Cricalix.Net

Photography, for me, is a hobby verging on a passion; with most of my pleasure coming from shooting at gigs.  I get to hear good music, and I get to hone my skills – not a bad life really. I’m also a system administrator, with the ability to write code in a variety of languages, and for over a year now, I’ve been designing and poking at a dream gallery system that would give the subjects of my photos a measure of control on the distribution of those photos.

This entry isn’t to announce that I’ve managed to do that; it’s the complete opposite.

I’ve found that Zenfolio has come on a long way since I looked at it a year ago.  The Zenfolio service offers custom theming, order fulfillment, password protection, digital licensing and more.  I could, in time, write my own code to do this, but I’m coming to the realisation that I just don’t have the energy, nor skill, to write my dream system.  I could probably get my programming up to the skill level required to do it properly, but the time I’d spend doing that could be spent listening to live music or processing photos from a gig so that I can attempt to earn a little pocket money from them.

I think I’ll take the live music and pocket money.  I get plenty of chances to excercise my coding streak at work.

Sunday afternoon saw me returning to the Great Western pub for the Americana / blues bands they were hosting.  This time I carried my green chair with me, as the prospect of spending another 8 hours sitting on the wooden benches at the pub was not very enticing.  Acts included the Dustbowl String Band (featuring (reportedly) the best flatfoot dancer in the UK), Under the Influence, Wes Finch and the Dirty Band, Cindy Archer / The Dolly Rockets, Kel Elliott (complete with brass section), The Tree Horns, The Bellows, Clayton Denwood and the Street Shepherd Group.

The afternoon rocked past, with 300 photos or so ending up on my SD cards – time just flew.  Excellent music, decent hamburgers and plenty of water.  Also ended up chatting to a staff writer from Americana UK who was there to cover the event, and swapped details (and cameras).  Having played with a Canon 30D, I still don’t like it much – it’s an excellent camera, but I just can’t hold it properly, the grip is that fraction too shallow.  The 17 – 35mm lens was nice and fast on the auto-focus though.

Musical highlights for me were Kel Elliott and her band (or was it the Kel Elliott Band?) – the brass section really completes the lineup; Libby Fielding, the dancer in Wes Finch and the Dirty Band – whirling dervish seemed to describe her at points, and I’m sure if you look in a dictionary, you’ll find her as the definition of energetic; and Jack Blackman, a young man (not yet 16) who had blues dripping from his fingers.

The evening wrapped up with a performance by the Street Shepherd Group – flamenco guitar, cajon drum, violin and a percussion instrument I can’t identify.  The pace was slower and quieter than what had preceded for most of the day, but it was a nice way to cool off after a day of shooting, and just relax to some good music.

Picked up a ticket for the GW Fest as well, with the intent of coming back for more good music, and the chance at some more photography.

Having rolled home around 00:45 on Saturday (Oysterband ran long due to encores), I slept in a bit.  Decided to wander over to the Festival around 11:30 A.M., and looked for lunch.  Fortune smiled, and there was a Caribbean food stand offering curried mutton, saltfish fritters, jerk chicken and more.  Enquired after the curried mutton, and was told that it would be about another 30 minutes before it was ready.  At this point, the person who I assume was the main cook came around from the back for whatever reason, and heard me answering that 30 minutes was fine.  What ensued was her jaw dropping because of a Bajan accent (in hiding) coming from white guy, and then a bit of conversation in broad Bajan.  30 minutes later, I had one of the best curries I’ve had in the past year or two (and I’ve had some pretty good curries) – it wasn’t curried goat, but it was still damn good.

My next decision was to head over to the Great Western pub in Warwick for the afternoon, as they were supposed to be hosting a decent number of bands from 13:30 or so.  Well, who tell me do dat without directions?  See, I knew that the pub was near the train station, and therefore, the train station must be near the train line, and I knew where that was.  The only problem with that plan is I didn’t know where the station was, only where the line crossed a main road between Warwick and Leamington.  So, a bit of going ‘Huh, where the heck is it then?’ ensued, with me finally finding someone to ask.  Had I continued up the road for another 100 yards or so, I would have found the pub – life is funny like that.

I had intended to stay at the pub for the afternoon, and then cycle back over to the main Festival grounds in the early evening to catch the rest of the main stage performances, especially Kel Elliott.  Somehow (probably laziness, and good music), I ended up staying at the pub for the entire afternoon and evening, listening to music by acts such as Davey Looth, Lydia and Celestina, Matt Hernandez (who happened to be the organiser, and a decent flamenco guitarist), Shanade, Kristy Gallacher and 1/2 of Jamsons Nook.  I also shot somewhere around 260 photos of the performers – if my usual numbers hold true, 20 – 30 of them will be acceptable, and one or two will be excellent.  150 have made the first cut, but I usually iterate over the photos two or three times, chucking out the obviously bad ones first, then refining the selection until I’m happy.

I rolled back out of the pub around 21:15, and went back to the main Festival ground to find dinner – which turned out to be curried mutton again.  What can I say, I like curried mutton.  I pondered going in to the main tent, but opted to go home instead to catch up on my sleep, and re-charge the batteries for the D80.

Swans Fighting

Bent

Brakes