More shots from my studio session with classical guitarist Charles Mokotoff
Visit http://www.charlesmokotoff.com to hear his music!
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
More shots from my studio session with classical guitarist Charles Mokotoff
Visit http://www.charlesmokotoff.com to hear his music!
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
My friend Katy Kinard is requesting help on launching her fourth album, God of Fireflies. If you like the styles of Sarah McLachlan, Nicole Nordeman, and David Wilcox, then you’ll love Katy’s music.
I met Katy online a few years ago when she asked for permission to use a photo of my friend Tom’s Virginia farm for the interior of her Lullaby Hymns CD. She sent me several CDs of her music. She plays the piano and guitar and has a really beautiful voice, too!
One of my personal favorites is Spring, from her Headed Back CD. Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l0dgvyYseo
I’m lending a hand by contributing signed and matted prints for patrons who donate $150 or more to her project!
Check out her Kickstarter page to learn more: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/katykinard/new-god-of-fireflies-cd-release-the-light
Originally posted 9.01.2010
Back in the summer of 2010, I traveled to Maine for vacation and stopped in Providence, RI en route on assignment to photograph musician Richard Reed for Cochlear Americas. I was really happy with the way the portraits turned out and got some nice shots using my ring light.
A full-time musician who wears a cochlear implant, Reed is the developer of HOPE Notes, a cochlear implant music appreciation program. You can read all about my photography assignment and meet Richard Reed in the blog re-post below:
https://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/photo-assignment-richard-reed-musician/
My friend and freelance writer/editor, Nancy Dunham, wrote a great recap about the ZZ Ward concert we saw at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on September 28. One of my photographs accompanied her article, which you can read on the Relix website here.
I photographed ZZ Ward at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. last night with my freelance writer friend/neighbor, Nancy Dunham. She was on assignment for Relix magazine and I’m providing the photos to accompany her concert recap. I was shooting with my Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 and was only about 10-12 feet away from her, so I’m happy with the shots. The color was all over the place due to the gels on the lights. Sometimes she was neutral colored (top photo), the rest of the time she was pink, purple or Oompa Loompa orange—but that’s concert photography for you!
Learn more about ZZ Ward and her music here: http://zzward.com/
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
Originally posted September 27, 2012
Just got back from a really great Kathy Mattea concert at The Birchmere tonight! Thanks again to my friend, Nancy Dunham, we sat in a great spot for me to get shots. Thanks to the lighting crew for spilling a bit more light on stage than they did for the John Hiatt concert last Friday—I was able to shoot at 1600-2000 ISO instead of pushing it to 3200 (plus adding exposure compensation!). I shot with my Nikon D300 and my Nikkor 80-400mm VR lens. Mattea sang many familiar old songs as well as several songs from her newly-released CD, Calling Me Home, about her native Appalachia.
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
My friend and freelance writer/editor, Nancy Dunham, wrote a great recap about the Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale concert we saw at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA on Feb. 21. One of my photographs accompanies her article, which you can read in its entirety on the Relix website here.
After you watch this TED video, read the article by composer Eric Whitacre here.
My friend and freelance writer, Nancy Dunham, wrote a great recap for http://www.relix.com about the Kathy Mattea concert we saw at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA on September 26. One of my photographs accompanies her recap! I photographed Kathy Mattea with Nancy after the concert (at right).
Check out Nancy’s recap of the concert here and see more of her work on her website here. Thanks for the exposure, Nancy!
Originally posted September 23, 2008
En route to visit Barb and Dean in Spokane on Saturday, September 13, we drove past miles and miles of wheat fields and as the land became more golden in the late afternoon light, we noticed the makings of a harvest moon.
Whenever I hear the words, “harvest moon,” I always remember a very old Ruth Etting album (heaven only knows where I found it) that I eventually gave to a friend’s husband to add to his large music collection. I just did a search and I actually found the recording! The only words I could remember were “shine on, shine on harvest moon…for me and my guy.” (I sing it true to her old-fashioned vibrato, of course).
Etting revived the song in Ziegfield Follies in 1931. Click here to find it on youtube.com. And if you’re a Liza Minnelli fan, click here for her rendition of the song.
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
_____________
ADDENDUM: Thanks to fellow blogger, Deborah Rose Reeves, for her recent posting of this poem by Ted Hughes.
The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
So people can’t sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!’ and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.
by Ted Hughes.
I had the opportunity to do some photography during the John Hiatt concert tonight at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. He has such energy (he just turned 60 last month) and is the epitome of cool. It was a great concert!
Shooting photos in low-level light is quite challenging, but I have really come to enjoy it. Most of these images were shot on at least 3200 ISO, Nikon D300 with my Nikkor 80-400 VR lens handheld, wide open aperture in most cases. The gel lights were especially tricky and auto white balance wasn’t always the way to go, so I kept switching my white balance options to compensate for various color hues. Thanks to my friend and freelance music and entertainment writer, Nancy Dunham, for offering me this great opportunity to shoot concert photos again! Below are some of my favorite images from the evening.
In the photos below are: legendary singer/songwriter John Hiatt (top two photos), guitarist and Nashville producer Doug Lancio, bassist and singer Nathan Gehri (two members of The Combo) and the last photo is of Joe Pug (the opening act)
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
Last night I went to Wolf Trap to see Lyle Lovett and his Acoustic Group perform. Nancy Dunham, my neighbor/friend/freelance writer, interviewed him last week for a music publication and he invited her to the concert and she in turn invited me. We picked up our guest passes and my photo pass, which allowed me to photograph from a designated spot on the sidelines for the first three songs.
Obviously, flash was out due to the distance from the stage. This didn’t stop some people in the audience using their iPhones with flash from 100 feet or more away! I definitely knew I had to bring my longest zoom—my Nikon 80-400 VR lens f/4.5-5.6. Next time I’m able to do something like this, I’ll be bringing a monopod, too (another photographer was there and used a monopod, but he didn’t have a powerful zoom, so I imagine his shots weren’t nearly as close as mine were). I braced myself against a wall and held my breath for all of these shots. I was also shooting at my highest ISO—3200—and wide open at 4.5. Some images were shot with exposure compensation, too. All in all, not too bad for handheld—in low light and variable light and with distance restrictions.
After the concert we went backstage to meet him, and Nancy introduced me as “a fellow Texan,” so that definitely helped to break the ice. Mr. Lovett (may I call you Lyle?) is as gracious, humble and down-to-earth as he is talented! The last shot in series of photos below is Lyle with Nancy. I highly recommend that if you have a chance to see him in concert, do so. While his upbeat songs had me bobbing my head and tapping my feet, I loved the ballads—heartfelt and passionately delivered.
I’ve told Nancy that I’m available “anytime, anywhere” to accompany her as a guest to a music venue; she’ll have her own personal photographer! Nancy, thank you, thank you, thank you for this opportunity. I’m a new Lyle Lovett fan and had a blast photographing and meeting him.
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
After Brian (my former boss/lifelong photography mentor) finished teaching a wildflower photography workshop on Saturday morning, we went to lunch at Threadgill’s, a local eatery in Austin. That’s Brian holding the menu in the collage below. He founded the Austin Shutterbug Club over a decade ago and teaches digital photography at the University of Texas a few times a week. He and his wife, Shirley, have published two books, Texas Cacti and Grasses of the Texas Hill Country. They are currently working on a coffee table book about Texas wildflowers. Check out his work here.
Excerpted from Threadgill’s website (http://threadgills.com/)
Perhaps country music lover and bootlegger Kenneth Threadgill had more in mind when he opened his Gulf filling station just north of the Austin city limits in 1933, for the day that Travis County decided to “go wet ” in December of the same year, Kenneth stood in line all night to be the first person to own a liquor license in the county. Soon, the filling station became a favorite spot for traveling musicians since it was open 24 hours for drinking, gambling and jamming. Kenneth would sing songs by his beloved Jimmie Rodgers nightly. Musicians who came to play were paid in beer. Such was the atmosphere at Threadgill’s, it was only when a curfew was enacted in 1942 that its owner had to get a key for the front door, before that it had yet to have been locked. The quintessential Austin beer joint continued to flourish into the sixties, and changed with the social climate of the era by inviting the folkies, hippies and beatniks to his Wednesday night singing sessions with open arms. Threadgill’s love for people and music smoothed out the conflicts that usually occurred when longhairs met with rednecks at the time, and because of this, a new culture tolerance emanated from the club, which had a profound effect upon its patrons and the music that came from it. It was here that Janis Joplin developed her country and blues hybrid-styled voice that would blur the lines between country and rock n’ roll.
In 1974, when Austinites and the nation were extolling the benefits of living in the heart of the Lone Star State, and the “Cosmic Cowboy” movement, which had its roots directly planted in the history of Threadgill’s and Armadillo World Headquarters, was at its peak, tragedy struck Kenneth Threadgill when his wife Mildred died, and he decided to close his club.
After nearly succumbing to the city of Austin’s desire to demolish the original Threadgill’s site which had become an eyesore, it was purchased by Eddie Wilson, owner of the Armadillo World Headquarters, a sister venue of a kindred spirit. Wilson’s idea, however, was to make Threadgill’s a Southern style restaurant, based on the success of the menu that he offered at his kitchen at the Armadillo. So, on New Year’s Eve 1980, the Armadillo closed, and on New Year’s Eve 1981, Threadgill’s opened as a restaurant. It was an instant success.
Photos © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
I recently returned from a photography assignment in Providence, Rhode Island. I was contracted by Cochlear Americas to photograph Richard Reed, a full-time musician who wears a cochlear implant and is the developer of HOPE Notes, a cochlear implant music appreciation program.
HOPE Notes (from the Cochlear Americas website)
“HOPE Notes is the first of its kind—a program uniquely developed for cochlear implant and hearing aid users designed to help improve music perception and appreciation using original songs, traditional Folk, Blues & Country styles and some familiar tunes played in unexpected ways. HOPE Notes includes a CD, DVD, and a detailed User Guide including lyrics designed to assist and enrich your use of the program. The DVD incorporates both visual and audio cues while the CD (designed for use on the go) focuses solely on the audio component of the program.”
To learn more about HOPE Notes or to order, contact Cochlear at 1-(800)-523-5798 or check out their website here.
A Life Without Sound
A late-deafened adult, Richard lost his hearing due to an ototoxic antiobiotic he was given to treat peritonitis in the early 1990s, when he was in his mid-30s. His hearing loss progressed from mild to profound over the next two years. Read more about his hearing loss in Rick Massimo‘s insightful article in The Providence Journal here. Carolyn Smaka from AudiologyOnline interviewed Richard in July. It’s an excellent introduction to Reed’s hearing loss as well as the development of HOPE Notes. Check out her interview here.
When I asked Richard what it was like as a full-time musician to not be able to continue in the field, he told me about playing one night after his hearing loss. “While deaf and using useless powerful digital hearing aids, I used to sit in with my brother Tom in various Blues bands or with old friends. I could feel the bass and drums—thought I could hear myself a little. One night in Newport, it became painfully obvious just how little music I could actually hear. During a piano solo, a cord to my amplifier came loose, but I kept right on playing—with no sound coming out!”
After he retired from performing, he worked in his sister Roberta‘s antique store “refinishing and painting warped and wild folk art furniture, which was therapeutic but unfulfilling.” He wore hearing aids during this time, but didn’t pursue the cochlear implant until 2002. Richard wrote, What It Feels Like…to Regain Your Hearing, in a 2007 issue of Esquire magazine here.
Return to Music
After receiving his Nucleus 24 Contour CI in 2002, Richard noticed a significant improvement in his ability to hear and understand speech, but found listening to music frustrating. With patience, practice and the help of his aural therapist, music became a source of joy again. Not long after his CI was activated, he stayed away from playing the piano because to him it sounded out of tune. He had to go back to the basics with scales and eventually made enough progress to start playing with bands again. Learn more about his journey back to the hearing world in the article, Hero Spotlight: Richard Reed, available on Cochlear Americas website here. In that article, he says, “As ironic as it was for a musician to go deaf, I realized, too, how many friends’ conversations revolved around music—what’s new, who’s good, who’s playing where. Losing music was horrible, but the loss of everyday conversation was worse.”
At Long Last—I’m a Band Groupie!
On my assignment for Cochlear Americas a few weekends ago, I was honored and excited to photograph Richard and a few of his fellow musicians at The Music Complex in Pawtucket, R.I.
His brother, Tom Reed, plays bass. At just 13, Tom taught Richard, then 12, his first songs on the organ. Tom plays freelance—backing up various bands from week to week—and teaches private lessons. He plays electric bass in R&B bands, and upright bass for Blues, Jazz and Rockabilly. He recorded some bass parts for Richard’s HOPE Notes project. (Photo, left to right: Mark Cutler, Jack Moore, Tom Reed and Richard Reed)
Drummer Jack Moore, a high school teacher by day, has played with Stevie Ray Vaughn, Roomful of Blues and many others. He currently plays with Robert Graves Leonard’s Slippery Sneakers, a Rhode Island-based Zydeco band.
Acclaimed guitarist and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Mark Cutler‘s latest CD is Red. He has been the lead singer and songwriter for such renown rock bands as The Schemers, The Raindogs, and The Dino Club, and has toured with Warren Zevon, Bob Dylan and many others. The Providence Phoenix recently profiled Mark here. Cutler works in the software business during the week and reserves his very busy weekends for gigs with various ensembles. You’ll find Mark Cutler videos on youtube here. Richard has played many gigs as one of Mark’s sidemen—before going deaf and again post-CI.
Today, Richard plays two to three times a week in New England nightclubs, concerts and recording sessions. When not performing, he travels the world to lecture about his hearing loss experience and “CI music.” He recently returned from Europe, and played squeezebox on two-time Grammy award-winning children’s singer/songwriter Bill Harley‘s newest CD, tentatively titled Songs We Sing. Future travel plans include CI Music Workshops in Salt Lake City in November, Toronto and Orlando in February, then back to the UK in March. Richard is playing with Mark Cutler in a reunion of their old band, The Schemers, in Newport at an autumn festival next month. He says, “this time I’ll hear my piano parts!” When I asked him what inspired him to create HOPE Notes, he said, “it was a way to give CI users simple exercises to learn or relearn some basic songs and tonalities.” He has already starting writing songs for Volume II.
Upcoming Feature in Hearing Loss Magazine
Reed has written an article about his hearing loss and the development of HOPE Notes that will be published in the upcoming November/December 2010 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, which I design and produce bimonthly for the Hearing Loss Association of America. Donna Sorkin, Vice President of Consumer Affairs for Cochlear Americas, will contribute sidebars about strategies to appreciate music and another titled, “What the Research Says…and Why it Doesn’t Matter.” Some of the images from my photo session will appear in her feature article. Cochlear Americas manufactures Nucleus cochlear implants and the Baha programmable bone conduction system. My otolaryngologist, Dr. John Niparko of Johns Hopkins Medical Center, says that I am a candidate for the Baha system.
Behind-the-Scenes Photo Notes
For the jam session photos, I used the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS)—with three Nikon Speedlights (with color-correcting gels)—an SB-900 fitted with an Alzo Mini Softbox as my main light, an SB-800 on the Nikon D300 as the trigger and an SB-600 on the side with a snoot. For the portraits with the beige background (shot in Richard’s home), I used my Nikon SB-800 Speedlight fitted with a Ray Flash, which replicates the lighting effect produced by more expensive studio ring flash units. It produces a shadowless light on your subject and a soft even shadow around the edges. I was very happy with the results of the ring flash in this session. If you’d like to try this type of lighting, check out the Coco Ring Flash Adapter—at just $49.95 on Amazon, it’s well below the $199 I paid for my Ray Flash a few years ago. (Hmmm….which product came first?—The Coco Ring Flash is an almost exact replicate—but I do agree with many of the online reviewers that, for a non-electronic, purely plastic gadget, the Ray Flash is still overpriced at $199. Having said that, I did buy it and am happy with it. When it first came out, it was listed for $299.99. It’s plastic people, plastic—no electronic parts, no cords, nothing—as one reviewer commented, “they were probably shamed into dropping the price.”). At any rate, whether you splurge on the Ray Flash or spring for the “poor man’s” version (which I was unaware of at the time of my purchase)—the Coco Ring Flash—it’s a really fun gadget to add to your photographic arsenal.
Want to learn more about the Nikon Creative Lighting System? Check out the Nikon School Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting DVD, featuring photographers Bob Krist and Joe McNally. Joe McNally’s book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes, is an excellent resource as well. A lighting workshop with this master is definitely on my to-do checklist! Check out McNally’s excellent blog here and Bob Krist’s elegant website here. And for really comprehensive information on lighting, bookmark David Hobby’s blog, Strobist.
Whew! And finally, special thanks to my photo mentor, Brian Loflin, for his tips, troubleshooting and advice…and to Michael Schwehr for his service as my most excellent photo assistant.
All photos are by Cindy Dyer © 2010 Cochlear, Ltd.
Charles Mokotoff is our next cover feature for the Hearing Loss Magazine. An IT specialist with NIH by day, he’s also a classical guitarist. Michael and I met him at the Hearing Loss Association of America headquarters in March. He performed for the HLAA staff and I did some studio shots for his upcoming feature article. He came by my studio earlier this week so we could get some additional images for the upcoming January/February 2010 issue. In exchange for these additional photos, he’s going to perform at our Tapas Potluck Party this coming weekend and we’re excited that we’re going to have live music! I also shot the photos on his website here. You can hear sample soundbites here.
I told my sister Debbie that if this works out well, I’m going to barter musical services from other artists for future parties. I’m thinking that, in exchange for some wonderful new head shots by me, Josh Groban can come sing something Italian for our annual Pesto Fest. As accordian-playing (and bizarre) comedian Judy Tenuta sarcastically says, “yeah, that could happen!”
Insert useless information here: During our Vegas-to-Kodachrome Basin-Bryce-Moab vacation many years ago, my cousin Bill and I were at a casino in Las Vegas. While we were waiting in line at a hotel restaurant, Judy Tenuta walked down a ramp right past us. I had only caught her act just a few times on tv, but I knew who she was immediately—the result of a photographic memory, I guess.
Hey Josh—have your people call my people!
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
During our behind-the-scenes tour at the Grand Ole Opry, our guide Jamie introduced us to the security guard at the entrance where the artists enter the building. She mentioned that no one gets past him without identification. There was a blonde-haired woman standing at the guard’s desk who looked remarkably like Rhonda Vincent to me, except she had blonde hair (Rhonda Vincent’s hair is naturally a very dark brown). In response to Jamie stating that “no one gets past the guard,” she looked over at us and said something like, “tell me about it. I had to show him I’m in the program guide to convince him who I was.” We all laughed. Barbara’s husband, Bill, who is a big Rhonda Vincent fan, linked arms with her and said something like, “Darlin, come with us,” or something to that effect. Funny thing is, he didn’t recognize her even then until we were at the end of the tour and we told him who she was! Hal Ketchum and his daughter, Sarah Rosie, walked right past Debbie and me backstage and since his hair wasn’t its usual gray, we thought he was a band member!
SIDEBAR: Jamie took us to the historic Studio A, where Hee Haw was filmed. I grew up watching Hee Haw and just had to go stand in the exact spot where the background haystacks would have been. I could just picture Buck Owens and Roy Clark doing their “I’m a pickin’…and I’m a grinnin'” spiel. It always impressed me that Roy Clark could play the banjo, guitar and the mandolin. Such talent! Mike Snider (who was on the roster this night) stars in Pickin’ & Grinnin’ with Mike Snider: A Grand Ole Comedy Revue, which debuted just a few days ago in Studio A (the television portion of the Grand Ole Opry).
FYI: In the photo with Alison Krauss holding a hymn book (9th photo down), that’s her (handsome!) brother, Viktor, accompanying her on acoustic bass.
I shot these photos from the second to the last row of the Opry. Yes, in the waaaay back. (In fact, I just read that there are 4,400 seats in the building. I’m pretty sure I was in seat # 4,399.) I shot with my Nikon D300 set on 1600 and higher, depending on the light fluctuations, and used my Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D VR lens, handheld (except when shooting vertically—then I used my sister’s handy shoulder as a prop—thanks, Deboo). The images aren’t too shabby from that far back (at least you know who the artist is in each one), although it would have been such a treat to be up front for optimum photography! I used this same lens when I shot the images from our first visit to the Opry in 2008 here. The Opry show was back in the Ryman Auditorium at the time and we had better seats to that show—I was shooting at no more than 800 ISO during that performance, so the images are a bit better.
I included the last photo of John Conlee’s dialogue during real-time captioning, a first for the Grand Ole Opry! It was great to be there during its debut and the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) hopes they will implement it as a regular service. At the time I shot this photo, Conlee was introducing Sammy Johns, who wrote and recorded the 70s classic, Chevy Van.
Click on the individual names for their biography / websites / music video:
Jimmy Dickens
Jimmy C. Newman
Rhonda Vincent (Heartbreaker’s Alibi with Dolly Parton)
Mike Snider
Hal Ketchum
Point of Grace (I Wish)
John Conlee
Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys
Jim Ed Brown
Sammy Johns
Opry Square Dancers
Vince Gill
Alison Krauss with The Whites
View Alison Krauss videos on AOL Music here. One of my favorite duets is this song, How’s the World Treating You, with Alison and my long-road-trip buddy, James Taylor.
THIS JUST IN: Thanks to Wes for the correct name of Hal Ketchum’s daughter, as well as some background info on Hal:
Hal Ketchum is one of the best, pure and natural singers of any genre of music. Had the pleasure to see him in concert about 50 times and have gotten to know him as well. Very down to earth guy. By the way Hal has one grown son and daughter by his first wife and three younger daughters Fanna Rose (Rosie), Ruby Joy and Sophia Grace by his current wife Gina. Ruby is the one that has been with him recently on stage at the Opry as well as other concerts. The daughter in your picture of Hal is Rosie. Just wanted to clear that up. By the way, great shots.
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
My latest really fun project was photographing an up-and-coming country singer, Jay D. Henley, for the bimonthly Hearing Loss Magazine, which I also design and produce.
My friend Ed Fagan (www.columbiaphotography.com) has photographed and designed Jay’s three self-published CDs. When Ed recently told me that Jay had a hearing loss (a condition called aural atresia), I knew we just had to interview him and feature him in the magazine. Barbara Kelley (editor of the magazine) and I got to hear him and The Stone Broke Band play at the Carroll County Fairgrounds in August. I got the performance shots of him then (www.cindydyer.com/Henley). Barbara interviewed him afterwards and I shot the cover and feature photos near Jay’s home in Woodbine, Maryland last month. He was a pleasure to photograph and I wish him the best of luck in his musical endeavors (and hope he remembers us when he hits the big time)!
To learn more about Jay and hear his music, go to his Web site: www.jayhenley.com.
Order his CDs online at:
http://cdbaby.com/found?artist=jay+d+henley&soundlike=&style=&album=
The magazine is on its way to HLAA members this week. The magazine is available for download at http://www.hearingloss.org/magazine/latest.asp (click on the far right link to download). Barbara and I hope this exposure to a reading audience of 40,000+ will open doors for him in the music business (and result in a few CD sales in the process)!
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
GIVE ‘EM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT