If you follow my blog and life you’ll see that I’m a music fan. Photographing live music is something that I have been devoting myself to and adding in creating art for the musicians. When something like the Old Town Center for the Arts annual Blues Fest comes along I am in hog heaven. It gives me a chance to photograph and practice new techniques.
Tommy Dukes, Arizona Blues Hall of Fame member. Artistic Photoshop work from blues fest performance. Original capture with Lumix GX7 35-100.. 2.8 lens. Impressive Art filter. Layers and textures add to final art mix.
Did I say it gives me a chance to practice? I believe practicing is as important to photographers as it is to musicians, athletes or anyone else who needs to have the skill of working under pressure. Changing settings, working in new lighting (and often challenging) conditions is something you need to be able to work with almost without thinking so you can capture the essence of a performer. In this case I was playing with some of the presets in the camera and finding some cool looks. In order for you to access the camera pre-sets after downloading you need to capture the images as jpegs. For safety sake and to have all the info presented to the camera you can save as RAW plus jpeg.
Tommy was quite animated and his shirt added to the life of the performance. Capture with Impressive Art filter then layers of texture added to foreground and background.
Then I self assign creation of CD covers, music and musician art and share the ideas with the artists and their marketing people. This has led to being hired to do the work I enjoy. Hmm. Practice. Self assignments. Sharing. Marketing. People often ask me how I get the images I do and the work I want to do. Re-read the last paragraph again and you’ve got he answer. When are you starting your next personal project?
Pretty much straight out of the GX7 camera using the monochrome art setting. Pretty clean black and white!
Straight out of camera with the Impressive Art setting on the Lumix GX7
Yours in Photography, Bob
