I made a couple more ‘shadow’ pictures.
These are pretty much ‘straight out of the camera’ (save for cropping / slight exposure tweaks) and were taken using the “average” white-balance setting.
I’m beginning to think though that what’s really interesting is not the shadow - it’s the fan that’s casting it and, in particular, the way it’s lit.
Watch this space…
When this shadow crept across my living room wall I knew I only had a brief window of opportunity in which to capture it (about ten minutes). I’d tried before, but the results were miserable - too shaky / blurred. This time I tried something different: changing the sensitivity (ISO) setting. I knew that overriding ‘auto’ and using a higher setting would give me a faster shot, which should work better in low light conditions, but it would introduce more ‘noise’. Would it be worth it?
In the end I think it worked out quite well. I still need to think some more about the composition, but at least I feel like I’m getting somewhere and, more importantly, I’ve learned something. Next time I’m taking pictures in a gallery, or similar ‘less than ideal’ lighting conditions, I’ll at least have some idea of how to get more usable shots.
If anyone’s interested, there’s another picture here.
Incidentally, the exaggerated ‘honey’ tones are a result of me using a ‘shadow’ setting for the ‘white balance’. I knew it would turn out like this from previous experiments, but I set it this way because I kind of like it.
I was kind of pleased about how my variation of the ‘keep calm and carry on’ meme looked, so I thought I’d do a couple more…
One of the Goodyear airships flew (sailed?) over my house yesterday - quite low.
Unfortunately, by the time I’d dug my camera out it had gone; so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Not something you see everyday.
I thought I’d do my version of this famous meme…
Yea, so the font’s wrong and the spacing’s off; but sod it - life’s too short!
I’ve been to a fair number of ‘gigs’; a large percentage of which, now I come to think about it, occurred in the latter part of the previous century; but I never really got into the whole “souvenir programme” collecting thing. This was mainly because early experience taught me that they were pretty crap - badly designed, badly printed, bad photographs - a huge disappointment. Plus, having shelled out for this ‘artistic insult’, you were left clutching it in your hot little hands for the rest of the evening.
Occasionally though I’d break the rules and get one, and the other day I decided to dig out my rather modest collection, photograph the best bits and share them (in retrospect, scanning them would have been a better option, but I haven’t got a scanner so tough).
Some of these gigs are worth a bit more detail and so…
The Who
(Charlton Athletic football ground, 31st May 1976)
One of my all-time favourite gigs. A great line-up (apart from the (Somewhat Less Than) Sensational Alex Harvey Band - who I really could have done without) headed by the Who.
Around this time I’d become aware of what a great drummer the late Keith Moon was; but I wondered if it was all just studio trickery or could he do it live? Oh yes he could - in spades! In case you’re sceptical / unaware of “Moon the Loon’s” prowess, may I suggest listening to a copy of their single “Won’t get fooled again”. Notice how he punctuates everything (without being oppressive and annoying) and how, whenever things seem to be heading towards a ‘thin’ spot, Moon steps in with a little drum ‘fill’. Then listen to those fills - does he ever use the same one twice?
Pink Floyd
(Knebworth Park, 5th July 1975)
Another good line-up. At the time, I was rather fond of “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band (though I can’t help but think that Miller used to… ‘borrow’, rather heavily, from other people). And Linda Lewis - with that amazing vocal range - whatever happened to her?
Floyd had really got their ‘big’ stage shows sorted out and this one was great - a couple of real Spitfires buzzing the stage; a huge model spaceship, flying down a zip-wire from the sound-tower, before crashing into the stage and exploding - spectacular stuff. At one point I seem to recall Richard Wright brandishing an 80 column punch-card, sliding it into a slot and ceremoniously pushing a button, before walking off stage and leaving the sequencers to play a solo for him. :-D
A fine gig - and it didn’t rain.
Tangerine Dream
(Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, 16th October 1975)
This was one of their ‘dark’ gigs - the ‘house’ lights turned as low as ‘health and safety’ would allow (and this was the 70’s so…), no stage lights (apart from a few small lamps to illuminate their keyboards) and just the rhythmic blinking patterns of the sequencer banks. I think they were using a ‘quad’ sound system, or maybe it was the cathedral’s natural acoustics, either way - one to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I saw them a couple of years later (at the Empire, or maybe somewhere in Manchester) and they’d added a laser light show to the performance - all very flashy, but I think I preferred the cathedral gig.
Culture Vultures
It wasn’t all ‘rock and roll’ though. At one point, during the late 80’s, the stars aligned and a bunch of us got cheap (or possibly even ‘complimentary’) tickets to a series of more ‘highbrow’ performances:
The Northern Ballet Theatre
“The Amazing Adventures of Don Quixote”. Spectacular, colourful, athletic and funny too - ‘fart’ gags, in a ballet, who’d a thunk it!
The Welsh National Opera
“Madam Butterfly”. Interesting one this, ‘traditional’ costumes, but sung in English. I was particularly impressed by the staging. The Empire is the largest two-tier auditorium in Britain (2,350 seats) and, as you can imagine, has quite a large stage. They’d reduced this, using black curtains, to maybe a third of its original size, and there, brilliantly illuminated, was a perfect paper-walled Japanese house - stunning.
“La traviata”. In a stark contrast to Madam Butterfly, this performance had contemporary sets / costumes and was sung in Italian. A big, big show.
I seem to vaguely recall another ballet, very traditional, all white tutus and tights, Swan Lake style (for all I know it may have even been Swan Lake); but I didn’t get a programme and so the details are lost in the mists of time.
Hinge and Bracket
What a perfect way to round off our brief cultural season. In case you’ve never heard of Dr. Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket, there’s a fine Wikipedia article here. I also found a couple of videos, firstly, from the Royal Variety Performance (1989), and then appearing in Die Fledermaus at Covent Garden in 1983. They may not be to everyone’s taste, but when has that ever bothered me!
This one, a freebie given away at the Jan Garbarek Group autumn tour (2004) was a bit of a puzzle to me. Whilst the performance contained pieces from “In Praise of Dreams”, none of the musicians who made the recording appeared on stage (with the exception of Garbarek - obviously). That evening, the band were the ‘usual suspects’ (Rainer Brüninghaus and Eberhard Weber) plus the excellent Marilyn Mazur on percussion (Marilyn Mazur is possibly my all-time favourite percussionist. I say ‘possibly’; it’s a toss-up between her and Trilok Gurtu). Initially, playing the attached mini-cd also presented me with a problem. Eventually it dawned on me that it would be fine in my laptop as the disks clip onto the spindle; but it was some time before I realised that that’s what the little recess in the tray of my cd player was for. I have never dared feed it into the slot of the player in my car though - on the grounds that I fear extracting it again would necessitate dismantling the whole dashboard (and subsequently re-mantling it). If you’re curious, I’ve uploaded the two excerpts the disk contains:
There’s some other stuff in the Flickr set if you’re interested, including the entire programme from the 1974(?) Pink Floyd gig at the Liverpool Empire - an example of what a ‘decent’ programme should be like.
