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.

Orton Hall at Ohio State University

This is Orton Hall at The Ohio State University. It's the home of our Geology department, and it's one of the most interesting university buildings in the country. The exterior is made up of several layers of rock that were mined in Ohio, which represent geological strata from the Ordovician to more recent times.


The interior space is also beautiful. I can't imagine how much this building would cost in modern dollars. It was built in the late 1800s.

The big apple

The big apple, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

My son, Michael, married Tania this past weekend in upstate New York. We started our trip there in New York City, by doing a visit to B&H photo. Steve's never been in Manhattan, and it was an interesting excursion. He hated the driving in that area and was paranoid the entire time, but the street photography ops are great.

Here's one of my street photos from that visit:

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.

When pigs fly

When pigs fly, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Another balloon spotted at last weekend's balloon festival in Marysville, Ohio. This and the Darth Vader ones were my favs of the launch.

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.

Darth Vader on the hunt….

Darth Vader on the hunt…., a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Yesterday Steve, Richard and I went over to Marysville for the Ohio Balloon festival. Well, actually we just wanted to see the balloon launch or the evening balloon glow.

There was a two-mile back up on route 1 to turn into the Union County airport. The crowd there was huge, and it was really off-putting, so we decided to drive straight through to the exit. That was the plan, but we found a parking spot near the exit with a good view of the airport runway, which gave us the chance to actually see the launch itself without the crowd.

The launch was scheduled for 6 pm, but we think that was when the balloons were starting to inflate. The actual take-off wasn't until after 6:30. The balloons only went across the airport grounds, as far as we could tell. The good news is that we got out of there without too much trouble - a huge relief since I was driving. I don't like long lines of traffic with no alternate routes for escape.....

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.

Molly

Molly, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

This is Mossy Moran's daughter, who has been featured more and more in Mossy's sets at the Dublin Irish Festival over the past couple of years. The stage lighting was pretty good, but there's also late afternoon sun coming into the Celtic Music House tent for this exposure.

I like the composition with Mossy looking at his daughter while she's playing.

The John Whelan Band

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

This is one of the band portraits I did for John Whelan at the 2012 Dublin Irish Festival. Outdoors in full sun - a very challenging combination. I used my Canon 580 EX speedlight for fill, which worked fine at this close range. Manual exposure settings were also used.

The real challenge was the background. The Dublin Rec Center pond was full of scum, which is not very photogenic. Thus, I opted for a high key effect, processed in Aperture, Nik Software Color Efex Pro, and final adjustments in Photoshop CS5.

John Whelan and Flynn Cohen

John and Flynn, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

I did two band photo shoots at the Dublin Irish Festival this year - The Ladies of Longford and the John Whelan band. This photo is from the latter. In addition to doing group portraits of the band, I did some small group combos. John and Flynn play gigs together and this is a photo for their press kit.

The Ladies of Longford

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

This is Hilda Doyle, one of the most amazing musicians we have in Ohio. The Ladies of Longford feature her and her two daughters along with some other very talented women.

I used my special processing effects to produce this monochrome from a very red lighting situation. I'm glad the effect works, because I was doing a specific photo shoot for the ladies this year at the Dublin Irish Festival.

Making lemonade

Trinity Stage, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

What does a photographer do when the lighting on a stage is very challenging? Convert to monochrome, of course. This is a portrait of a young girl (Haley) who did a couple of tunes with the John Whelan band on the Trinity stage, Saturday night at the 2012 Dublin Irish Festival. The garish lights make for some terrible color photography, but the bright red, orange, violet, and blue lights can be an asset when doing monochrome conversion.

I mentioned in a previous post my processing steps for this style of photography, and it really is a nice effect for low light in the red spectrum.