The workshop was a lot of fun, and extremely useful. Of course, my “gear to buy” list just got a whole lot longer. If you’re looking for a lighting workshop, I’d definitely recommend this one. More time is spent on the “why” than the “how”, which I think really gets to the point of it. Sure, you can tell me you’re at this f-stop, with this shutter speed and that aperture. But unless I find myself in a completely identical shooting situation, that information isn’t helpful to me. Tell me WHY you’re at those settings, and now we’re on to something.

I didn’t spend much time taking photos, but I did get a few sort of behind the scenes shots.

David, doing his thing on the roof at Adorama (oh, they let us on the roof!)

The basic premise here was to overpower the existing light (which is, uh, the sun). If you look at how bright that sky is, you can see the problem with trying to do this with a softbox.

Edible Red was nice enough to come out and pose for us for the day. Here they are demonstrating “The Band Stagger”.

It was really interesting to watch David set up shots, and also talk through his thought process. Useful and entertaining. So glad that I went, and I really can’t wait to try out some new lighting techniques.

Oh, right, and I did sleep at some point on Saturday.

They also had fantastic creamsicle floats.

Then, off to Cake Shop. It’s a record store, a bar, and a live music venue. Oh, and they have cake. I was so excited when I went downstairs to see that the ceiling of the stage was lit all over with white Christmas lights, but they turned them off before the bands started. Don’t they care about my lighting needs?

I did get a shot of the bathroom walls. Every inch of the place looked just like this:

And snapped this one from the bottom of the stairs

I started off on the tiniest airplane I’ve ever been on – only 3 seats across – which landed in exciting Newark. A tram, a train, and a few blocks walk later, I was at my hotel. Where I didn’t have a reservation, because the site I had used to book it had me down for January. It’s times like this I’m super glad that I travel light. Eventually I found a Doubletree where they did have a room, AND they gave me a chocolate chip cookie when I checked in, so kudos to them.

I was super excited to head up to the ABC No Rio, as they had an open darkroom, and I had some film to develop. Unfortunately, the volunteer that runs it had already left. Luckily, the have a hardcore/punk matinee every Saturday. Give me an hour in a new town, and I always find the punk kids.

What, exactly, does the cinder block do?

My more observant readers may have noticed that there’s a different watermark on these photos. This blog started out as a 365 project, then it was an addition to my wedding photography site, and now it’s my main page. The business has grown, so I’ve had to adapt my web spaces to keep up. Some time ago, I set up a separate web space for my music photography, and now it has it’s own blog!.

Most brides aren’t all that interested in my work with bands, and vice versa, so I’m splitting them into their own blogs. All the old stuff will still be in the archives here, but any new work will be on the new Studio C blog.

As soon as I picked my camera up, this guy started strutting over.

Sorry ladies, he’s taken.

This one, too.

If you somehow haven’t seen enough of these, again, they’re on Facebook. Next up, NYC.

John and I went on our own with Lynn, while the rest of the crew stayed at the house. They were going later in the week, so Lynn just kept saying we were going for a mystery tour.

I took a lot of ceiling shots.

Oh, how I miss the sun.

Lynn took this one for us. I’m gonna put that girl to work!

More on the Facebook.

The power finally got restored about two days before we were supposed to leave, so it was a little hectic. We left sometime around 5:00 on Friday night, and got to Florida around midnight on Saturday, so we made pretty good time. I think they took a bit longer than that coming home (John and I couldn’t stay quite as long, and had to hop a flight out). These are a little out of order, so that I could break them up easier.

Dad’s new toy. He told me he had a box with an Australian lady in it that told him where to go.

Completely appropriate beach attire. They may not have had snow, but it wasn’t exactly toasty out.

Abby and Pops

Later, there was a big ol’ hippie drum circle. Apparently, they do this every Sunday night at sunset.

Looks like trouble.

More to come on these. The NYC workshop was this past weekend, so if any of you fellow workshoppers found me, I’m on the Facebook and Twitter as well. Come say hi.

This is the great dane that lives up the hill at Bill’s Golfland. She comes down sometimes to visit the dek hockey rink when the weather’s nice.

This is Jake. Jake decided to go for a swim, and then immediately leap into my lap afterward. Thanks, buddy.

Test shot from a food shoot I did a while ago. Sometimes I end up liking test shots almost as much as the final result.

Weather permitting, we should be wheels down in Pittsburgh by now. I didn’t bring the laptop along because, you know, I’m on vacation. But oh, there will be photos. The Minolta came along as well, and I’m interested to see how they turn out. I bought a few rolls of black and white, in various speeds, from B&H. When I went to load up the camera for the trip, though, the box that said it was 400 b&w was actually Fuji Velvia 50. Probably more appropriate for Florida sunshine, and anyway, I’m not going to complain about some uber low-grain Velvia. More on that later.