Just received my iPhone 4, I’ll be taking some time to play around with it and especially try out the camera function (still pics and HD movies). In this post I’ll tell you about my experience with setting it up and post some pictures comparing it to a 2nd Generation Touch and a iPhone 3G.

This is my first iPhone, I had Verizon but couldn’t wait any longer until they finally got an iPhone. I ended up pre-ordering direct from the apple.com store and had it delivered. As with most people lucky enough to get through the ordering process my shipment ended up arriving a day earlier, on June 23rd – 1 day ahead of the official release date. I’m not sure how I got through, I tried around 7:30 PM EST in on June 15th and got through on the first try without a problem. I must have just made the cut-off for the June 24th shipment because Macrumors put up a post claiming the first lot sold out within a few hours of my order.

Activation was not a problem at all, it literally took me 3 minutes. First I had to prep the computer by installing the latest iTunes software (v 9.2). Once that was done I hooked up the iPhone and was brought to a screen confirming the phone number I wanted to keep and asking for my billing zip code and the last 4 digits of my social security number. After getting through that it took all of a couple of minutes before the progress bar indicated my iPhone was all set. I made a quick test call to my land line and it worked!

I haven’t had too much time to play around with the phone yet, but I did want to talk about the form factor. It’s actually pretty comfortable and the perfect size for a cell phone (compare this to the gigantic Droid X). There have been plenty of comparisons to the old iPhone, but I haven’t seen anything comparing it to a Touch. Actually it is surprising that the Touch is only slightly slimmer then the iPhone 4 at it’s thickest point. The Touch has overall a smaller form factor because of it’s beveled edge (then again it doesn’t have cell phone technology or a camera). The iPhone 4 is slightly thinner then the Touch and the iPhone 3G, it is also taller then the 3G and the Touch (but not by more than a quarter of an inch).

Another trip from 2007, this time I explored the city of Rio de Janeiro on my own, I must have been one of the few people who wanted to visit the city after watching City of God (personal favorite movie of mine). The mission on this trip was to chill out on the famous beaches, eat some famous Brazilian barbecue and catch a Brazilian soccer match.

The picture below was the very first picture I took in Brazil, it is a picture of the favelas (Brazilian ghetto) that I saw while riding in the taxi on my way to the hostel. I got a hostel near Copacabana beach, about 4 streets up for about $17/night. The hostel name was the Stone of a Beach hostel and I recommend it if you want to travel on the cheap in Rio.

The next day I went to the Christ the Redeemer statue, one of the famous landmarks of Rio. The statue is situated atop the highest mountain that is just behind/overlooking the city. You get fantastic views of the city and its two famous beaches – Copacabana and Ipanema. Rio is unlike any other city, it is right along the beach like Miami but surrounded by jungles and mountains. From the view at Christ the Redeemer it almost looks like the buildings themselves are part of the forest, growing up from the ground. Across from the beach is Sugarloaf Mountain, probably most well known to James Bond fans for the climactic battle between Bond and Jaws on top of the cable car.

On the way down from the statue we went trough the Santa Theresa neighborhood, it is an interesting mix of some of the most expensive houses and some of the poorest neighborhoods side by side. In Rio the majority of rich people live in the lowlands close to the beach, the hills are reserved for the favela shanty towns, strangely enough the poorest people have the best views in this city. Santa Theresa is one exception, the richest person in Brazil (a TV mogul) has his mansion in this hillside neighborhood, right next to some of the favelas. I noticed a lot of graffiti that looked pretty interesting as well. I’m personally interested in street art and one of my favorite graffiti artists is Os Gemeos, two twins that paint together. I was curious if any of the graffiti I had seen was their work and decided to make a stop when I had some free time to check out the art some more.

The hostel had organized a trip out to watch a soccer game at Maracana stadium, which happens to be one of the largest soccer stadiums in the world. At the time I was visiting the Brazilians were having a tournament to determine which of their many national teams would represent the country in the Pan-American games. The game that night was between two local teams from Rio and was the quarter or semi finals. Of course watching a game of Brazilian soccer was something that I couldn’t turn down. The hostel had a great set of locals who helped out with all the trips and travels, the person I was with helped us scalp ticket and told us what street food was safe to eat.

The game itself was amazing it was a high scoring affair that ended up going into overtime and requiring a penalty shoot out. Better then the game was the crowd, actually it was kinda crazy. The crowd brought Roman candles and bottle rockets and were lighting up in the stands. It looked like half the stadium was going to burn down in a inferno, imagine seeing something like that at Gillette Stadium or Fenway!

I made a trip out to see Sugar Loaf Mountain, this would give me the view of the city and Christ the Redeemer (the other panoramic shot of the city). The cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain is at Botafogo, basically the tip of the coastline, its a huge tourist attraction and there are lines to go up pretty much any day of the week. There are actually two separate cable cars to get up to the top of the mountain, the first one gets you halfway and then you ride another to get up to the summit. The views of the city are spectacular, especially at sunset and night when the lights are out.

As I mentioned before, I wanted to take some time to walk around St Theresa and takemore pictures of the grafitti that I found. The primary crew that operates in the area is called Santa Crew, they pretty much own the neighborhood and they have done some great murals. The other grafitti artists, Os Gemeos, didn’t have any work to be found in Santa Theresa, though some of the murals did have their style, as it turns out Os Gemeos primarily operates out of Sao Palo.

This was taken in St Therea as well, as you can see construction of the favelas is alive and well despite it being illegal. Supposedly the favelas have the greatest concentration of general contractors anywhere in the world, all construction, plumbing and electricity is handled by the people. Most utilities are siphoned off the main grid and thus never actually paid for. Despite regulation against construction the government does nothing to stop it, there is an implicit understanding by the wealthier classes that they need favelas – after all where do the servants, maids, janitors etc live if they were bulldozed over?

This one is from the way back machine, but it is long overdue… I went to Barcelona back in 2007 with one of my friends, it was one of those places that I had been on my to do list for a long time. I studied Spanish in high school and learned about Antonio Gaudi, ever since seeing some of the pictures of his buildings I became fascinated with visiting the actual city. I managed to get a ridiculously cheap airline ticket ( I think it was around $450) and I stayed at a hostel in downtown next to Las Ramblas ( one of the big streets, lined with shops and restaurants) for about $20/night.

Barcelona has an excellent ground transportation, their trains were the most efficient train system that I have ever used. For tourists the city runs a tour bus operation called the “bus turistic” which can’t be beat. The buses run on three different loops and cover pretty much the entire city. For the first couple of days this would be our primary mode of transportation as we explored Barcelona and got a better idea of the layout of the city.

The first night out we hit up some bars around the place we were staying at. First we went to Dos Trece, which was a cool restaurant/lounge spread over two floors. Then we went to Betty Ford”s, possibly the greatest name for a bar ever. We ended up making friends with the owner of the bar and came back over the course of our stay. Finally we ended up at Cafe Flamingo, another artsy lounge.

Barcelona definitely has a great night life, plenty of pretty cool lounges and bars. There was even one we walked into later during the trip that I swear was an excuse for a group of friends to drink at. There literally were no “regular patrons” just a bunch of friends from the same social circle that went there to hang out and drink. I forgot what the name was, it was a small place and they had covered the walls with old LP’s.

The next day we hopped back on the bus turistic and took a trip north along Las Ramblas to see some of Gaudi’s buildings. First the bus took us around the soccer stadium for Barcelona’s home team, we also saw some of the port area in Barcelona.

Actually, this was a big reason why I came to Barcelona. When I was taking Spanish in highschool I remember seeing some pictures of Casa Mila and Casa Batlo, alter during college I took a architecture course and learned more about Art Noveau movement. So finally getting a chance to see these buildings up close and in person was a big deal. Fortunately we had great weather during the trip and the pictures came out fantastic.

The first Gaudi building we saw was Casa Mila, which used to be an apartment building. The building is most known for the chimneys on it’s roof which look like… well they kinda look like penises. The inside of the building also had a museum which showcased some models of this and other Gaudi structures, as well as some detailed plans and experiments that he set up prior to building.

Out of all the Gaudi buildings this was the one I was most interested in seeing. The roof of the building looks like the back of a lizard. Actually is is the back of a dragon and the spire is supposed to represent the spear of St. John – Casa Batlo depicts the slaying of the dragon by St. John. It is interesting how futuristic these buildings look, even in 2007, Gaudi was so ahead of his time it is amazing to think that these were all built at the turn of the 19th century.

This was to be Gaudi’s masterpiece, he actually died before he was able to finish it and it is still under construction to this day. One half of the facade is the original Gaudi design and looks organic, almost cobbled together by stuff he found at the beach. The other side is the new construction which has a decidedly cubist feel to it, this is controversial since it is a huge departure from the original vision that Gaudi had for the building.

I took this picture inside the cathedral looking at the stained glass windows. Obviously it is a long exosure to get all the light to hit the sensor and properly develop the picture. I tried moving the camera while taking the picture, in this case I spun the camera around to create this whirlpool effect. I could have done this a hundred times and not have the picture come out this well… sometimes you get lucky on the first try.

Headed back to Las Ramblas for food (tapas) and then later back to Betty Fords for more drinks.

The last Gaudi attraction we saw was Park Guell which displayed Gaudi’s use of mosaic/tilework. The park was pretty beautiful with all types of construction from aqueducts that look like they were made from boulders to houses that looked like they were part of the Shire in Tolkien’s novels.

La Boqueira is the famous market in Barcelona where you can buy just about every food imaginable. I desperate wanted to get some jamon, which is probably the most prized item they sell. The most expensive are the hams from the black toed Iberian hogs, the taste is unlike just about anything else.

The last day of the trip we decided to take a break from the city and headed out to Montserrat instead. We took a train out to the mountains which took about 45 minutes, then it was a quick trip up the cablecars to get to the entrance for the mountains. Montserrat had a cathedral constructed near the top where pilgrims used to go and pray, it was also the place where the holy grail was hidden according to legend. We spent some time walking around the trails and almost didn’t make it back in time for the last train (got lucky this time).

*** All pics were taken with the Canon S90. ***

I went back to NYC, well over a couple of months ago. No need for a story as it was a short trip, but I wanted to post the pics I took….

These next few pics were all taken around the Greenwich Village area, around Bleecker St.

I wanted to get some good NYC pizza and had always heard that Lombardi’s was one of the best. My meal (for an individual size pizza) came out to $25 for the pie and a soda, and it was cash only. Good pizza, but for $25 I’d expect lobster or shaved truffle slices as toppings.

*** All the pictures were taken with my camera phone, I left the S90 behind and am kicking myself for it! ***

Last night I went to see Air in concert at the Berklee Performance Center, I have seen over a hundred concerts and I have to say that this ranks amongst the absolute best I have ever seen. If Air is playing in a city near you and tickets are available, you need to do yourself a favor and buy them.

I’ve been listening to Air since “Moon Safari” came out, for some reason I never have seen them live until yesterday, though they have been one of those bands that are on my “to do” list of must see performances. The show last night was amazing for many reasons, in fact one large part of what made it a huge success was the venue itself. Who would have thunk that watching a band perform in a venue engineered to be acoustically perfect (it is a college devoted to music, after all) would make for an amazing experience. Even the band commented at how amazing the sound was in the venue, seriously it’s as if you had a super rich friend that let you listen to his $1 million + sound system.

The performance was amazing, I would compare the show to seeing a great concert pianist or classical concert (not that I have done either or am in the know on those genres). The reason I make the comparison is that the technical level of musicianship was just amazing. Even to a non-musician such as myself, you really could see the level of perfection and complexity in the performance. Not a note was missed and the detail in how the arrangements were built on themselves was part of the show. I honestly hope that there is a bootleg of the performance somewhere out there on the internet. For a live performance it actually sounded like a studio recording. It’s as if Air decided to record a greatest hits album in one session, no retakes and in front of a auditorium of people.

I am most familiar with Air’s earlier material, especially “Moon Safari” and “10,000 Hz Legend”. The band played a little of everything, in fact I honestly hadn’t been keeping up with their new releases and am making it a point to check them out. The encore were two of my favorite songs: “Sexy Boy” followed by “La Femme d’Argent”.

As mentioned before all the pictures were taken using my cell phone… Unfortunately the quality will be terrible, I really wish I had my S90 with me…

*** The pics for this story were taken with the Canon S90 and the Nikon D90 ***

I went down to Savannah to attend the IXDA10 convention for interaction design, basically a convention of information architects and UX designers. Also it was another opportunity for me to visit a corner of the country I hadn’t seen yet. Luckily my cousin was going to SCAD, the university that was hosting the conference, so I was able to visit the city on the cheap.

Before I get into the rest of the story there was one particular incident that I just have to mention, it illustrates that you should never judge a book by it’s cover and you never know who you are sitting next to until you make the effort to talk to them. Cutting to the chase, I started a conversation with a person met while in Savannah and found out that she was the inventor of the Snuggie. I know, not exactly the most amazing claim to fame, but still it’s kinda funny to think about it – you never know where those wacky “As Seen on TV” product come from. She was a very modest woman and almost was not going to tell me about her famous invention, when she heard that I work in advertising she couldn’t keep her secret to herself because she was interested in talking about marketing and her experience selling the product. As I mentioned, she is very modest and she likes her anonymity so I didn’t take a picture of her. In her words keeping shut and just cashing the checks has been the best decision she has made (no random people asking her for loans).

Day 1

I spent the first day in Savannah just walking around town and getting my bearings, I discovered that you can see pretty much all of downtown Savannah in about an hour.

While walking around I happened upon Lady and Sons, I’ve heard mixed things from people. Like most celebrity restaurants, people complain about lengthy waits for food that barely justified the inconvenience. I decided to ask, out of curiosity, how long the wait would take and was surprised to find myself seated within 5 minutes. I ended up ordering the chicken pot pie, which was excellent but definitely artery clogging – I can only imagine how much heavy cream and butter went into making it.

After a day of walking around I went back to my cousins apartment to catch up with him. I hadn’t had a chance to meet him yet since he was in school for the entire day. He is studying his masters in special effects at SCAD with a focus on lighting and rendering. He’s also an amazing photographer, check out his flickr page here.

Day 2

The first day of the conference was spent at the Hyatt taking a wireframing workshop. Actually it ended up being more like a contest to see what kind of ideas we could generate with a limited amount of time. We were all split into groups depending on the wireframing tool of choice that we were going to use (I’m and Omnigraffle user). After splitting up we were given information on the client, a couple of personas and some business requirements to begin working.

The client was a non-profit called Loan4Life, they provide micro loans to families that need to pay for Autism related treatments. The challenge was to build a new homepage, which would enable users to search for people who need help and to donate to these people. The session started off with a round of 8-up thumbnail sketches and a quick round of group critique. After picking elements from all the thumbnails that we liked the next step was to sketch out 1-up sketches of a few key pages and present them as a group to another group. Following this round we had to create a final wireframe in 30 minutes using the program of our choice and present the concept to the entire group.

While I didn’t particularly learn anything new, it was interesting to be able to compare my approach and skill level with other IA’s. I’m completely self taught and usually have no other people to use as references to compare my work with – so it was a welcome change to work in a group of other people who do the same thing for a living.

I wanted to take my cousin out for a meal that evening and he hadn’t been to Lady and Sons. This time he got the pot pie and I tried the bacon wrapped shrimp. The pot pie was better, either way you’re going to get a heart attack. Later on that evening there was a quick after party at a local bar, Moon River.

I stayed for a little while and then headed out to catch up with my cousin and visit some other bars that he recommended. I guess two of the big hotspots are Seed and Saya. Both were pretty cool, Saya had a very lounge feel to it with an Asian theme. Seed was more of an upscale bar.

Day 3

The second day of the conference were lectures that lasted from 10:00 to 5:00PM. All he lectures were spread out over the downtown SCAD campus in four of it’s venues, I won’t go through every lecture but subjects varied from the practical to the theoretical.

That night we had an event organized at the SCAD trustee’s garden. Among the highlights were Microsoft Surface tables, which were these touch sensitive coffee tables that you could play games on. Also they had set up an oyster-shucking table. Initially I was skeptical about the wisdom of providing open bar AND shucking knives to complete newbie’s (myself included) but I actually ended up learning how to shuck an oyster without killing myself.

Day 4

The next day I took an architectural tour of Savannah during lunch, the day ended up being kind of miserable with off and on rain. The tour itself was fantastic and was lead by the chair of architecture at SCAD. A few of the interesting facts learned were that Savannah is the largest port south of the mason Dixon line on the east coast. Also, the entire city is rested on a sand bar and the cobblestones that make up the port area were actually ballast from old ships that were loading up cargo n the 1700s. The city itself is actually elaborately panned in a series of squares with open public spaces/gardens that are laid out in a grid throughout the city.

That evening I tried the Shrimp with Grits at Vic’s on the River. The grits in this case were pretty amazing, light and creamy, they almost tasted like scrambled eggs. Actually they reminded me a lot of the spoon bread I had in California. I need the recipe, I tried duplicating the spoon bread a bunch of times and it never came out right.

That night Microsoft organized a party at the SCAD design center. I guess this is the building that the industrial design students take their cases at. There were student exhibits on display and it was amazing the amount of work that these kids put into their designs. I’ve said it before but if I could invent a time machine I’d go back and switch my major to Industrial Design.

Day 5

The final day of the conference was pretty low key for me, honestly attending sessions all day long and staying up late definitely gets to you after a while. Luckily this was sort of a half day event, it also happened to be the day of the Superbowl. Later on that evening I went out to a bar called JJ Boners (seriously) and caught the game surrounded by strangers. Actually it was pretty good because there were a bunch of Indy fans and the game ended up being kinda soul shattering for them.

Day 6

The last day of my say in Savannah was mostly spent walking round taking pictures. I was a bit obsessed with getting some pictures of the Spanish moss on the trees, an excellent time to break out the 50mm and play around with the DOF. After taking endless amounts of pictures, I headed down to the Wilkes house for what was promised to be the best food Savannah had to offer.

The Wilkes house is definitely a unique concept; basically it is southern cooking served in a communal family style. You walk in and get seated (no paying up front) you end up sitting with random strangers and get served a 10 course comfort food meal. It was an amazing experience, the first time in years that I had fried chicken. The atmosphere was completely unique and it was a fitting meal to end my trip on. I ended up taking it easy that night because of the plane I had to catch the next morning. Definitely good times though…

The last thing I did in Savannah was to get out at night and take some pics of the statues in the square. There is definitely an eery feeling about Savannah in the middle of the night, the atmosphere definitely has a ghostly quality to it.

I’ve had this tradition to catch a Bills-Patriots game for a few years now. It started back when I just got out of college, my first job was working for a subsidiary of the Kraft Group and my office was inside Gillette Stadium. Back then I used to be able to get tickets to just about any Patriots game, one of my roommates was from Buffalo so we made it a point to see the Bills play in Foxboro. My buddy, Rob, recently moved back to Buffalo and we made plans to take the trek up to visit him and see a Patriots game in Ralph Wilson Stadium.

We spent the first night at a bar called Coles, just down the street from where Rob lives (ladies, you know where he’s at). The food was decent and the bar area was a good scene. The thing to order were the burgers, I got a Cajun-something or other, it was good. The bar was pretty packed and it kinda looked like a toy store at Christmas with all of the decorations – a toy store that serve’s alcohol…

After this we went a few blocks down to another bar called JP Bullfeathers, this one had a pretty decent scene and there were plenty of girls hanging around to talk to. Actually, that’s one thing about upstate New York – the girls are pretty down to earth and approachable. Definitely way more approachable than girls in Boston. I’m not sure why that is, but I guess it’s a good reason to move. The camera got passed around a bit and at some point the ISO got bumped up to 3200… I converted a lot of the shots to B&W, also I tried split toning some of the shots to give it a slightly kodachrome look.

Finally, on the way back home we stopped by this late-night taco place. Definitely hit the spot, it brought back memories of living in Davis Sq and stumbling into Anna’s before it shut down. Something about taco’s, they just hit the spot after a night in the town.

The next day we were all fairly under the weather. Rob promised us actual-bonafide buffalo wings. Supposedly Anchor Bar is a tourist trap, the real deal (he promised) was at Gabriel’s Gate (I checked Yelp! when I got back home and I guess a lot of the locals agree). The restaurant itself is pretty cool it almost had a New Orleans vibe to it with the antique tiled ceiling. The wings were good, but I feel the need to try a few other Buffalo restaurants before I’m willing to concede any titles (maybe next time I’ll do a more thorough taste test). I also had the club sandwich which was so gigantic I was unable to finish it – I guess value is no problem over here.

Ok so here’s is probably the best story from the entire trip. Let me introduce you to “Tron”, we named him that after the Chappele Show recurring character “Tron Carter”.

While we were eating this guy walks into the bar and just starts shooting the shit with anyone. Everyone turns around to look at him because he was so loud that he made himself the center of attention. He also uttered some of the weirdest/best lines of dialogue that I have personally ever heard. My friends and I were trying to figure out if he was a pimp, a bookie, a dealer or all three combined.

So he starts off by talking about football and how much money he has on the different games. Another patron at the bar gets sucked into this conversation and then notices the watch Tron is wearing. The conversation went something like this:

Man: “That’s a nice watch you got there, what is is?”
Tron: “It’s a Omega. Look here” [Tron pulls up his sleeve]. “Platinum!” “And look at this.” [pulls out a roll of money] “Bam! Hundred dollar bills!” “Man, I’m working not to work. You dig?”

Tron then orders a drink from the bartender…

Bartender: “What do you want”
Tron: “You tell me, you the one that knows. I want you to do what you do best. I’ll do what I do best, and I want you to do what you do best”

Somehow the conversation turns to Tron’s personal life..

Tron: “I have 4 wives…. They take care of me.”

And then things get violent…

Tron: “I was there man, I saw it! I saw her when she got fucked up. Seriously man, they found her naked in the attic, she had to have 87 stitches. I seen it.”

We were all quiet while all of this was going on, but we wanted to laugh so hard. On the way out of the restaurant one of the waitresses begged us to take her with us. Apparently the guy is a regular and once he starts talking he doesn’t stop for hours. My only regret is that I didn’t (a) take a picture or (b) video tape the entire conversation. Thus you’ll have to settle for my crudely drawn illustration of Tron and imagine the scene for yourself… When we got out of the car and started driving back to Rob’s apartment, we couldn’t stop quoting Tron and cracking up about it. Seriously, I nearly pissed myself laughing. The only way it could have been better is if Tron said “Look at me America! Look how Tron is living for the citaay!”

That night we went out to a Buffalo Sabres game, this was my first time going to a NHL game ever (yep, I’ve never seen the Bruins play). Before heading into the stadium we grabbed a quick drink at the “Pearl St Grill” which was pretty big (kinda reminded me of Jillian’s but more of a sports bar). The Sabres were playing the Penguins, apparently a lot of Pittsburgh fans don’t mind the drive up to Buffalo because the stadium was rough 60-40 Sabres-Penguins fans. There were also a lot of Canadians in participation. We tease Rob about him actually being a Canadian, he didn’t help himself when the first national anthem that was played at the game was the Canadian one. The Sabres ended up loosing the game, the cool thing was that it went into a penalty shootout. After the game we went to a random dive bar with a presidential/historical theme. It was actually a good time and a pretty neat bar – though I can’t remember the name of it.

The next day we got up early to tailgate before the Bills game… The weather was in the 20’s but windchill brought the temperature further down into the teens. Of course, the idiot that I am, I forget to bring my gloves and the extra pair of socks. Luckily a guy was selling Bills glove (yes, I had to suck up my pride and buy them – it was worth it) also my buddy Greg has a pair of feet warmers that kept my toes alive (I needed those too). Tailgating is tailgating, I guess there is not much I can say about it. Well, except that a girl ended up squatting behind Ed’s car to go to the bathroom – Buffalo girls definitely are different than Boston girls.

The game itself was pretty good, we had great seats about 120 feet from the field and on one of the corners of the stadium. You could see both sides of the field easily with a perfect 3/4 view and no obstructions. I was trying my best ot be the unassuming fan of the opposing team, Chris was doing his best to be the Pats fan he is and crawl under the skin of every Bills fan that he could. A lot of people were wearing hunter orange… some of these guys own guns and I wouldn’t want to piss them off.

After the game we went back to Rob’s apartment, it was our last night so we bought some Chinese food and settled in early before the long ride home to Boston the next morning.

I’m a lazy blogger, I took these shots over Thanksgiving break while my brother was in town. I’ve been trying to do more portrait photography and to learn more about lighting. I’m trying to follow the Strobist coursework, but I definitely procrastinate more than Id like to admit. Ultimately I’m going to start taking more self portraits, but for now I needed to wait until I had another person to shoot.

This is a simple setup, basically one strobe with a shoot through umbrella that is placed on camera left with the umbrella pointing down at the subject at about 45 degrees. I placed the subject against the fireplace to add some texture to the background (and because it’s the coolest spot in our house). I was striving for a lot of shadows and contrast for this shoot, mimicking some of the pics I took during the A Camp concert.

The camera I used was my Nikon D90 with my 50mm f/1.4D lens. I also had two light stands (ended up mostly using one) with SB-26 flashes. Originally my hope was to use the Cactus radio trigger I had bought, but alas the tigger broke when I dropped it. I ended up putting the camera in Commander mode, with the hope of using the in-built optical slave of the SB-26 to set off the flash. Luckily for me this worked, even though I guess this should really not have worked at all. Also, because I was using the commander mode I effectively actually added some additional light, directly facing the subject.

I’m pretty happy with the results. I also tried processing black and white and split-tone to get a sort of Kodachrome green.

I’ve been a fan of The Cardigans for 10+ years now, I heard about them back in the mid 90’s after Lovefool broke out in the US. I was a member of BMG (remember buying music through mail-in catalogs?) and I soon purchased “First Band On the Moon” and “Life”. For some reason I never got a chance to see The Cardigans perform, even though I’m sure they came by the Boston area plenty of times.

As the years went by the popularity of the band in the states waned. The last time they announced a concert was a couple of years ago, but the Boston date got canceled due to a lack of ticket purchases (my loss, that would have been my first Cardigans concert).

Nina is now playing in her (former) side project A Camp, which I mispronounce as A-Camp (like A-Team). Again I missed them perform in Boston earlier this year because I was traveling to San Francisco, so when they announced their last tour date of 2009 in NYC, I made sure to buy myself a ticket.

The albums themselves are pretty awesome, it’s good to hear Nina’s voice again and I appreciate the complex mixture of melancholy and love that marks much of her writing. Personally out of A Camp’s two albums I actually prefer “Colonia”, their newest release. My favorite tracks are probably “Golden Teeth and Silver Medals” and “Love Has Left the Room”. From their self-titled debut my favorite tracks are “I Can Buy You” and “Song For the Leftovers”.

The concert was billed as an intimate night with the band. I’ve never been to this venue myself but it was pretty cool, right on Bleecker St in the middle of all the action of Greenwich Village. The venue was setup with tables surrounding the stage going about 4 rows deep, beyond that was more room for people who wanted to standup. By the time I go to the venue there was already a line around the block of people waiting to get in. Luckily for me I spotted an empty seat at one of the tables and asked if I could join the people there. Lucky for me, I had my S90 with me and I was right dead center of the stage about 15 feet away.

A Camp is comprised of three people, Nina (vocals and occasional harmonica), Nathan Larson (bass and spousal support) and Nicklas Frisk (guitar). Also they had a full backing band including James Iha on rhythm guitar, remember him? This was pretty cool for me, I’m a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan as well and the two times I went to see them he was not their guitarist (this was recently, after the breakup of the original lineup). There was also a backing band consisting of drums, cello, saxophone and keyboards.

The show itself was great but I felt it was kind of short as well, maybe I was just having too good a time? The band performed songs from both albums and also ended the show with a fantastic cover of Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them”. Nina has an amazing voice, a testament that any Cardigans fan will be quick to confirm. After their last song, the Nina quickly ducked out and left for the green room. The venue dispersed and a few of the backing band stayed behind to mill around with the crowd and help sell some merch. Definitely a good performance.

Finally, this last shot is probably my favorite one from the concert. It’s the same picture as the first one on this post except I cropped the picture to isolate Nathan and Nina. I also changed the picture to grayscale (obviously) and painted out some of the highlights that I wanted to avoid (like the spotlight above Nina’s head). I wish I was as good at lighting to make pictures look this good myself – I guess that’s the next area I need to focus on.