Big Money Shot 2010 – Round 2 Finals – Laurent Bourque
First up Friday night was Laurent Bourque. He was the wild card winner as voted on by the fans. He performed a strong set, but didn’t match the 2 eventual winners.
First up Friday night was Laurent Bourque. He was the wild card winner as voted on by the fans. He performed a strong set, but didn’t match the 2 eventual winners.
LiVE 88.5 changed the format of the Big Money Shot this year. It has gone from 3 rounds down to 2. The finals are now made up of 2 winners from each round final, as well as 1 wildcard entry voted in by fans. Congratulations are due to Autumns Canon, the second band to advance to the 2010 Finals from Round 2. They also had an energetic set and are deserving of their spot in the final. This years final is shaping up to be a strong night of music on the Ottawa scene.
This past Friday, I headed out to catch the Round 2 Finals for LiVE 88.5’s Big Money Shot. All 5 bands were new to me, so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was an evening of good music. But at the end of the night, one band stood out on top for me. So much so, that I had to buy their CD before I left. The Balconies put on a stellar show. Top notch musicians and an energetic stage show. I can’t wait to see them again in the finals. I hope I captured the energy of their set in my photographs. Having seen them perform once and now familiar with their songs, I am looking forward to a second chance to photograph them. I highly recommend their CD.
Here are a few more photographs from Nathan’s session this weekend. He’s quite the happy little guy. It doesn’t take much to get him smiling.
This weekend I found my solid floor surface for my white seamless. That means it is no longer just a background. I can now use it as the full seamless it was meant to be. Check back for more photographs from Nathan’s first session on the white seamless later this week.
This week I started working with my white seamless. I had to figure out a setup in my basement that would work for me, easy to setup and easy to tear down. At this point I’m only using it as a background. The basement is carpeted, so having people stand on the white seamless would cause creasing. I’d go through it faster and it wouldn’t look good in photographs. I need to get some sort of hard surface to put underneath to keep everything crisp. But as they say, work with what you have. So here are a few shots of my son Liam having fun in front of the camera, as I start to work out my setup, figure out distances, light placement, etc.
…and I am a procrastinator. In AA, this would be step 1, admitting the problem. Is there a 12 step program for procrastination? I can procrastinate ’til the cows come home. In fact, I’m so good at it, I could probably keep the cows from coming home.
I’m also a dreamer. I like to dream big. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when you mix it with procrastination, it can get messy. Dreams remain dreams. It can leave you looking back wondering, “What if?” I don’t want to wonder what if. Isn’t it better to try and fail, than to look back and wonder what if? It’s time to get serious about this photographic journey of mine.
For the last few months I’ve been thinking about all the things I could do with some 9 foot wide white seamless. One problem……I have no space in my house for it. Well, except maybe the garage. With winter coming, who would want to sit around in a sub-zero garage freezing their ass off to have their photo taken?? Yet I kept dreaming about what I could do with the seamless if I had it. This weekend, I put a foot down on my procrastinating ways. I went out and got myself some 4.5 foot wide white seamless. I can do less with it. But it fits in my house, in several areas. I own it. I can work with it, and not just dream about it. So in reality, I can do more with it, a lot more.
The last time I saw procrastination, he was lying in my driveway with a wedgie, as I drove off to the camera store. When I got back he was gone. I hope he doesn’t return.
I have ended my 365 project. There, I said it. I’m actually surprised I made it this far. At this point, it just feels like a chore. It has felt that way for a while now. The real reason I started it was as motivation to pick up my camera everyday, to practice and experiment. In that regard, the project has been a big success. I now use my camera everyday. Some days it’s only for 10 minutes. Other days it could be a couple hours. They say you need to repeat something 7 times to form a new habit. 6 months in, I think my new habit is well formed.
The reason I am quitting is that there are many days where a picture went up just for the sake of putting up a picture. There are days when life takes over and time with the camera is hard to come by. On these days I quickly snapped a picture of something, anything, just to get it up. While I am proud of a lot of the photographs generated in my 365, there are also a lot of pictures that I would never have shown to anyone were it not for having to post something on my blog for the project. They are pictures that I am not proud of, and I am sure there are quite a few among them that would send a potential client running the other way, wondering why they would ever want to hand over their hard earned money to me.
So, that’s that. Thanks for following along and commenting. While I will no longer be posting daily, my blog will now feature more portraiture, concerts, sports and personal projects. Things will be posted when I think they are ready to be shared, not because it’s day whatever of my project and I need to post another picture. Here’s to more photographs and less pictures. It’s time to get serious.
