Alex Hughes started the evening off for everyone, being the only solo acoustic performer for the evening. Definitely knows how to play his instrument well, but I believe he is still in the early stages of finding his own musical voice. The only song I can recall was a cover of an early Iron & Wine song.

Terra Incognita was next up and they played comfortably and pretty solid. A well rehearsed band fronted by their guitarist/vocalist Forest and Bay Area rapper Prophet. They played a mix of rock and roll with heavy rap influences. Very comfortable in their positions on stage, they had great stage presence and jived well with the audience and each other.

Black Market Corp. ended the night, and were the only group I was somewhat familiar with. Through friends of a friend I actually got this gig. They are fronted with two vocalist/rappers and a backing band consisting of a guitarist, drummer, bassist, and dj. Definitely a well rehearsed act and the ability to improvise well, which was shown when the front man, Philip Frasier, had his sister come up and sing on a couple songs.

Overall a really fun and interesting night, reminded me a lot of the all ages shows I used to attend in the Bay Area with artists and different music styles all playing throughout the evening.

He ideally would like to get shots to submit to magazines for recognition of the tricks he is able to do and hopefully after this test run we can accomplish that.

I had to cut the morning fog from the shots so leaned a bit heavy on the cyan.

As interesting as the primates were to watch, it was a bit hard to listen to all the hollering and see trash being tossed into their exhibit. One of the chimps was even flossing his teeth with the remnants of a ring from the top of a water bottle (I might post that photo). Both the Bears and Tigers were also seemingly perturbed with their incessant pacing.

I had to throw in the Komodo Dragon that was drooling down his chin staring back at the visitors and the obligatory funny Giraffe face.

The wedding was held at Titlow Lodge, which is a nearly 100 year old hotel on the west side of Tacoma, and made for a cozy setting. Set against the ocean facing Fox Island, the couple were married as the sun set over the nearby water, in front of family and friends. The theme of the reception was a Moroccan evening with specifically chosen lanterns and light hangings with an equally themed selection of food that included African spiced pork, couscous, as well as other Northern African treats.

It was a great honor to be there to witness Rachel’s youngest sister get married and we both wish them the best of luck with what their life together brings them!

This is just something I threw together this afternoon, I have 3 months of shoots to still sort through where I am going to work on refining these techniques a bit.

Something I realized halfway into editing this, is that this was the first time I ever met Lisa. We’ve done maybe a half dozen shoots since and this was just one of those random test shots you fire off to make sure everything is working.

Criticisms welcomed!

Which brings me to this new museum. Sure it’s “green” and tries to bring awareness to Californians about the “Energy Crisis” and so on, but there are no real exhibits like those they used to showcase. Their Tyrannosaurus Rex “Sue” replica has been wheeled inside and greets you at the entrance to the buffet, while the rain forest bio-dome and planetarium take up the majority of the main hall. The only other exhibits on the main floor are “CA energy crisis” related, the croc pit from original museum, the original stuffed African animal hall, and the evolution of animals on Madagascar. The huge aquarium they used to have seems not even half the size of the original and the awesome shark tank they had is long gone, as are any sharks. It seems the focus from the older museum, which encouraged learning, academia, and showing the public things they could not see anywhere else, has turned to largely a giant day care where toddlers were the most prominent age group, and the emergency of the polar ice caps melting etc take precedence over showing people what they actually would be losing.

For me this new museum was a huge disappointment. Seems as if people are more interested in flashy exhibits and cartoon characters than to really take a look back into the past and how it relates to present day life.

That being said, I was not too inspired to even break out the camera, but aquariums always get me at some point. I shot around the crowds and crouched out of peoples views to carefully try to capture these macro shots.

A quick hour and a hundred or so photos later, I think I got some winning shots for his album cover and booklet artwork.

I sat on these photos for a good month or so, was not sure how to handle the processing and this afternoon it finally stuck me. Not sure why, but simple, desaturated colors seemed to be the most fitting.

For those of you who might have missed him this time around, a new round of house shows were just announced across the entire USA.

Check it out at his site www.davidbazan.com

Hopefully if you are in the LA area you were able to get tickets to one of the four shows he’s playing down there.

These are just a couple of simple shots from my seat last night, nothing too special.

Check his music out at :
David Bazan Website
David Bazan Myspace