To You From Failing Hands We Throw The Torch

It's bad news when a new venue treats its lighting design as an afterthought. You can tell things are wrong when the drummer for The Orion Experience is stretching, trying to tilt the par cans over his head off of him with his drumstick. I mean, honestly; you have ten lights pointed STRAIGHT DOWN to slash the soundproofing on the back wall and no edge lights hitting the front of stage. You have one row of fixed cans at the front of house with deep amber (!!??!) gels on them dimmed to about 40% -- a dimmed tungsten light is warmer than a tungsten light at full power so the result is a warm light... with a warming gel on top of it. Net result is a color temperature somewhere around 1900K.

WHAT FUCKING GOOD DOES IT DO TO LIGHT THE BACK WALL?



And there are sidelights with no punch on stages right and left gelled BLUE. This post is incoherent and choppy and rambly. I'm furious. I mean, the building is just over a year old. Someone -- a loved one; a caring friend -- should have told the owners to hire a LD to set something reasonable up. It's not like the old Luna Lounge where you could understand a converted bar slapping up a few lights because people couldn't see shit; this was a ground-up install that should have taken into consideration EVERYTHING and they dropped the ball. What should have been a quality medium/small venue in Brooklyn becomes just another bar with a stage attached. You shouldn't have to worry about making your own separation happen when your subject is on a fucking STAGE.

I CAN HAS ATE FWIENDS? ^_^

According to yesterday's math (December 15th's math -- the day of my portentous birth; to some a day to be scorned) I have eight friends. These are their portraits. If you see them on the street, congratulate them for their wise choice to not alienate me.



Matt brought me artworks in a similar vein to this series, for which I am grateful.



Melissa brought cookies of the homemade variety. They were (emphasis on the past tense. They are with God now) excellent and peanut butter with jelly dollops. I am grateful.



Chuck brought wine, which was a welcome arrival. He also took the time to swing by before band practice. I am grateful.




Gersh brought himself, which is important because we decided we'd known each other for seventeen (17) years. Go figure. I am grateful.



Ally brought Yuengling, which is important because it is nourishing and good for you. I am grateful.



Alex also brought Yuengling. Actually you could parse his arrival in several ways -- You could say that he brought the Yuengling while Ally (see above) brought HIM; You could say that he brought Ross (see below). I am grateful.



Ross arrived and watched Slapshot with us, which is important because it is the finest movie of All Time. I am grateful.

[#8 Removed at #8's request, 9/18/08]

Now, there were MANY others who were invited and did not appear. MANY others. Those... people... will be dealt with in my own time. Their remains will likely be posted here later.

My love to you all. I am now 28. I feel like shit.

Danielle's Gonna Have My Legs Broke For This

D: "...and these are going to all end up on the internet, right?"

R: "Probably."

I'm working on some publicity stills for the Hidden People (see previous entry) and got to bring in Danielle to assist in keeping my head straight, which is as difficult as you can imagine, and to help fly in lights for the location stuff (examples to come). Having someone on set who's better than you but is comfortable in letting you believe the opposite is very, VERY important.

Of course, aside from coffee fetching (not in a subservient way, but in a liberated, choose-to-do-it way), the assistant(s)' primary role is to stand in when the Photographer needs to see how badly he screwed up with the lighting (in this instance, a unit was not turned on). Furthermore, it is a happy coincidence when the Photographer has someone he's never succeeded in photographing assisting him. We've known each other for years and years at this point (it was quite a handshake) and have always seemed to be watching each others' work from parallel paths. Along with Bill Stengel (future Throwback Image Sunday candidate), she's my point person for all my tech talk and gear-head-wonkiness. I claim "Superfan 99" status.

Her home on the Internets is here:

Daniellestingu.com

Throwback Image Saturday

This portrait of Nick is from waaaaaaaay back in 2002 when I was still in school and had a grand old time stealing the keys to the photo kids' studios and busting out the strobes. That said, this was all tungsten lighting with an 80A corrective filter held over my old Yashica TLR (RIP). I was doing my own yearbook of portraits which I digitally printed (on a state-of-the-art epson somethingorother...) and bound for presentation.

Nick was a stand-up guy, a fair critic and genuinely enthusiastic. He was one of the first people I showed my thesis film to -- about 20 minutes after completion, in fact -- so whatever criticism he was to give would have done no good (when I say I had 'completed' it I mean that I got the edit done and didn't want to work on it anymore). He said he enjoyed it very much and saw the (obvious) undertones right away and gave a knowing wink. Nick vanished shortly after my graduation -- I suppose he dropped out. I did have some connections and friends still going for a few years after I left, but I haven't seen him since.