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3.14.2005

A very weak collection of DCC get together pictures

Well, the DCC had our little get together this Sunday at Dr. Dremos and I’m pretty sure everyone had a great time. As the night went on people started leaving and we still haven’t taken any pictures. But I managed to get three pictures in. Three! I’m almost embarrassed to post them. Next time we’ll take more.

Just click on the thumbs to see the full size.

The DCC The DCC Loves WTOTJake and Jeff

And that was just pathetic.

As an aside, I was showing off my super cool comic belt buckle yesterday and some of the DCC people were interested so I figured I’d share the link. My good friend Jon Wye makes them, born and raised in Capital Hill, along with several other designs. He was featured in this month’s Rolling Stones and it looks like I’m going to have one of those cool “fashion” friends that have parties with models and rock stars. Maybe. Anyway, check him out and if you like what you see tell him Jason Rodriguez sent you to get the friend discount. Now that I think about it, he lives in DC and he’s an artist, I should invite him to our next get together. And maybe he’ll bring some of those model friends I was talking about.

Jon Wye Designs

Jason at 9:55 AM  |  link to this     

3 Comments

Youz a’ good looking buch o’ kids there.
Not too shabby, maybe we’ll come down and give the DC chapter a visit.
Are you posting the art somewhere too?

Ok, so if I may be so bold here is my strategy for getting good photos from an event like a jam.

First general rule, unless you have a really good reason, like a visual gag you want to use, or paid stand in models you want to get shots with, don’t pose the shots dude! No no no no…ok, its fun sometimes but really, it’s not the same as shooting the occasion. It just records attendance, not the event really.

So my thing is this, I just take a few minutes in the midst of it all to float around the room when things are jumping. When it feels like the room is as alive as it’s going to get, grab the camera as clandestine as you can and start firing, the first few don’t even use a flash so people don’t get wise to it much at all at first. Just put the camera on a surface somewhere to stabilize it. I like shooting from on top of my sketchbook on the bar, getting a stines eye view as it were. Fun angles. As for your hapless subjects, don’t warn them or even ask first – point and shot and do it quick. Once you’ve exhausted the possibilities of the bar top, I find holding the camera at my stomach or chest helps because people will register it coming if I hold the camera in front of my face at all, arms reach away or not. Even when they get wise to your trick they still often don’t react the same way, they know they wont know when it’s coming so they kind of give up on posing for you and just relax after a bit. :P
Also to get that great bar vision feel, I highly suggest using the Night Scene flash setting if you use a flash at all. It’s usually indicated by a figure standing next to a star. It uses a slow-sync flash, leaving the shutter open longer that just the time frame of the flash going off - gives you a sharp shot of the subject but also helps to expose the BG so you don’t get that black BG effect common with flash. – my beer-o’-vision trick is you actually want to move the camera, the flash gives you a clear shot but the movement gives great streaky feel and blurs.

This makes for good event shots. I promise.

max at 3/14/2005 5:24 PM   

Max's jam photos from Montreal can be seen on his site if you click on the blogatyblog link and look on the menu on the right of the screen, where it says photo essays. (If your pointer hovers over the pictures, you'll get the names of the photo series.)
http://www.salgoodsam.com

Deb at 3/14/2005 5:49 PM   

Damn.

In our defense, we forgot about pictures until people were leaving. That's a good excuse, right?

Next time. Better pictures next time.

Jason at 3/14/2005 5:55 PM   

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