A Bluegrass Festival and a Photo Story

[CNelson]

Last week I photographed the annual Scott Valley Bluegrass Festival in northern California. I'm sort of their unofficial photographer and I give the bands and event organizers photos and they give me tickets...everybody comes out OK.

The first photo below is one I took of some kids standing next to a painting of them made from a picture I took of them last year during the street jam session prior to the festival. The artist, also in the picture, contacted me and I gave him a copy and permission to use the the original photo for the painting. This year, for the first time, the kids, the artist and the photographer all met for the first time and the local newspaper wrote an interesting story about it. It was fun to be part of it. The article is here for those interested: http://www.siskiyoudaily.com/feature...icians?photo=0

If you decide to view the gallery of the 2010 festival you can watch all or part of it as a slideshow where you will see full screen sized images and in the background will be some original music written, played, sung and recorded by a talented friend.

The second picture is on of one of my favorite bands during the festival. I have photographed them on several occasions and we have become friends. I put the dramatic background behind them for two reasons. First, I like dramatic and can't help myself. Second, I was driven nuts (short trip) by the stage lighting. There were red, amber and blue lights shining on the performers and it was impossible to get a decent white balance. If it were at night or in an auditorium the colored lights would look cool but on a daylight stage, the color lights makes the people look strange...if I set a white balance for one face I turn someone else into a martian. So I put the multi-colored background in and the colored faces look almost natural.

Here's the kids, the artist, the painting based on a photo:



Here's a shot of my favorite band. The parents (not pictured) are also in the band but the kids run the show:



Chuck

[Shadowman]

Nice images. Was the second photo taken with artificial light?

[CNelson]

Was the second photo taken with artificial light?

It was the stage lighting, mostly indirect sunlight but red, orange and blue stage lights shining down on the performers. Depending on how they set up or where they move during the performance the light on their face changes.

[Shadowman]

It was the stage lighting, mostly indirect sunlight but red, orange and blue stage lights shining down on the performers. Depending on how they set up or where they move during the performance the light on their face changes.

What white balance setting did you use, direct sunlight?

[CNelson]

I left WB on auto and I think it chose daylight. The closest WB is somewhere between daylight and cloudy. I tinkered with WB in photoshop.

[Loose Canon]

I gotta say, Chuck, that is one amazing story.

I was perusing your photo and loving the painting of the kids in front of the drug store. The gumball machine caught my eye. I was thinking: “now I wonder where that drug store got a hold of that little jewel?”, and “I’d like to see the original shot with the gumball machine in it”.

As I further took in the photo I thought it was an excellent likeness of the kids and the more I looked, the more I liked it. It seems that the kids are standing right beside themselves in the photo. That is a pretty talented painter.

To me, this speaks of a culmination of art. Musician, painter, photographer, all converging on a karmic path together. Then I followed your link and read the story. Awesome chain of events.

I don’t believe we are all blazing headlong down a predetermined path toward an inevitable end. And I also believe things happen for a reason. Its nice to see that what comes around really does go around!

Well done and congratulations on your experience of one of Life’s Greatest Pleasures, Chuck!

That whole deal has to be a great feeling!

[rpcrowe]

Great Images...

I like to see images that I enjoy, and these both give me a good wholesome feeling...

I would love to see an image of the kids with their instruments in a psoe like on the pictue with the artist holding the canvas...

[Donald]

Good stuff again this year, Chuck. Well done. Hope the music was as good.