanted. I wanted the colors to jump out at me. I wanted you to feel the golds. I wanted the other shades to work against the gold, providing color contrast, not just lightness contrast. I wanted the dark bark to push the viewer toward the golden leaves and frame them in.

Using mostly Lightroom with a bit of Photoshop help, I think I was able to capture my vision. This image, to me, screams to be printed and printed big. It might not be everyone’s favorite, but it speaks to me. It draws me back to Whitewater in Autumn, to the wonder and splendor of nature. Why do leaves change color if not just for us to see? And to make into a photograph.

October 10, 2010

Whitewater State Park in October

Filed under: Beautiful Earth,General photography — Tony Drumm @ 7:11 pm

After one of the wettest summers I can remember and a 7 inch rainfall over less than two days, we’ve been given a beautiful start to autumn. Last week was amazing, and the weekend was actually hot. I headed out to Whitewater State Park yesterday late afternoon to see what I could find for autumn colors in the fading light.

Many of the leaves were already gone. Some wildflowers are still hanging on.

I’m always amazed by the flowers that show up this late in the season. Bumble bees were out and about apparently also enjoying the flowers.

But there were still some nice leaf colors to enjoy, like those in the first photo above. Sometimes, there are just a few glowing in the fading sunshine.

Some are rich with color.

As I filled the frame with these oak leaves, I was struck by all the red. So much red, the leaves almost disappear into one another.

I found these leaves hanging out over the river which provided a wonderful dark background to help them pop.

It was a nice evening, and I worked up quite a sweat even with the temperature falling with the sun. I was hoping for more leaves, but I had already decided to mainly focus in tight. I find I really like these leaves-up-close shots. They tend to be less common than the grand colorful hillside photos, and they give you a sense of connection to the individual trees producing all that color. I like to fill the frame with a color.

I like to contrast that color with the darkness of  the trunk and the branches. That’s why my favorite of these shots is the first one I showed above. It feels a bit like a painting to me. A variety of muted colors and the golden leaves against the blacks of the bark. A successful hike.

October 3, 2010

Encore – RCT’s Annual Fundraiser

Filed under: Rochester Civic Theatre — Tony Drumm @ 5:12 pm

Last night was the annual fundraiser at Rochester Civic Theatre. The event was called Encore, a Night On Off Broadway. Previous fundraisers have been done off-site, but this year it was at the theatre. They literally rolled out the red carpet and had many of the younger actors dressed as the paparazzi to line the carpet and greet the guests. I was there as, well, paparazzi?

I think the guests had fun and some played with it, like the woman here hiding her face from the cameras.

Sheila is a long-time supporter of the theatre and took on her celebrity-on-the-red-carpet role immediately. She played it up from end to end, smiling and waving and talking to the reporters. This is part of the fun of hanging out at the theatre. Folks are just not inhibited and will jump in without hesitation.

Naturally, there was plenty of entertainment beginning with the red carpet and going throughout the evening. Greg, Jerry, and Nick – a comedy improv team who are often helping out with fundraising for RCT and other theatres – were there in costume and in character as well as a host of other actors. Here Brad (on the right) joins in with Jerry and Nick.

After some terrific food – think true gourmet hors d’oeuvres – folks moved into the theatre itself for on-stage entertainment. Our comedy trio filled in with their horseplay between other acts.

A local group of belly dancers, the Blue Lotus Dancers, performed, and Nick came out to show how well he would do as a group member until the gorilla ran on stage to scatter everyone. Yes, there was a gorilla. Did I mention that?

I won’t try to explain this skit. Suffice it to say, it was memorable especially if you were sitting right up front like me. There was a glass of milk involved. That’s all I need to say. But I liked this photo and the fun, colorful costumes!

The evening officially ended with a live auction and a raffle drawing. Rachel Wick, a local TV news personality, was there the entire evening, and she was tasked with drawing the raffle tickets. She gave this little Vanna White moment after drawing the grand prize ticket.

Someone asked me, “don’t you ever get a night off?” while I was out shooting by the red carpet. Hah! Yes, I certainly could “take off” an evening and just relax. But, quite frankly, if you find me somewhere holding a camera, chances are I am relaxing. Making photographs, learning and expanding my vision with each shutter press, is something I treasure. I didn’t shoot the entire night. After everyone filed back out to the lobby, I put the Canon away and had a glass of Appleton rum.

Then, there was Lynne wearing Morgan’s bikini top over her dress. Me with no camera! “Lynne, where’s your camera? May I use it?”

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