Goodnight Blue Moon, Christopher Paul Stelling & Spirit Family Reunion at Cafe Nine 04.04.13

Christopher Paul Stelling's guitar detail

Two weeks ago, New Haven's Cafe Nine was treated to a trifecta of folk groups. Read Adam's review of the show over at Surviving the Golden Age. I, of course, was there to photograph it. Here are the full sets of photos from the night, along with minimal commentary.

This was my second concert at Cafe Nine; I'd seen The Iguanas there about 12 years ago. I remembered the venue was tiny and the lighting was...difficult. We were there officially to cover the opener, Goodnight Blue Moon, a New Haven based Indie Folk band. Erik Elligers on guitar and lead vocals, Mathew Crowley on madolin and vocals, Nancy Matlack Elligers on cello and banjo, Sean Elligers on trumpet and vocals, Carl Testa on bass and Nick D'Errico on drums. It definitely was a lot of people for the tiny stage. They are playing several Connecticut shows in the upcoming months. Be sure to check out their website and catch them live.

I'd like to show you something I don't normally include on my blog: raw images straight from the camera. The light at many smaller venues is the biggest challenge. To anyone that wants to get into concert photography, be prepared to shoot in less than ideal conditions, but always keep shooting. Perhaps what sets my photography apart is the amount of time I pour into color correction in post processing. I shoot in RAW file format which really allows me to go back in and tweak the colors in light room; even my point and shoot camera has this feature. Sometimes, as in the image above, there is no salvaging the color. Bright red light isn't going away, but red light adds contrast to black and white images. In the image below, I removed a lot of the yellow light in order to restore normal skin tones. I've included the before and after comparison. I don't understand why there are so few concert photographers doing this. Sure, it added an extra four hours to the time I spent on these pictures, but I think the results are worth it. (End of rant)

The opening band usually gets the most interesting pictures of the night. This is because the crowd hasn't pushed forward all the way and I'm able to move around and change my angles. I try to pick a position where I can capture the entire band first. Without any kind of photo pit, it becomes impossible to move around unless I push my way through once the venue fills up.

This shot of Erik and Sean is one of my favorites of the night, taken with the 100mm macro lens. The bokeh on that lens never ceases to amaze me and I love using it as a portrait lens just as much as I use it for close up shots.

Christopher Paul Stelling can be described in one word: intense, and I love photographing musicians with that much passion. For the majority of his set, he was on stage alone with his acoustic guitar. His shoes pounded out the beat on the stage, while he performed some amazing finger picking. His voice reminded me of David Gray. Unfortunately, and I've been seeing this at a LOT of shows this year, the gathering crowd was talking through his entire set. Loudly. I won't get into another rant about respecting the musicians, but I will give Christopher major kudos for ignoring it and continuing with that much enthusiasm. His second album, False Cities, comes out in May. Hit up his website and check it out.

By the time the headliner, Spirit Family Reunion took the stage, there was absolutely no room to move. I did my best to maintain a decent position, but I got shifted just a bit too far to the left of the stage. I wasn't able to capture the shot I originally wanted: Maggie, Nick and Mat singing around the same mic. It happens and the best you can do is work around it and try to get something else that's dynamic. Thankfully, the band gave me plenty of opportunities.

I dropped down into a squat to change up my perspective slightly and captured my favorite shot of the night. A lot of the venues in Connecticut put you right in the face of the musicians. The stages are small and low to the ground. Since I wasn't able to move about the room anymore, I tried to find another angle to make things more interesting and dynamic.

While I couldn't get decent shots of all the vocalists, I had a great angle on drummer Peter Pezzimenti. I spoke to talk to a friend of his parents after the show who had traveled into Connecticut to see him perform. There's a lot of buzz around this band and it's great to see the excitement from people that know them.

I was determined to get a shot of washboard player, Stephen Weinheimer. He's cousins with a photographer that I met at the Ben Folds Five concert at the Capitol Theatre. Hope that works for you, Joe!

I love how everyone in the band gets into the music. Check out Stephen in the background singing his heart out.

While this was a hard concert to shoot, these are probably the most satisfying results I've had all year. It'll make the next show I shoot in a well lit venue a breeze.

As always, I leave you with shoes!

Spirit Family Reunion Teaser

The full set of pictures will be up later this week, but for now a trio of shoes for you!

Valgeir Sigurðsson and Zammuto at Spaceland Ballroom 03.29.13

Sometimes I get hung up on a blog post. This is definitely one of those times. When I found out that Zaummuto was playing The Spaceland Ballroom in Hamden, CT, I immediately asked Adam from Surviving the Golden Age if he would do the review. I knew I wasn't going to be able to come up with the words to describe it. Yet, here I am, two weeks later, forcing myself to do just that.

I've said before one of my favorite ways of discovering new music is from recommendations of other artists I enjoy. Tim Shiel of Telling/Faux Pas/Gotye fame is a big fan of Zammuto; they opened for Gotye at Williamsburg Park last September. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of his set going back and forth between security at the photo pit and the gates to make sure that I would be cleared to shoot the entire show. By the time I had that all straightened out, I barely had a chance to enjoy the music. I sat in the audience pretty far back and took in a couple of songs. I remembered some odd projection images; the one that stuck out in my mind was an infomercial about a piece of gym equipment called 'The Stick' with the band laying down an instrumental track along to the commercial. It was strange enough to make me want to see them again when I could devote my attention to what was going on.

The opener at Spaceland was Valgeir Sigurðsson accompanied by violinist Nadia Sirota. There were no vocals during their set. Sigurðsson's music is evocative of places and feelings which I really enjoy, it's just hard to write about. He hopped between a piano and his laptop, building layers of music in front of the audience. I was reminded of Jon Brion's amazing looping of instruments in a live set.

There was a countdown on the screen as the members of Zammuto took the stage. It was an incredibly effective way of quieting down the audience before they began.

From a photography standpoint, this was tough. The projector is quite bright, while the rest of the stage is poorly lit. There was enough light when the images were bright enough falling onto the band members to get decent shots.

It's similar to Gotye's stage show in the fact that it's sometimes hard to know where to look. There are images that relate to the song, but these aren't videos being commissioned by artists to fit the song exactly. They are things that Nick has put together himself: from old home videos to photographs family members have taken to bizarre infomercials for random massage equipment. (Which my trainer just so happens to have at his gym.)

This was my first show at Spaceland Ballroom. There are a few tables along the walls with a bar against the back. It's definitely an intimate venue. The crowd was pretty laid back which allowed me to move around plenty.

I thought it was interesting to see sheet music projected from an iPad, and a contrast to Sigurðsson who had physical sheet music for his set.

I felt like Zammuto had a great transition from a very electronic album to a live show. Personally, I'm not a fan of autotuned vocals, but this was bearable for me. It was used more to augment his voice than improve it. Nick has a great voice, which was really showcased in the delicate Paul Simon cover 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Some of the video imagery was odd and sometimes it worked. I'm never going to be able to look at the sign language letter T the same way again.

As always, I leave you with shoes!

fr EYE day

Wouldn't you know it, another fr EYE day is already here!