Sound Bites Grill is the new home for Estaban… Turning Sedona into home base is now a reality for guitarist Estaban and his violinist daughter Teresa Joy. They are joined on stage by Percussionist Emilio Santiago. (this guy has the fastest drumming hands I’ve ever seen!)
And they asked me to start documenting and creating images for marketing and promotion. We started out in the Village of Oak Creek about five miles south of Sedona where the red rocks begin. The weather cooperated better than I could have hoped for during our rainy monsoon season. Clouds protected the talent (and me!) from getting overheated, but allowed the sun to keep peaking through to light up the red rocks nicely.
Estaban in front of Courthouse Butte in the Village of Oak Creek Sedona, Arizona
Guitar great Estaban & his daughter, violinist Teresa Joy in front of Castle Rock.
Gateway to Sedona with Estaban and Teresa Joy showing off the sign to their new home base.
The Estaban show live on stage at Sound Bites Grill with Emilio Santiago on Percussion.
I choose to use the Lumix GH4 for this shoot because I would be working on a tripod. The lens which seemed to work for the entire shoot was the Lumix Vario 35-100mm f2.8 at ISO 200. Aperture for the outdoor images was at f11 because the story we are telling is of Estaban making Sedona his home. If I was trying for more ‘artsy’ images I would have chosen a wider aperture. A lot of noise has been made about the GH4 and the fact that it does 4K video. Well I gotta tell ya it’s a hell of a still camera too. I love the touch screen focus. The screen is bright enough to see in almost any light but it also has a live view eyepiece. It’s picked up and extra stop of density and can shoot RAW files at 12 fps (not that I needed that with this shoot!).
Lighting was supplemented with an Ultra Zap 1600 Paul C Buff flash powered with a Vagabond Mini-Lithium battery. It’s great to have studio powered flash in the field! I added a shoot through umbrella and kept it just out of frame. The shoot-through allows to ht the light source closer to the subject which gives softer shadow edge transitions. Here I was trying to make sure the light on the performers was really clean yet natural.
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Yours in Photography, Bob
