Wednesday evening, RCT held the next in its Americana Showcase series. This was the Trashy Little Christmas Show featuring Trailer Trash from the Twin Cities. They made a similar appearence last year, but I missed that show.
The format for this show was different from the other showcases I’ve attened. Normally, we have four or five singer/songwriters sharing the stage taking turns. It’s an intimate environment and a lot of fun. This show, though, was more of a band concert.
The evening was kicked of with a viewing of a music video featuring Brandon Sampson and Six Mile Grove centered around Brandon’s father, a long time farmer. The video was well done and helped set the mood. Then Six Mile Grove played for us. Brandon is the originator of the Americana series, performs at all of them, but this was the first time I heard his full band play; they were great!
Of course, I had my camera along with one lens and one CF card. I decided if I filled the card, I would just be done shooting! I chose my new 135 EF f/2.0L lens. I’m loving the lens.
It’s sharp, it has terrific shallow depth of field capability with the f/2.0 aperture setting. And fast lenses like this provide the focusing system in the camera with plenty of light, so focusing is nice and fast, too.
If you read my posts here, you know I love a challenge. It’s how one moves forward, learns, explores, experiments, and flexes those photographic muscles. The challenge this time was using a single, fixed-focal-length lens. No zoom means you zoom with your feet. Or you just compose a shot using the image the lens gives you wherever you are.
The high resolution of the 5DMkII provides some flexibility in post. As I walked through the shots in Lightroom, I did fiddle with cropping here and there. But I was happy that the photos generally had a composition I liked. Most of what I did with the crop tool was tweaking.
When you’re after shallow depth of field, indeed you need to compose the shot well in camera. DOF changes with distance. Get too far away and that DOF you wanted is no more.
I saw Gregory, the executive director before the show. He asked if I would be taking photos. I held up the camera and smiled. Gregory cleared me to move around at will and shoot from backstage if I’d like. When I’m shooting at events, I try to be as discrete as possible. It’s someone else’s show – I’m just shooting.
I do my best at shows like this. I usually notice everyone who’s taking photos, but I’m sensitve to it. There were a few others shooting at the show, but they were all respectful, thoughtful.
Certainly, there are some shots you can only get from backstage. Bring in the lights and show the entertainers’ point of view. Bright lights, dark house.
Music and movement, song and voice. Expressing this in still photos is interesting and presents yet another challenge. I find I look for angles and expressions of the players to tell this story. It never ceases to be hugely enjoyable. Add in some terrific live music – both bands were terrific – and we have a great night!
