My band, The Flying Fish Sailors, has been nominated in the category “Best Traditional Folk Band” so please take time to go vote for us. You can find the ballot online at houstonpress.com/polls/musicawards08
We’ll be playing at the Awards showcase on July 27th from 4:00-4:45 pm at Dean’s Credit Clothing located at 316 Main St. in downtown Houston if you want to come see us play live.
Randomly encountered some “fire manipulators” in the back patio area of the Continental Club while I was out and about last night. I saw this as an EXCELLENT opportunity to play with some extended exposure shots using my tripod and the remote control for the camera
Not bad, but whirly-twirly shots like this don’t stay interesting for long so I shot a few more handheld with less exposure time and got some interesting shots
There’s a few more in the Zion’s Flame gallery.
Trish and Darin Murphy’s current musical project “Skyrocket” performed at the Houston Continental Club on Friday night to a packed house. The group is made up of a fantastic batch of Texas musicians and the performance is nothing less than spectacular.
Of course you must like 70’s and 80’s cover tunes because that’s what they play, and they play it remarkably well. Trish Murphy sang Heart’s “Crazy On You” in the first set and it was spot on. Other songs for the evening included “Rock and Roll All Night” by Kiss and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds just to give you an idea of the repertoire.
Their song list is available online here.
It’s an amazing show and I highly recommend checking them out if you have the chance.
Pics from the evening are here in the Skyrocket gallery.
Uncle Charlie was having a showing of his poster art at Sig’s Lagoon on Saturday so I stopped in on my way to check out The Light Rock Express at The Big Top.
The evening was a trip down musical memory lane as I found myself in an interesting conversation about the early Houston alternative music scene with Alian Hernandez (The Suspects), Jeff Walton (The Judy’s) and of course Mr. Lagoon himself, Tomas Escalante (The Suspects, Clouseaux).
I got to relate to Jeff the story of the time I was living on W. Pierce in the Montrose when I found myself being awakened by knock on the door of my duplex. I opened the door to find David Bean on my porch. Apparently he wanted to know if I owned the two doberman pincers he’d seen at my place. He was looking for dogs to use in his music video called “Dogs.” I explained that the dogs belonged to my neighbor.
In my conversation with Jeff Walton he did confide that there’s been an ongoing discussion with LiveNation about putting together a show at Warehouse Live or The Meridian so there’s hope we’ll all have the chance to see The Judy’s on stage one more time.
Click image to view larger size. Or even better, see a larger version on a black background.
This is my second pass at this image. I was able to clean up the chromatic aberration that was distracting in the original image as well as the HDR version. I have also (I believe) brought out more of the "menace" in the clouds. I was also FAR less aggressive in correcting the angle than I was in the first version allowing the building to have the appearance of bowing or bending in the wind that comes from shooting at a slightly up-angle with a an ultra wide angle lens like the 11-18mm
For those who have expressed and interest, the high res version is available for download here.
The Allen Oldies Band celebrated the release of their new album “Ride The Wild Surf” last night at the Continental Club. Needless to say, a good time was had by all.
Especially entertaining was Tomas Escalante (Suspects/Clouseaux/El Orbits) and his son singing backup on “Sweets for My Sweet”, a song written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and originally recorded by The Drifters in 1961.
This is my first attempt at manipulating a RAW format image and my first foray into the world of High Dynamic Range or HDR photography.
Houston, HDR. Astrodome, Sony
Technorati Tags: Houston, HDR. Astrodome, Sony
I had some rather unprecedented access to Reliant Stadium on Saturday…
Shot with the Sony Alpha 700 using the 11-18mm lens
Also interesting viewing it on black
I was very happy when I saw that Poi Dog Pondering was playing at The Continental. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed them…
I had a lot of fun shooting this due to the projections on to the band stage that were part of the show.
As I was wrapping up an early morning test of the video conference gear with our team in Bangalore I noticed the downtown Houston skyline emerging from the post dawn mist.
Either image is well worth clicking to see the full size version. Even more worthwhile is this:
