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.

 

    Today marks the first Formula One race in the US in several years, wait you didn’t know that? Its no surprise as F1 is virtually unknown and unpublicized in the states. Even a casual race fan frequently confuses Indy Car and F1 here. I’m not going to go into a point by point comparison to explain the differences, but I will just touch on the highlights and point out the single biggest difference.

       F1  is a truly global sport with drivers and teams from all over the map. Indy is a uniquely American product, there are plenty of foreign drivers (many formerly in F1) but the teams and sponsors are american. Indy runs a mix of ovals and street courses where F1 runs exclusively road courses. The cars and engines are quite different as well. Indy everything is spec and all teams run virtually the same thing, in F1 each team designs their own car.

       Thats it for the basics, there are a lot more subtle differences but in a nutshell that touches on the main points. The best way for americans to think of it is like football (soccer here) its a sport the world watches and americans just don’t understand.

       The biggest difference is something most people don’t even think about when comparing the two. The biggest difference between Indy and F1 is one man. Yup, one person Bernie Ecclestone. Love him or hate him (and I lean toward the latter) he is the man responsible for F1’s popularity on the world stage. Where Indy has a board of directors with political infighting, a revolving door of CEOs and the constant battle for control between team owners and the board, F1 has Bernie. Indy uses so much energy to fight amongst themselves its hard to see them ever retaining their former glory, F1 has Bernie. Many people disagree with his decisions and opinions, but he rules with an iron fist and in the end, that is actually a good thing.

        Will Bernie be able to crack the elusive US market? Will F1 gain in popularity here? Only time will tell, but as much as I don’t like him, I’m not betting agains him.