Fresco Opera Theatre has a really fresh, interesting vision; their last show was “Dueling Divas” and featured the performers singing from a boxing ring and competing for a title belt.

Their next production is called “Ding Dong the Diva’s Dead” and will feature opera death scenes staged as classic horror movies. It’s fun to work with people that have such a clear vision!  The models were absolutely terrific, and wonderful to work with.

Here are two shots from the session… Madison folks, keep an eye out for the promos, and come to the show, October 8th and 9th at the Overture Center.

I’m finally posting some shots from my backlog…

These shots were done at the University of Wisconsin Hospital; I was working on a video for the United Methodist Hospital Ministry, and needed some stills to supplement the visuals they provided. I tagged along with the chaplain, who was a very cool guy.

We visited and spoke with a few people, and I grabbed some shots here and there; nothing was really set up, and once again this is all available light. (I guess I shoot without flashes much more than I realized!)

I came away with several photos that I used in the video, but these shots of hands were my favorites; they summed up the experience for me.

I was planning for this week’s photo to come from the Hillside area of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, where we were supposed to be for Family Fun Day Wright 4 Kids (can’t get used to the new name), but a fever of 101 kept us home – poor kid!

So… here’s a picture of some onions.

We’ve had a share from Greenspirit Farm for a few years now, and pretty much every week, I look at the veggies and exclaim, “I want to take a picture of that ________!”  Well, I finally did it.

I know at least one of you is thinking, “hmm… doesn’t capture the sensuality I would expect from a Weston veggie knock-off” and you’re right.  But that wasn’t really my goal; to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a pair of onions is just a pair of onions.  (I couldn’t get a composition I liked that included the leaves with just one.)

I also meant to break away from black and white this week, but this will be another example in the black and white conversion post, which is in the works.  Color soon, I promise!

As I mentioned in the kickoff post, I’m going to be pushing myself out of my comfort zone a bit.  I always see things that I think would make cool shots, but I rarely follow through and actually get out there to shoot them.

I had the pleasure of meeting photographer David Franzen a few weeks ago.  David’s blog is at pixel-and-ink.com; go check it out (but please come back!).

David takes the kinds of photos I wish I took when I’m out and about.  In the interest of doing some more of this kind of shooting, I saw these clouds and thought, “hey, why not?” and took the shot.

Out of my comfort zone: check.
Shooting everyday stuff just because: check.
P26 week 2 complete: check.

Thanks for looking!

I had the pleasure of shooting Jon Irabagon and Anders Svanoe at Audio for the Arts last week.  Like Chad Eby’s CD, I will post more about this as the project unfolds.

Hey – now you can own your very own Doctor Sax t-shirt, featuring the left hand key cluster from a Conn 10M!

A few weeks ago, I did these promo shots for the shirt.

Doctor Sax is also known as Kim Slava.  He’s based here in Madison, but does business worldwide.  He just finished overhauling my tenor, and it’s fantastic.  He also carries the best selection of reeds in the state, and all sorts of other cool stuff.

If you’re local, drop in and see him.  If you’re not, check out his website: doctorsax.biz.

And buy a t-shirt!

I went to the Prairie Music Academy to shoot photos for their new promotional brochure and website redesign.

They’re also having a Jazz Gala at The Brink Lounge in Madison on April 19th. If you’re in the area, go check it out!

I shot Freedom Fest here in Madison on February 22.

Freedom Fest is presented by The Madison Center for Creative and Cultural Arts (if the website is still just showing Freedom Fest info, do a google search for them).

There are still links to the galleries on the home page; you can also find them in the galleries page.