Bentō for Life: November 2009

28 November 2009

That Perfect Roll

When you are shooting film, there are so many things that can go wrong. The exposure can be wrong, the camera can move at the last second, and you can forget to load the film. Then you can have light leaks, expired chemicals, developing errors, or scratched negatives. Essentially a huge variety of possible critical errors. However, you can also sometimes get that one roll where everything, for some reason or another, just works. For me, that roll came when I was in New York City on holiday.

Personally, I have loved New York City for as long as I can remember. I wholeheartedly believed in the hyper-romanticism that Hollywood (and American art in general) has swathed the city in. Then, when I visited last NYC last spring for the first time, I wasn't disappointed. I think there is something magical when you walk through that urban forest of glass and steel, feeling the energy of the 'city that never sleeps' following out of the cafes and parks and into the streets.

In fact, I had such a great time during the spring, that I immediately booked another trip as my fall. It was on this trip, a few months ago in October, that I took this roll. Unfortunately, I lost my film for the first few days so I only could shoot about half the roll in NYC and the other half when I returned home, but my luck seemed to carry on through, turning into my favourite roll I ever shot.

Enjoy.

21 November 2009

Concert Photography

One of my great passions in life — besides photography and cooking — is music. For all my life, I have been listening to or making music. Case in point, I started singing in 4th grade as the only boy in my primary school choir and have been in some sort of choir every year since and in terms of instruments; I started playing the B flat Clarinet in sixth grade, and have been slowing teaching myself piano and electric bass on and off for the past few years. However, the reason for this post is not to talk about my past musical exploits but instead about another form of music that I am extremely passionate about: Live Musical Concerts.

While I have seen a variety of classical/high-brow concerts in the course of my life—usually at the bequest of my parents, I only started to go to concerts of my own choosing during high school. Though I thought it was more fun to go with friends, I, being of unusually eclectic musical taste, often ended up going by myself. Irregardless, no matter whether I was alone or with a group, I also enjoyed the events and always tried to grab photos/t-shirts. However, my memory was not as compliant with my desires and I often forgot my camera and so I had to resort to to using my cell phone so some of the pictures were not of the highest quality.

The photos below represent a wide variety of concert genres and shooting styles, some are of great quality and some are much less so, but all I think have merit as my exploration of concert photography has progressed. The location, date, and artists in/of each photo are listed below.