by successfulbob | Lumix GX85, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, photographer of musicians
Live Entertainment Photography – Anthony Mazzella
I’ve been working capturing the performers at Sound Bites Grill in Sedona for about four years. I still enjoy the challenge of making images in this environment.
Anthony Mazzella on guitar – Image captured with LumixGX85
The latest entertainer to make the Wall of Fame is Anthony Mazzella. Even though Anthony is on the Wall already from a previous performance Sound Bites felt that the stage show Anthony has developed with his salute to Legends of Guitar should have its own special image.
Full stage with Anthony and his ‘babies’ all ready to play.
Playing multiple guitars in a variety of styles, along with looping music from other instruments makes this a really great show.
LED lighting and a smoke machine add a lot of ambiance to the stage.
I’ve been pleased how the Lumix camera gear can handle the contrast range in this difficult shooting scenario. In the earlier cameras, I had to work a lot harder to have detail in the shadows and not loose the pure color of the LED lights. Now, with new processing engines and five-axis image stabilization, I’m able to get more detail across the entire range. Can you say happy?
Mazzella Playing the blues during his performance.
Monday I’ll share the black and white conversions of these images.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art musician portrait, graphic design, Lumix GH4, Lumix GX8, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, people photography, photographer of musicians
Jackie Venson at Sound Bites Grill
Sound Bites Grill has a new addition to the ‘Wall of Fame.’
Jackie Venson and her band were enshrined at the SBG Wall last night.
Here are Jackie Venson and her band in art form.
Here’s how it looks on the Wall. The autographs are done in advance on a white piece of paper with black Sharpie pen. I’ll show you all the elements used to create the final image below.
The ‘Wall of Fame’ image is created with photos captured during the live stage performance in the Sound Bites Show Lounge. Each performer is tracked on stage individually. Then they are extracted from the background and placed into a new environment. Texture, shadows, glows along with sharpening, blurring parts of the combined images are all combined in Adobe Photoshop to create the final art piece. Capturing the musicians during the live performance gives the final art image a stronger feeling of emotion created during the performance that a static image just doesn’t have.
Here are the elements for the final image. Layers and Masks along with Blend Modes were utilized in creating the painterly look.
Images are currently being captured with the Lumix GH4 or Lumix GX8 cameras. I enjoy that the sensors have enough density range to allow a single capture of the harsh LED lighted scene. A slight adjustment in post production using Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) of bringing down the highlights and opening up the shadows makes for a well-exposed photo. In previous cameras due to the extreme light variations, there was a need to capture three images and blend them together to achieve the same result.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Can’t wait until Jackie, Alán Uribe on bass/backvox and Rodney Hyder on drums come back for their next show at Sound Bites Grill
by successfulbob | Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, photographer of musicians
Sound Bites Grill Wall of Fame – Jackie Venson
Solid entertainer. Stage presence. Beautiful voice. Guitar licks that take you down with the blues our make you soar with riffs that just kicks a**! Add to that two super-pro backup musicians on bass and drums and the evening is made!
I normally don’t post images of performers from Sounds Bites Grill shows until I have the artwork completed for the ‘Wall of Fame.’ But, add to the fact I so enjoyed Jackie’s performance and she is so photogenic I had to slip a couple in for a ‘sneak peek.’
Jackie Venson – Captured with Lumix GH4 and 35-100mm f2.8 Lumix Vario lens SOOC
Jackie with Alán Uribe on bass/backvox and Rodney Hyder on drums. Captured with the Lumix GX8 and the 12-35mm f2.8 Lumix Vario lens
Jackie breakin’ out of the blues.
If you want some more info on this talented artist check out Jackie’ website. Stand by for the art image coming soon.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Can’t wait ’til Jackie comes back to Sedona! I wanna be in the house for that!
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by successfulbob | fine art musician portrait, Lumix GH4, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, people photography, photographer of musicians
Photography of Musicians at Sound Bites Grill
The Black Market Trust
Photographing musicians during a live performance can be a bit of a challenge.
But I dig it!
If you follow this blog you know I am charged with creating the marketing images for bands who play at Sound Bites Grill in Sedona. Also, the ‘Wall of Fame’ is a record of performers who have graced the stage and is becoming a history of entertainment at the restaurant. To date, there are over eighty art pieces presented on the wall.
Here is the latest.
The Black Market Trust Band
Here is the finished piece as presented on the ‘Wall of Fame.’
While the band is performing, I isolate each member and extract them from the scene and then blend them back together while creating the art piece for the wall. These were captured with the Lumix GX7 and the 35-100mm f2.8 Vario lens. After each member is placed on the new canvas layers of texture, drop shadows, and lighting effects are added to create depth and dimension.
While the musicians are on site, I gather their ‘message to the house’ and autographs for inclusion in the final art piece. These are signed in black Sharpie on white paper. After scanning, using Adobe Photoshop they are imported to the final image, sized and inverted to white text. The Blend Mode of the Layer is changed to Screen. This makes the inverted paper, which is now black disappear with no further selections necessary.
Images for the newspaper are also prepped. I shoot in color but do the prep to black and white for the best printing results. Many times a color image is just changed to greyscale by the paper and using NIK Silver FX Pro 2 makes for better contrast and tones. These were captured with the Lumix GH4 and the 12-35 f2.8 Vario lens.
Black & White photo The Black Market Trust Band
Color image of the BMT Band
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | fine art musician portrait, Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, photographer of musicians, photography, photography creativity
Sound Bites Grill adds Melanie to the Wall of Fame
Remember Woodstock?
Me either. A little before my time.
But I do remember I grew up with a lot of music from that era. One of the artists recently appeared at Sound Bites in Sedona, Arizona. Melanie put on a fun show with a reprise of her classic hits like New Key and Look What They Done to My Song along with some newer material. Follow up with Melanie’s website here for more music info, tour dates, and history.
One of the benefits of being the house photographer at SBG is I have the opportunity to attend a lot of shows and view lots of entertainment. The other bonus is Stephen and Michele appreciate the work I do and allow me to create the art pieces from the live performances.
Melanie from her live performance at Sound Bites.
ORIGINAL CAPTURES WITH LUMIX GH4 35-100MM F2.8 VARIO LENS 1/40TH SEC F2.8 ISO 3200
Here’s the process. I photograph the performers through their show. Once images are downloaded, I cull the non-keepers. There can be quite a few of these due to blurred movement, changing lighting conditions, etc. Then I choose one that helps to tell the story, and I extract the performer from the image using Adobe Photoshop. I’ll open another file and import the extracted image. Then I’ll experiment with bringing in different textures as Layers. Changing the Blend Modes of the layers changes how they interact with the layers below. Layer Masks allow me to be selective about where changes will show. I have the artist sign their autograph and ‘message to the house’ in black marker on white paper. That is scanned and brought into the final art. That layer is inverted making the text white, and the Screen Mode is used to make the paper disappear.
Melanie & Family – Melanie has some incredibly talented progeny. They joined her on stage. Son Boe wails on the guitar. Daughter Jeordie is a singer/songwriter in her own right. (she’s playing some dates down the road in Phoenix in the next few days) All in all a great show.
You can see here that while the same general technique was used on both images, there is an entirely different ‘feel’ to the imagery. I enjoy the challenge of trying to do something a little different for all the art that hangs on the Wall of Fame. If you find yourself in Sedona stop by, grab some grub, and check out the ‘Wall’ in person.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
