Kneebody at Frost Live
09.14.2018
Kneebody (http://www.kneebody.com) made their first stop at the Frost School of Music’s Frost Live concert series. The night also marked the first stop of their US tour.
From the Frost website:
Adam Benjamin, piano, composer
Shane Endsley, trumpet
Kaveh Rastegar, bass, composer
Ben Wendel, saxophone
Nate Wood, multi-instrumentalist
Kneebody’s sound is explosive rock energy paralleled with high-level nuanced chamber ensemble playing, with highly wrought compositions that are balanced with adventurous no-holds-barred improvising. All “sounds-like” references can be set aside; this band has created a genre and style all its own.
Their music starts as a great mix of electric and jazz and quickly moves into their own, tight sounds. The band has been together for over 13 years. Their mix of talent and history of playing together makes for a great performance!
Photography is derived from both physics and chemistry
The origins of photography is a subject that any classically trained photographer has at least some exposure to. Less so now than prior to 2006 and the transition to digital photography, every photography school, whether they referred to themselves as an art school or a craft school, taught beginning students how to develop a roll of film and a print; also that photography was invented in approximately 1839 when Sir John Herschel happened to mention to Fox Talbot that he had come across a chemical solution - hypo, he called it - that would fix Talbot's pictures.
However, the history is never so simple, or apocryphal, as the stories we are told . Today, I came across a link to a PDF book copy of "Photography" published by C.E. Kenneth Mees during 1937. The book can be found here: MEES. (maintained by Tundraware.com
Mees presents a more detailed history of silver compounds and nitric acid which are the basics of developing images and fixing them on paper. "The first clear record we have, however, is that in 1727 a German physician named Schultze was experimenting on the treatment of chalk with nitric acid." After noticing the white liquid turning black when exposed to light, Schultze filled bottles with the mixture and placed stencils around the bottles to create different shapes. Later, and I love this part of the story, a Swedish chemist would coat paper with a layer of silver chloride and expose it to the spectrum created by a prism. He found that the ultraviolet end of the spectrum would darken the paper more quickly than the infrared end of the spectrum. During 1802, Thomas Wedgwood was creating prints on paper through painted glass! Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy would publish a paper that year entitled, "An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Nitrate of Silver." They were 1 small step away from fixing an image created by light on paper 35 years before Fox Talbot!
Mees' history of photography is a very interesting read for those interested in the chemical origins and processes of photography during the first 100 years of the medium.
William Fox Talbot
BATTLEGROUND: Music Performed Live to Screen on Stage
Last night was the Opening Night Red Carpet Celebration for the Frost School’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra with guest conductor Jeff Beal.
From the Frost website Frost live calendar:
Music and movie buffs alike will be mesmerized as Jeff Beal, five-time Emmy-winning composer of music for film, media and concert halls, joins the Frost School’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra on stage. The evening features a live music-to-screen performance of Battleground, Beal’s score from the acclaimed television series Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King.
Frost 2018...so far.
Every August for the last 8 years, I have had the pleasure of preparing for a new season of concerts and photo shoots for the Frost School of Music. Each year presents different challenges as the Communications department reviews the images they need created and the concerts they want documented for the archive. One thing has been consistent: I am given the creative freedom to explore during most of the photo shoots. Below are some of my selects from Spring 2018.
The 122nd Granddaddy of them all
It has been 30 or so years since I last attended Cheyenne Frontier Days. The last time I was there was to help my best friend, Kori, whom was competing in the barrel racing. Its been almost 25 years since I last spoke to her. Not because we had any falling out but because she went to high school a year before me and discovered, "BOYS".
This time, I attended with my parents, sisters and (very soon to be) 4 year old son. I had an amazing time watching him as he watched the bronco riding and the bull riding. But what really blew his mind was the barrel racing! I asked him later what his favorite part was and he lit up talking about how fast the horses were going and how they spun around the barrels. It was a nice twist that the winner was from our Colorado home town.
For most of these shots, my son was either on my shoulders or on my lap. While that made it hard to shoot and I certainly missed shots I would have otherwise captured, these images hold much more significance for me because he was integral to the capture and even shot a few himself (but not displayed here).
The 122nd Cheyenne Frontier Days, Cheyenne, Wyoming - July 21st, 2018
Bull Rider #3
St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh