Moved by the Music

I volunteered to photograph the TD Halifax Jazz Festival this week. I'm not a huge jazz fan but I liked the idea of photographing musicians so I thought I'd "put up" with the music and take the opportunity to explore a new area of photography.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I went down to the main stage on the waterfront and photographed the bands. There was some very nice music, most of it sounded quite nice and you can find a number of photos over on my Flickr album.

The shot above, however, is Jane Ira Bloom. Her, Jerry Granelli, Julian Priester, and J. Anthony Granelli wove a spell of music as I literally had to crawl around on the floor in front of the stage at The Bus Stop Theatre on Friday night.

The venue is not very big and news of Jerry Granelli (below) packed them in wall to wall.  There was maybe three feet between the audience that was sitting on the floor and the stage.  That was the room I had to work in.  If I stood up I would have been obstructing the view of the paying customers so I had to sneak and crawl around on the floor.

It was worth every minute of it.  The music that those musicians teased out of those instruments was amazing and I think I may have been converted into a jazz fan.  I'm going to have to find more music like that as it was awesome.

Making it Work

I finished my second family shoot back before the holidays and I've just been so busy I haven't had a chance to really share the experience.  I really enjoyed getting out and photographing this lovely family and though we weren't out for very long and the weather wasn't very cooperative we got a couple of decent shots for the holidays.

The big struggle was to make something work.  It was a frigid day. The wind and cold conspired to make it a difficult shoot.  Our first location, the waterfront seemed like a great idea.  It was the holidays and there was a Christmas tree at Bishop's Landing and the harbour makes a nice background for portraits.  Unfortunately, after we got there we noticed that the tree looked miserable and lonely in the light of a winter morning and the wind coming in off the harbour was bitingly cold.  I need to do better locations scouting to avoid these types of issues.

We did manage to get a a few shots there, including my favourite of the day.  Mom was making some final adjustments before we even got officially started and I loved the interaction between the two and captured this moment.



While we got a few shots on the waterfront that I thought were reasonably decent, I didn't feel like we managed to get the holiday family photo that I thought they desired.  So in order to try and save the day we moved down to Point Pleasant Park where we hoped the wind would be blocked by land and trees and possibly offer up a slightly warmer experience.  Unfortunately, it was still pretty cold in the park and it brought an early end to the shoot but not before getting at least one decent family portrait for them to have for the holidays.



So, we made it work that day and I promised them we could get together again when the weather was more cooperative.  Hopefully, I'll get to see them for another session in the spring and get another opportunity to make some awesome family photos they can have for a lifetime.