Music to My Eyes

A member of the Melrose Symphony Orchestra rehearses inside Memorial Hall for one of their upcoming performances.

Photographing the rehearsals to preview the symphonies concerts is an assignment that comes around about four times a year, . I have photographed this group numerous times and enjoy listening to their music. The difficult part is looking for creative new ways to showcase the orchestra in the same concert hall they always rehearse in. This photo ran in our Cityside second front as part of a photo package.

Lighting for the Game

Wakefield High School and Catholic Memorial battle it out on the court during the basketball Holiday Tournament played at Peabody High School.

I enjoy photographing basketball and it gives me a chance to use some off camera lighting. Whenever I get a chance I will set up two off camera flashes to light basketball games. I light half the court by placing one flash in each corner. If I am able, I try to get the flashes up as high as I can by placing them in the corners of the viewing stands. Setting the flashes on manual power still enables me to get off a few frames in a sequence before the flashes have to recharge to give proper exposure.

Lonley Santa

December is always a busy time of year. Holiday church fairs, shopping, tree lightings and Santa just to name a few of the activities.

I was assigned to cover the “Holiday Stroll” in Wakefield where local shops would open their doors to customers to start the holiday shopping season.

I spotted this photo as I was talking with a family who just visited with Santa. I noticed how Santa was walking all alone up the street and thought it would make for a funny picture. When people think of Santa most have visions of the jolly man in the red suit surrounded by kids. So when I saw Santa walking all alone I excused myself for a moment from the family and photographed this scene with an 80-200mm lens.

A photo that says a lot about the kind of weather we've been having lately, as fall comes to an end and winter is less than a week away. It could turn out to be a snowy winter unlike the previous year.

artSPACE

Artwork is viewed inside the artSPACE in Malden. Sand T. has transformed her garage into a gallery space and invites local artists to display their work or perform live art. This place is really cool and I've had the opportunity to photograph at her gallery a number of times. I've meet some great artists and seen some inspirational pieces of art there.

Dante's Salvation

I was assigned to cover the debut of an independent film called Dante’s Salvation. When I arrived at the theatre the film was still being shown. Visually there was not a lot to photograph so I hung around for a while and watched the end of the film. After the film was over all the actors and producers had a short question and answer period up in front of the large movie screen.

I was lucky they left the title page up on the screen as they answered a few questions. I made use of a low angle and my 14mm lens on a D1H. I only had a short opportunity to get a few frames off before they turned the lights on and shut off the projector.

Champs

Gloucester junior Rob Lowe, who is all smiles after helping the Fishermen win the 2007 Divison 2A Super Bowl, will be one of a number of returning players Gloucester will count on for continued success next season. For this photo I used a 300mm f/4 while I was looking for reaction shots towards the end of their Super Bowl win over Hingham at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.

Mixed Media Artist

Mixed media artist and musician Tobin Eckian poses for a photo in one of her work spaces. She was the featured artist for Artisans in the Open holiday show in Newburyport. She is a really cool person with great art work check out her site at www.teckian.com

Class Ring

I had an assignment to photograph a gentleman who had found a Melrose High School class ring marked with “Class of 1963”. This was a human interest story about how Ashok Kalelkar found this ring while in his yard raking and spreading loam and how he was hoping to find the rightful owner to return it to.

I had a few ideas of how I was going to photograph Ashok with the ring, but none of them were as compelling as this photograph I took with my 105mm macro lens. I used a shoot through umbrella set up to camera left and one more off camera flash set behind Ashok.

The coolest thing about the assignment was it only took 2 hours to find the rightful owner once the story was published. The lady who claimed the ring was once Ashok’s neighbor many years ago and she drove up from the Cape about two hours away to claim the ring. I was lucky enough to also photograph the reunion between old friends and the rightful owner of the ring in front of Melrose High School.

Sunset

I spotted this sunset one evening on my way home from work.