A night at the office….

A night at the office…., a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Behind the scenes at the Celtic Rock stage at the 2012 Dublin Irish Festival. Even backstage the sound is so loud that it would be smart to wear ear protection. However, I often see the sound guys sans ear inserts - I sure do not understand the logic of this. People who need to be able to hear to perform their job function should be protecting their hearing.....

Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh - Dublin Irish Festival 2012

Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh is in Altan and performed at the 2012 Dublin Irish Festival with a band called "T with the Maggies." This is from the finale of the festival.

Formal and informal band portraits at the Dublin Irish Festival

Behind the scenes at the Finale, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

This is a photo from backstage at the finale on Sunday evening. The Elders were about to go on for their number and so I asked them to pose for a group shot.

I also worked with two bands for some group portraits and gig shots. Here's one of the band portraits I did for The Ladies of Longford:


A band portrait for The John Whelan band with most of his 12-piece band:


And a smaller group:


And a duo with Flynn Cohen and John Whelan:

Slide show for the Young Dubliners 2012

Here's a gallery of photos from the Young Dubliners set at the 2012 Dublin Irish Festival. View it in full screen for the best effect.

John Whelan

The John Whelan Band, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

This is a concert portrait of my good friend, John Whelan, from the 2012 Dublin Irish Festival. This was from the Trinity stage with difficult lighting. The color photo was not very pleasing to my eye, but I do like the effects of my digital processing here.

John is an awesome musician and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. For the Dublin Irish Festival this year, he assembled a band of 12 musicians - all top notch players. The effect was stunning - such a pleasure to hear.

The Ladies of Longford

The Ladies of Longford, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

From the band shoot I did Friday night at the Dublin Irish Festival 2012. This is also an example of why the lighting on the Shamrock and Trinity stages are so difficult for photography. The way the stage is lighted, the musicians look very dim, very red, and difficult to see from the audience. It's truly an unflattering light set-up.

Jesse Smith and Ryan McGiver at Tara Hall

A nice concert February 15, 2012 at Tara Hall featured Jesse Smith (fiddle) and Ryan McGiver (vocals and guitar). Here are a few images from the night.

Jesse told the audience what tunes would be played and where he learned them.

The pace of the tunes were very comfortable, which gave me a chance to really hear the tune and the variations Jesse played.

Tara Hall is now located on the south side of town, in a somewhat shady neighborhood.  However, the setting is now more akin to being in a house concert, which is actually a very nice change from your usual pub concert venues.

 

The main room is divided into the concert corner and a pub.  Tara Hall is the home of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Columbus, Ohio.

Jesse Smith

I didn't want to use a flash during the concert, so I had to push the ISO up to 6400. That results in a lot of noise in low-light settings such as this venue, so I decided to play with a bit of processing techniques to accentuate the noise by featuring some grain. Here's one of those processing experiments.

Ryan McGiver

Here's another portrait using my grain technique.

"Half the concert is tuning, the other half playing out of tune."

Jesse uses a C tuning (DADGAD tuned down), which was really a nice sound.

As a musician, I'm glad Ryan took time to tune, and it was certainly worth the wait. He's an excellent musician and it was a pleasure to hear him play.

Ryan sings with great feeling and passion.

I tried to capture that passion by doing a monochrome processing on this portrait of him.

This portrait sums up the thoughtfulness with which Jesse plays. I really enjoyed the style and nuances he brought to traditional Irish music.

 Jesse looks so relaxed while he's playing.

I find it a real challenge to get a photo of a fiddler in concert when there are so many mics and mic stands in the way. 

 

All-in-all a nice way to spend a Wednesday night.

Dublin Irish Festival 2011 - Session 3

And here's the last of my session videos, featuring John Doyle doing a fun song.

Dublin Irish Festival 2011 - Session 2

Here's another great session video from that Sunday afternoon rainstorm delay:

The Elders

The Elders, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Another concert pic from the Dublin Irish Festival 2011. Steve Phillips and Tommy Sutherland of The Elders in concert on the Celtic Rock stage on Friday night. For more images from this year's festival see: http://wolfe0823.zenfolio.com/p681200453

Dublin Irish Festival 2011 - Session 1

Another session video from Sunday, August 7, 2011 at the Dublin Irish Festival.

Dublin Irish Festival 2011 - session video 4 (but first posting)

One of the videos I recorded from the most amazing session of the Dublin Irish Festival - all because of a huge thunderstorm, which caused the suspension of festival operations for a couple of hours.

Gaelic Storm

Gaelic Storm , a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Dublin Irish Festival 2011 began on Friday, August 5. My band had an early evening stage time, which went well. For the rest of the evening I did a bit of roving photography. This is one of my favorite photos of the evening - Gaelic Storm on the Celtic Rock stage.

Music at AAW 2010 - Andi Wolfe, John Whelan, and Flynn Cohen

Thursday evening's entertainment for this year's AAW symposium was capped off with an amazing performance by John Whelan and Flynn Cohen. I joined them for the first two sets, and then again at the end. Here are the first two sets, and another one in the middle.


Jigs and a reel: Garden Castle (original tune by Andi Wolfe), Boys of Ballylochland, Cliffs of Mohr, Farewell to Ireland.



Hornpipes and some fancy dancing by Terry Martin and Jacques Vesery