Archive for July, 2009

American Idols Live! Tour

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Very much enjoyed shooting this concert. Say what you will about the big corporate machine that is American Idol but they do manage to find some people who are really good singers and performers. I can’t say that I religiously watch the show (nor that I bother to vote) since it airs on TV, oh, around 7 p.m. while I’m still at work. Everything airs so early here in Phoenix… our theory is that stations cater to the large retired population who MUST get their nightly news in at 8 p.m. before they go to bed. Some seasons of American Idol I follow more than others, as in read the reviews and maybe try to catch the better performances online. Entertainment Weekly puts together some hilarious video recaps of each episode that are probably just as good as watching the actual show.

We ran into Kris Allen and Adam Lambert backstage, but since we technically weren’t supposed to be there, approaching the “talent” would’ve been a big no-no. Not that I would’ve anyways. I’m too chicken for that kinda stuff.

The interesting thing about this concert was that instead of shooting the first two or three songs as usual, we were allowed to shoot the last three, since those are the songs that included Kris Allen (the winner), followed by two group numbers that included everyone. Otherwise, the first few songs only include certain Idols. I also appreciated that the Media people were kind enough to take us to our spots with enough time to scope out the lighting and the overall layout of the stage (and enjoy a few songs from an awesome spot!). Downside? We were leaving at the same time as the crowd, so I had to deal with a little bit of traffic. Not too bad, since we managed to bolt from the arena pretty fast, and Jobing.com really takes care of their media people when in comes to parking.

My only complaint from a performance perspective was that the Idols were mostly just signing covers of overly-played, sugary pop culture songs, which, I know, is kinda expected with their target audience, but some of them could do much better, I’m sure. Oh well, I’ll be excited to catch Allen, Lambert and Allison Iraheta when they come out with their own stuff.

Gotta run. Going by Tempe Camera to pick up a lens, and then Keith Urban tonight if all goes well.

Posted in Arizona, Music, Phoenix | 3 Comments »

Power Bill

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

I just got my July power bill. I’m turning that A/C off. Right. Now. Be damned to heatstroke.  

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Smokey Robinson

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

@ Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix.

It’s been some time since my last posting, and a lot has changed. At work, I feel like I’m living in two worlds, the one before layoffs and the one after. Most of you already know that the graphics desk at the paper was pretty much decimated that fateful Wednesday. I’m obviously not going to go into details but I will say is that the whole affair of notifying people was sadly mishandled there at the end.

Congratulations on my preservation poured in the next day. Was I happy to still be employed? I guess. But the idea of having lost the people we did was shocking. The implications were overwhelming, and yet thinking about them seemed selfish, part of me felt like I had to be in mourning.

Some people’s careers were tied to the paper, having worked here for decades. If I had gotten laid off, I would’ve lost a paycheck, not a career.

Can a company, any company, really take away so many years of a person’s life, just to throw them out on the street during tough times, with hardly any compensation? The thought that such behavior is considered normal gives way to all these hopeless feelings.

I keep waiting for some realization about my future to hit me, because I just cannot force myself to think about where I want to be in 15 years. And while I wait, some days I feel like I’m wasting time. I’m afraid that I will blink, and I will still be sitting here in two decades, wondering why I never had to guts to move on. I will look back with regret and justify it all thinking that I was trapped by bills, leases, laziness, people, fear. Some days I’m infuriated by my inability to just DO SOMETHING.

I don’t know how to fix that.

American Idols Live show tomorrow night. Hopefully some good pictures coming outta that. I still have to post photos from my latest sailing trip to Long Beach, and the Michael McDonald/Boz Skaggs concert. Till then…

Posted in Arizona, Music, Random | 2 Comments »

SkyCycle

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

I’m happy with the response from the wedding photos, particularly glad that Matt and Talat liked them (p.s., I’ll be mailing you two some actual prints). 

Moving onto non-wedding things. 

Last week I got the chance to work on a pretty cool graphic for the Phoenix community paper. The reporter wanted an infographic to show how a new exhibition at the Arizona Science Center worked. It’s something called the SkyCycle: pretty much a bike on a high-wire cable, suspended over the first floor.  Ever the investigative journalist, I popped in to check it out and do some ‘research’. 

Not sure if you can tell there, but the bike is not harnessed to anything. The rider is harnessed to the back of the bike, and that line you see there at the bottom is just so if someone freaks out, the staff can pull them back. Obviously there are all these physics aspects about how/why the bike doesn’t flip over, and I had to understand those in order to then turn around and explain that in a simplified way. So I talked to a few people there, took notes, slept on it, and hopefully I was successful in at least conveying the basics to our readers. 

I did everything in Illustrator, using another photo as reference, and a lot of people around the newsroom seemed to like it. 

When I get to do stuff like this, I realize that my job doesn’t always suck, and sometimes I forget to mention that because, yes, there’s a lot of crap that goes on (case in point: the upcoming layoffs were officially announced today). I suppose with the impending and very real possibility of losing my job, it’s easier to see the things I’d be missing out on. 

Posted in Graphics | 5 Comments »