Soooo, I'm Pretty Much a Rock Photographer Now

Last Friday night, Tom had to go to a show at the Fonda to take some pictures of Nicole Atkins, a Yamaha artist, using her prized Yamaha gear. To do this, he had to get a photo pass since the Fonda is fancy like that. The photo pass gets you down in front of the stage for the first three songs of each set; it also means that the burly bouncer won't yell at you and try to take your camera away.

Nicole was the opener, and she was great. She was funny, and she has great hair, and the girl can sing. So not fair. While I reflected on the great injustice of my inability to carry a tune enjoyed the show, Tom got some great shots.

After Nicole's set, Tom peeled the photo pass off his shirt, stuck it to mine, and pushed me into the photo pit to photograph the headliners, a band called The Eels. I felt incredibly awkward at first since there were several legit photographers with huge, fancy cameras maneuvering around down there, but I managed to stay out of the way and have some fun. The moral of the story is that Tom is an excellent, supportive husband who realizes that sometimes I need a little push, literally in this case.

Now, I had never heard of The Eels before last Friday, but I'm assuming that my photos will launch them to the heights of rock superstardom.

{I'm not sure what's going on here, but I think that Eel wants a hug.}

Being the sweet and supportive husband that he is, Tom captured my first foray into rock photography for posterity. Here I am pretending like I know what I'm doing.

Week 21: New Camera and Week 22: The Troubadour

I'm having that problem again - the one where I am so far behind on the ol' blog that I avoid it entirely because even thinking about it just makes me feel guilty and overwhelmed, which is too bad really because I really enjoy it when I'm doing it well, which is not now. Obviously. Anyway, these "new" things are now several months past and not so new anymore, so I'd just like to get caught up and move on, real quick and dirty like.

On the 21st week of the year, way back in early May, I bought myself my first serious camera, one I have been eyeing for over a year now. The Olympus that my parents gave my for my 29th birthday was the best gift I have ever received since it started me on what I hope will be a lifetime of hobby.  I had gotten to a point with my photography, however, where I felt like I wanted to make a step up from the entry level camera. I lusted after this Nikon for at least a year before I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself this little present.

My new thing for the 22nd week of the year was a visit to the Troubadour, the iconic music venue where Elton John, the Eagles, James Taylor, Carole King, Fleetwood Mac, and countless others paid their dues.

We went to see Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers. I have no idea what a grambler is, but the show was fantastic. Sadly, my new camera was not allowed in, so my only evidence of my inaugural visit to the Troubadour comes courtesy of Luella (that's my phone's name, in case you've forgotten).

Ms. Bluhm and her Gramblers are not only great musicians, they also seem like great people. I am basing this solely on the fact that they do fun things like record covers of Faith while driving around in a van...

                         
In fact, they also recorded cover's of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, Material Girl, and Islands in the Stream, and myriad other easy listening classics. I really want to ride in that van.

Dude. Nature is awesome. (And so are collective nouns.)

Thanks to the internet, nature is really blowing my mind lately. [I am not unaware of the irony in that statement; I am simply choosing to ignore it.] Since I do not like to have my mind blown solo, I am sharing these discoveries with you. You're welcome. Prepare to be amazed.

So, yeah...this is sand.

What?! Sand, you say? I do say, and so does Dr. Gary Greenberg, the artist/scientist/magician who uses a fancy-pants microscope to take micro photos of individual grains of sand, among other things.

  I mean...really. Who knew? I am never going to look at the beach the same way.

You can see more of Dr. Greenberg's work, buy a book of the sand grain images, and order prints of his work on his website.

I like this next example of nature's awesomeness for two reasons. One  - The title of the video is Murmuration, which besides being fun to say, is the word for a flock of starlings.

This delights me because I am a nerd, and as a nerd, I like learning collective nouns. I blame my parents for reading us A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns when we were little. Who am I kidding? I loved that book and will definitely be reading it to my kids. In fact, I will probably treat them to all of the books in Ruth Heller's World of Language series (Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives, anyone?).

Thanks to this book, I know that a group of penguins is a parcel and when peacocks get together, its a muster. I don't recall, but I doubt Ms. Heller covers a murder of crows.

{How cute is that?}

Holy grammar tangent. Moving on...the second reason that I love this video is that it just shows nature being awesome. Apparently my verbal abilities have deteriorated to a level associated with your average pothead, I blame the aforementioned mind blowing. In all seriousness though, this is really breathtaking. I think I was literally holding my breath at the end. The video was shot by Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive on the River Shannon in Ireland.

                          

I have no idea how that girl managed to keep such a steady hand. I'm pretty sure that, had I been in her shoes, I would not have been contemplating the magnificent beauty of the natural world because this is all I would be able to see.