After a year in Maine, I’m happy to say Stage Left Photography is getting settled into the new permanent location. The gallery and studio still need a little tweaking, but we’re here and we aren’t going anywhere. The move to Maine may have taken a little longer than planned, but it was definitely the right move. NYC is now Disneyland, a shadow of its former self, the urban sprawl and constant development made working and living there increasingly difficult. Maine, the way life should be. 

After more than 20 years serving the NYC area Stage Left Photography is moving to Maine! Its been a great run in NYC, but the city we loved is no longer there. The time was right and the opportunity presented itself, so off we go. Look for some big announcements from Mid-Coast Maine in the near future! 

     Imperfection is beautiful, a lot of things in my life have been pointing me to that conclusion lately. I recently had discussion about live music with a friend. She said she prefers studio albums because everything is crisp, clear and precise. I said I prefer live albums (and going to concerts) specifically because they are NOT all those things. A recent concert experience perfectly illustrated my point. It was a solo show by one of my favorite artists, it was just her standing on stage alone, warts and all. It was far from perfect and precise, but there was an energy and feeling that could never come out of a studio or been processed with pro tools. Music and all of the arts are about feeling not precision. Dance is the same, someone can be precise and do all the steps perfectly but still not be “dancing” Dance is a feeling, an emotion, not a series of steps. 

     Photography is the same. Photoshop has become our pro tools, everything precise and crisp and overly processed. HDR is overused, everything looks “too” perfect. Step away from the computer and just look at the image, its all going to be ok.

I recently  went to the Formula One race in Montreal Canada. It’s a fantastic event in a fantastic city and I’ve attended it more times than I care to admit. Anyone who reads this blog or has seen this website knows I am a professional photographer. Yes I do take pictures around Montreal and at the race track during practice, but not during the race. I recently read a blog on how sad it is that so many people seem to go through life now staring at their smart phones and not lifting their heads up and looking around. There is something magical about being at an event, weather its a Formula One race or a concert. That magic is lost when viewing the event on a 4” smart phone screen or through a camera lens. Yes I shoot concerts for a living, many artists put limit on the amount of time you can shoot, the number of songs you can be in front of the stage, and I’m ok with that. I love music, I love concerts, I love F1. The atmosphere the vibe and the total experience is lost completely if you do not let yourself be immersed in the event. I came home and sat down on the couch with a cold tasty beverage to watch the broadcast of the race. I realized just how many things happened during the race that I completely missed. I had fantastic seats and a big screen in front of me, but I still missed several significant events during the race. I’m ok with that. What I got from being there was so much more than the few details I missed. When you are on vacation, at a concert, or at an event, please, put the camera or smartphone down and just soak it all in. 

As I am writing this I am listening to The Who’s “Quadrophenia” start to finish. A few tracks in I realized there there will never be an album like this made again. No Wall, Tommy, or 2112 either. There is a certain beauty in listening to an entire album with a musical theme, something comforting. In these days of iTunes and American Idol, if someone did make a great album who would buy it? There is an entire generation that has no idea that music exists outside a playlist and that is very sad. I can’t tell you how many people I see on the subway sharing headphones and listening to only one channel of a stereo mix. I don’t know if they are so clueless that they don’t know what they are missing, or the music is that bad and they aren’t really missing anything. 

     I’ve been in the industry a long time now, I’ve seen a lot of changes, I’ve always tried to be optimistic about the future of music. The realization that the album is dead may be more that I can take. There are still great musicians out there, I work with a lot of them, there is still great music being made, its just getting harder and harder to find it.