Paul Lester Photo

As you can see from the collage, not all of the pictures that I took in Texas were of landscapes. These pictures are of a group called: The Project. The lead singer, Margaret, is a long time friend of my wife’s best friend, Tamami. I was able to spend a bit of time talking to her and visiting with her over Christmas dinner. On this particular night, December 30th, I had the privilege to hear her and The Project play and sing! What a sound. They were great. They played a wide range of R&B and bit of rock, closing of the night with very rousing version of Ike & Tina Turner’s Lazy River! Margaret does a great job ‘as’ Tina!

Honestly, this was a first for me taking pictures in concert lighting. I knew that I wanted to get the real feel, so I didn’t use a flash. The stage was about 50+ feet away, the setting was a club called Martini Park, located in Plano, TX. It is an upscale Martini bar selling various martini’s at about $10 per glass, or more!!! I had exactly one pomegranate martini, after all, I had to shoot. It was tasty, though! My wife was partial to the mango martinis.

What I thought would be easy, actually turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. First, stage lighting is very harsh and contrasty. Add to that fact that the lights are constantly rotating, changing intensity, and changing color. Initially, I attempted to shoot in aperture priority, but the meter could handle it. I sometimes got overexposed shots, sometimes underexposed, but rarely did the meter ever get right.

Finally, I set the camera to manual, experimented a bit, looked at histograms, and settled on ISO 1600 200mm f/5.6 @ 1/15 second. That’s right! Hand held 200mm @ 1/15 second. Without VR and a lightweight camera, zen-like breathing, and a lot of luck, I wouldn’t have gotten these shots, but mostly attributed to the vibration reduction technology! Also, I had to keep moving away from my wife because she wouldn’t stop dancing and kept bumping into me, which I didn’t mind at all, but it makes for shaky pictures!

Oh well, another lesson learned and a lot of fun was had. Usually, by that time of night (1:00 AM), I’m well off to sleep! BTW, if these pictures look buttery smooth, it’s because I ran them through Neat Image and this is the result. I just love that program! It’s so easy to use and it works so well. Much credit goes to Nikon’s sensor technology, though. I never hesitate to shoot at ISO 1600 with my D40. It just seems to always come out well. Using Neat Image just knocks it up a couple of notches.

Now is the time of year where people usually resolve to do something. Go by any fitness center and you can see an example of the “New Year’s Resolutionists”. You can hardly get time on a machine without waiting in a line. By March, it’s pretty easy, as most people have given up.

Last year was an interesting year. On a personal level, it was difficult and involved a lot of changes. Even until the end of the year, the turmoil/changes continued; I would imagine that December 31st was no magical date where everything would be fixed, the clouds would clear, and the days would be bright and sunny; however, things do change from day to day. Sometimes I take 5 steps forward and then 4.5 back, yet I have to consider it progress!!!

Last year I thought that ‘one day’ I would go and see a number of national parks. I didn’t visit any. This is year, I have a plan: I plan to make 4 trips this year, averaging about 1 every 3 months. No one is promised tomorrow, remember! The tentative list so far:

• Great Smokey Mountains National Park – North Carolina
• White Sands National Monument – New Mexico
• Arches National Park – Utah
• Zion National Park – Utah

3 of the 4 parks will require that I fly, rent a car, and drive. I can drive to the first location. I also plan to make a trip to Austin, TX to take pictures of the wildflowers with a good friend of mine. I also have a day trip scheduled with another good friend of mine, but this would be an easy drive.

So, it looks like it has the potential to be a nice and busy year. Each of the trips will probably take me out of town for a long weekend, leaving on Thursday evening, photographing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, returning on Monday.

Anyway, this is an open invitation to anyone who would like to join. It’s nice to go out in the morning, shoot, come back and share pictures, then hang out during the day, and then return in the evening to shoot some more.

If you are interested, just let me know and we’ll see what we can work out.