musical justice

i am a bit of a conspiracy theorist when it comes to mainstream music. i am and have been for a while, under the impression that if a label pays enough money to get their music in a stations rotation enough times, people will EVENTUALLY begin to tap their foot to the crap being put out there. Toby Keith is a great example of this. as i write this it occurs to me that maybe i should narrow this theory down to country.. though i'm pretty sure the pop and hip-hop genres are the same.

thankfully there is (was) Napster, XM, Rhapsody (i'm protesting ITunes at the moment) etc... where people can actually find music they like the first time they listen to it!! i think if you break that down it actually means people simply like the music. as everyone knows, finding music that YOU like can move you... dare i say change you.

this year there were a handful of songs and artist that i would say this is true of for me.. Ollabelle, The Weepies, 2Pac (only kindof kidding), Amos Lee, & Coldplay ... however THE artists of the year for me were hands down Allison Krauss & Robert Plant with "Raising Sand". i first heard that album last Christmas (which technically makes it last years album) through my always musically hip (seriously!) in-laws. i've been listening to it ever since. i've heard NO ONE else talk about it though i would occasionally hear it playing at a restaurant or store. it seemed to fly under the radar completely.

2 nights ago when flipping through the channels i saw them on the grammy's with producer T-Bone Burnett (Oh Brother Where Art Though). the category they were up for was "Best Album of the Year". they were up against "Lil Wayne" "NeYo" "Coldplay" and somebody else...oh yeah the "NKOTB reunion album".... all of whom, with the exception of AK & RP, every living person has heard a song off the albums. well guess who won?

finally some good music is getting some recognition. it's a fantastic album that i highly suggest. that being said i was actually and literally sad that "Viva La Vida" didn't win but later found out that it did get rock song of the year. again, couldn't agree more.

Poll 1: WHO IS MORE FAMOUS?
1. Allison Krauss
2. Robert Plant

Poll 2: WHO IS A BETTER ARTIST?
1. Allison Krauss
2. Kenny Chesney

These actually stem from recent conversations i've had and would love some input.

learning in reverse

on our first wedding anniversary 4 1/2 years ago, erin & I went to Charleston. i took my father in laws 1970's pentax (before either one of us really took pictures) because we didn't have a digital at the time. we walked the streets & alleys. i remember getting really excited and i guess inspired by what we were seeing. i began flying through rolls of film. in my head i had the perfect shots and could not wait to see them. unfortunately that never happened. a full week of waiting and anticipation only led to devestation when wolf returned the film unexposed. i felt so defeated. it was the first and last time i tried to use film... until last month.

erin bought me a full canon film kit complete with lenses and camera. everytime i'd take a shot, i would look at the back of the camera. oh yeah. it began to teach me patience that digital pushes right past. it also made me a lot more careful in what i shot considering that every 24 exposures cost me around $7. learning a bit backwards than the rest of digital photographers out there, i am coming to find i've missed some valuable lessons in composition, focusing, and anticipation.

erin and i sat down with grayben, her with the new digital and me with the old film. i obviously love her shots but there is something organic about the film that has really drawn me in. i hope to incorporate this into more of our shoots though i'll have to get a lot better and faster. here are some of the results....

and the digital....

housing crisis

i usually get assignments that are ordinary, around county stuff. most of it is good news which i think is a finer point of the SCR. however, i've had to do 2 shoots at the humane society both about overcrowding. this story is pretty sad. i usually think of stray mutts at the humane society but when i was in there recently it looked like dogs lining up for a show. a lot of full breed family pets that were pushed out. not trying to go all sarah mclaughlin on you but it really made me want to adopt a bunch of animals. here are a couple of my saddest pics.

met this guy in a dark alley...

oh wait no this was sports blast on 280... sorry i was thinking of someone else.

if you could only see....

tonic released this song 12 years ago... 12 years ago! you officially are not young if you remember this song. when this song came out, 12 years before that songs like Hall & Oats "Out of Touch", Michael Jackson's "Thriller" & Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" were being released. And those songs seemed ancient in 1996... but now all my alt rock favorites are some young punks "oldies".

so last sunday i was asked to cover this benefit which i also shot last year. this year the headliner was Emerson Hart... former lead singer of Tonic. i almost didn't stay because it was getting late etc and i wasn't expecting much. for some reason i am always surprised when a professional singer actually sounds good. i don't know why, i just don't expect much out of singers these days. Emerson Hart sounded great. he basically performed a consolidated Tonic's greatest hits ... though i'm sure he'd rather us know him for his new stuff. anyway quite an unexpected treat that made me feel more like an out of touch 30 year old (i'm not really 30). but at least i had 200 drunks there with me to help me make it through.

glass class

this is a glass making class at the university of montevallo. i kept waiting to get branded by one of these pokers but the students were especially careful and attentive to my clumsiness.

the thing i found most amazing besides the fact that people ten years younger than me were skillfully using 2,000 degree ovens, was that these students worked for about an hour tediously creating their glass bowl... they would shape it and reheat it, dye it and reheat it, over and over again. .. then at the end they would have to separate the rod from the glass. half the time it breaks and half the time its a clean cut. one of the students that day actually did have their glass break at the very end. i thought it was pretty dramatic to put that much work into something knowing that in the very last step it could all be ruined. that's why i love art. people will sacrifice so much and risk coming out empty handed just for the chance at something beautiful. they did have some make it all the way through and they were very much worth it.

grayben

alright so clearly i am in procrastination mode right now since i've posted twice in 3 hours.

there's usually a lot of crying in our house between 5-7pm. not complaining because that really is the only time there is crying but when it rains it pours. so today grayben went on 2 shoots and out to lunch. he is quite social so he didn't choose to sleep through any of those events. this guaranteed a solid 2 hours of crying for our dinner time entertainment.

erin was cooking dinner so she brought him to me while i was working and for about 20 minutes he cried his eyes out while in my arms staring at the computer screen... maybe they were bad pictures but i'm betting it was sleep deprivation. i can stand it a bit longer than erin but i still have my breaking point. my philosophy is to make more noise than him whick usually works. so with the incessant wailing in my ear, i pulled up itunes and "kicked" a little alicia keys. as soon as the beat started he stopped crying. it was like magic. funny thing was that a kids song that we sing to him came on after alicia keys and he started crying again. so i guess i'm gonna have to start brushing up on my hip hop.

i decided this little story would be a bit more realistic set to a slideshow, so i found some pics on my desktop and set them to grayben's new favorite artist.

Here's the slideshow