One A Day – 710 – A little abstract…
On Stage at Amati Jazz Club – Rotem Sivan
Hot & Cool
Star Power
Every Beat – Version 1
Every Beat – Version 2
Every Beat – Version 3
Many Moments
- Amati Jazz Club Special Appearance – Rotem Sivan – Guitar with Hernan Hecht – Drums and Alonso Lopez – String Bass
- Amati Jazz Club
- Centro, Morelia, Michoacán, México
- September 10, 2015
- Copyright, all rights reserved
My photographs, my work, has gotten some notice. I am doing some professional – artistic gigs. I have a shoot tomorrow for a musician I respect very much. I took last night, with another musician of high standing in jazz (Rotem Sivan who you see here) to do some experiments in preparation. The shoot tomorrow is for a CD – the cover, design and inside folder.
Years ago, more than I care to count, I worked on a technique for abstract images using motion. To make photos like these, I use longer exposures, leaving the shutter open for up to a full second in some cases. The result is that motion leaves behind blurs and ghosts of the moments the image captures. The technique is used quite often in photos of dancers, rivers, waterfalls and in photos of roads at night with streaks of headlights and tail lights showing where cars have passed.
Translating the basic concept to digital isn’t hard. It just requires a little experimentation with your camera to be able to specify longer, instead of the shortest possible exposure. Some cameras are better for this than others. Some scenes are easier to make into abstract originals than others. I have a variable Polaroid neutral density filter I can use for this effect – but in the low light of a jazz club, that really isn’t necessary. Most of the time I am fighting for more light or sensitivity – less is just taking what is there.
Capturing a good image is one part skill and experience and another part luck. You can’t control how someone will move, but you can control how you frame the image and how long you allow for the effect (shutter speed) to build up. Too much exposure but proper image density will result in just a lot of blur, less exposure and the effect is blocky but still interesting (Hot and Cool is an example of less exposure time). What you will find is you need to shoot several variations because there are so many different outcomes.
The three versions of Every Beat however, all come from the same parent image with three different post-processing methods. Version 1 is my standard approach to post-processing. Version 2 is a two-tone (light blue highlights over dark blue shadows) monochrome. Version 3 is a tone-mapped single. To me, they represent three different moods and all are appropriate to the pieces Rotem writes and plays.
For my purposes, the experiments were successful. They brought my sense of abstract over to digital and give me another set of options to work on. I have a least one more set of photos, possibly two, from this concert – but for the most part they have more in common with the work you have seen before here.
I hope you enjoy these little peeks into a different aspect of what I do. I certainly enjoyed the music and the opportunity to do a little art of my own…