For this post I thought I’d do something different and highlight my outtakes instead of my selected images. These are mostly shots that were either under/over exposed and/or blurred because of a slow shutter speed (and in some cases because my focus was off — it happens ).

Even though they are outtakes, there is still something I like about them…but you know, it’s all subjective. I chose to convert these to black and white because of color variations from being under/over exposed. Once I did the b&w conversion I thought, hey, these might look cool square and heavily vignetted…kind of a holga/toy camera look. Again, purely subjective.

If you want to see the gallery of images that made the edit, you can take a look at them over here on my photo archive.

And if you want to see what my photo editor published, you can take look over at SoundSpike, here.

Oh and if you don’t know the band, or even if you do, here’s their newest video:

When I heard Civil Twilight and Atlas Genius were playing Colorado Springs, I was in shock for several minutes. I love Colorado Springs, most of the time…but with Denver so close, getting these kinds of bands down here is next to impossible. Side note, the Indy just did an article on this very topic. Read it here. I shoot live music for work and I like to see shows for myself every now and again as well but driving to Denver so often can be a bummer. So I was thrilled, to say the least, that I was assigned to shoot a show in town. The fact they are bands I really enjoy was a nice bonus.

Pikes Peak Center is a fantastic venue, I shot the Goo Goo Dolls there a couple years ago and the place was sold out. So in my mind I just knew the place would be packed for this show, especially since it was a benefit for Regrow Colorado. Wow, was I wrong on that. From what I could tell, the theater was maybe at a third capacity. It was a little depressing, I felt very sad for Colorado Springs. Granted we got some snow that night but still. I have to say though, based on all the performances you would have thought the place was sold out. And if I’m being completely honest, selfishly it was kinda nice, after my work was done, to take a seat pretty close to the stage, kick my feet up on the seat in front of me, close my eyes and listen to Civil Twilight as if they were playing live just for me.

I digress, lets move on to the goods.

Civil Twilight

http://civiltwilightband.com/

This show didn’t have a photo pit which proved a bit of a challenge during the Atlas Genius and Civil Twilight sets. Pikes Peak Center is a seated venue but by the time Atlas Genius took the stage the fans had definitely crowded the narrow passage way between the stage and the first row of seats. Thankfully, the fans were pretty fantastic and let me meander amongst them a little bit without any complaint. I tried pretty hard to be respectful and not smack anyone in the face with my 70-200. I pretty much shot from two static spots and then a little from side stage.

Not familiar with Civil Twilight? Here’s a little taste:

Full Set Slideshow of Civil Twilight:

Atlas Genius

http://www.atlasgenius.com/

I try very hard to maintain a certain professionalism when I’m shooting shows, but the 80s synth pop lover in me, was dancing like a maniac (on the inside) during just about their entire set. Trojans is their current radio hit but If So, is definitely the song that makes me dance, and not just in my mind.

Full Set Slideshow of Atlas Genius:

In addition to Civil Twilight and Atlas Genius, two Colorado Springs local bands,Hydrogen Skyline and Claymore Disco, also played the event.

Hydrogen Skyline

http://www.hydrogenskyline.com/

Claymore Disco

http://claymoredisco.com/

The only bad thing about this film pack is that there are soooooo many options, Well, ok, it’s not so much of a bad thing, but it certainly takes the “no post” of traditional instant camera photography completely out of the equation. Here’s a pretty simple, basic photo of a flower taken from raw file to a tiny fraction of the various emulsion looks.

Clockwise from upper left, straight raw, raw adjusted for standard contrast, color; Fuji Fp-3000b HC; Time-Zero Polaroid (Expired) ++, Fuji Fp-100c Negative +, Fuji Fp-3000b Negative ++

It’s still a work in progress, but if you’d like to see a few images from my trips to New Orleans you can take a look at my New Orleans Gallery on my archive site.

So the day I decided to make music a focus in my work for 2013, I logged into my twitter feed, which I hadn’t done since Sep 2010. I try to get on board with the social networking, but I just can’t seem to get into it. That’s another thing I need to work on this year. Anyway, when I logged in, this is the first thing I saw in my feed:

COS Tweet News is out! paper.li/csindependent/… ▸ Top stories today via @charliemilotrio @yeezytaughtme_b @cafevelobikes

Having not been in the twitter-sphere for more than two years, I had no idea what paper.li was so I clicked the link. What I saw was a newspaper style view of tweets relating to Colorado Springs that the Indy had put together. As I scrolled down the page, there it was…a highlighted tweet from Charlie Milo Trio asking if anyone was interested in filming an upcoming recording session. I had photographed Charlie’s Trio, a few years ago at the Black Sheep when they were backing Jeremy Facknitz so I thought I’d send him a quick email. A couple of weeks later, I found myself in Greg Cannava’s basement studio, photographing a recording session. It was a slightly different Trio, Charlie, of course, on bass with ‘Lyrick’ Victoria Lipscomb on drums and Daniel Roc on guitar.

Not a bad way to spend an evening, listening to three talented musicians jam. I’m excited to hear the finished product.

Here’s are a few images from the night.

And a slideshow with a few more images from the night:

Here’s an older track they have up on soundcloud:

Here’s a slideshow of the full set:

For anyone curious about gear and what not:

Cameras:
Canon 5D, 70-200mm/2.8 @ ISO 1600
Canon 7D, 16-35mm/2.8 @ ISO 3200

Shots from the balcony:
Canon 7D, 25-105mm/4.0 @ISO 3200

Below is a slideshow or you can go directly to the gallery set on my archive:

For any of you out there interested in technical details:

I shot this with practically zero light. I think you can see from some of the pics, it was just two overhead standard room lights and also a little bit of spill from the back room. They rehearse in S.P.Q.R. and there was quite a bit of track lighting around the room that I probably could have turned on, but I opted to stick with the set up that Brett and Kellie had…it’s seemed more authentic to the rehearsal.

Gear:

Canon 7D, ISO 6400
- Canon 16-35mm 2.8L, Shooting 1/20th @ f2.8
- Canon 24-105mm 4.0L, Shooting 1/15th @ f4.0

Fuji X100, ISO 4000, Shooting 1/60th @ f2.0 (love this little camera!)

Post processing done in Lightroom using VSCO presets. I used a variation of Fuji Superia 800. Black and whites were converted in photoshop.