Liz Clark

This is Liz Clark playing at Avogadro's Number here in Fort Collins. Avo's is a pretty tight place here in Fort Fun to hang out. Good food, nice atmosphere, tasty college muffins. Liz is a musician from Denver. As for Liz, the first time I went to see her I was concerned that it was going to be some bubblegum crap (she was 19 at the time and I have little faith in teenages). I was surprised however with her material and her stage presence. She is very at ease in front of people and I even sprange for her CD. If you get the chance I recommend checking her out. This was the third time I went to see her and decided to try taking some shots. Out of 37 frames these were the best.

For those of you wondering why they look like "crap" and for those of you interested in the technical details:
28-70mm lens, f3.5
Kodak T-Max 3200 push processed 2 stops (which is why there is so much grain)
shutter speed 60 or 90, except for liz33 & liz37 which were .5 seconds exposures, hand held while using a piano for support
and not much damn light at all.

Actually I was pretty happy with how these came out. Given the conditions I was expecting less than this. First off it was pretty darn dark for f3.5. I couldn'd even get anything of the drummer. He was in a black hole back there. Second, I was shooting up at Liz & company, so I got all these great shots up her nose. The best way to get band photos is to be on stage with them, but the stage at Avo's is hardly big enuf for the 3 of them, much less me dancing around up there also. And if you are wondering, yes I have have been smacked by a guitar while taking photos on stage. It's a harzard of the art. As long as they don't hit the camera everything is cool.

These were scanned from the negatives and have not been digitally altered in any way. It probably wouldn't be too hard to enhance them some using GIMP, and I may play with them in the future. The white boarder comes from when they were scanned, that is the frame holder. I usually leave it in as I like the effect and it shows the full frame. I try to avoid "creative cropping" as I regard that as "cheating".