Road Trip to San Fran

I am currently typing from the road on my way to San Francisco. I am hoping to capture some HDR images of the city and snipe some people with my new fancy 180mm 2.8. I will be attending a live stream of the Apple event on 9/09/09 or I may actually attend the live keynote. A friend and I decided fo take a sporadic trip and we are happy we dd. We started out the trip with some IHOP about 4 hours in. Whew that was ridiculous.

The first few hours were spent filling the car with music that would any popular club to shame.

Wish me luck in capturing the city :) -Peter Walkowiak @ 2am.

Tip: Give your eyes a test.

Pick up an editorial / whatever magazine you have handy and look at the images. Yes they are most likely horrible just remember somehow this stuff sells. Anyways... Look at the images specifically the portraits. I want you to guess the focal length and aperture. To be honest after looking at so much exif my self I can usually call it. There are things that give it away as far as focal length go.

Look at the lines in the image, the straighter they are the further away they were shot. Most likely the mag will not have anything wider than 50mm probably even 85mm.

Aperture is the one that is more fun. Its quite easy to guess f/2 but it gets quite a bit trickier when you get around f/4 - f/8.

If you know these and can pick out these images it will help you obtain your specific creative visions. If you know you want a certain look it will help you create it.

I hope this was a good warm up for you photographers out there :)

-Peter

The Dead Weather @ Street Scene 09

When you hear Alison Mosshart scream 60 feet tall and standing high on the front of the stage you know what you are witnessing. Your eyes are now locked on the music masterpiece of The Dead Weather. They had so much energy on stage I could barely stand still and almost moshing with the herd of photographers in the pit. I cannot express enough how I feel they should have headlined. They had a packed crowd and sounded so amazing. No offense to those who like MIA but they should have switched in the lineup.

Photo Notes:

Jack White only made an appearance at the mic during the 4th song. Which we all know I shoot for the first 3  songs then have to leave. I snapped a few shots of him as I was being pushed out. I cant get over how much I love this band / set of images :) more to be seen on flickr!

Silversun Pickups @ Street Scene 09

Brian Aubert has such an interesting voice. I was really looking forward to seeing SSP and I was not let down. He looked like an average guy but when he opened his mouth I opened mine in aw. They sounded like the album but in the live sort of way. I was not expecting them to being to hold up such a stellar sound.

Photo Notes:

Brian rarely snuck out from behind the mic but when he did the swarm of photographers moved over there. Since I am mentioning that the guy shooting with the gary fong over his flash needs to be punched, so inconsiderate. Epic lighting plus a strategic  spot for shooting led to some great images :).

Modest Mouse @ Street Scene 09

Why Modest, Why must you have the worst stage setup. I wish you were closer to those people who came to see you cough me cough. The whole band seemed to be hidden behind at least 2 instruments. They performed amazing as expected but because of the setup one of the main bands I wanted to shoot was lacking in the photo area. I even wore my green buffalo Modest Mouse shirt ;) They played a few of their new songs off the EP, sounded great.

Photo Notes:

As I already said, they were all so far back and with 30 photographers this was even harder to capture do to the lack of space. Great show though :)