Yesterday I had the pleasure of covering 'The Dream @50' Celebration at The Met. This was an art contest awards ceremony that included submissions from local K-12 students, meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech. Though the actual date isn't until August 28 (something I've always remembered as it's also my birthday), holding this event in January was a great, touching way to start of Black History Month this year.
The assignment for the art competition was to present a piece that reflected on the progress of the Civil Rights Movement in the decades since MLK's work. What was really interesting/inspiring was how much of the artwork dealt with not just the state of Blacks, but of all races, religions and orientations.
The ceremony included two performances by students from the Harlem School of the Arts. Between the artwork and the performers, there was some amazing stuff presented. I kept having to remind myself that these were elementary, middle and high school kids dancing and singing and painting, etc. - which made the work 'RULL' impressive, rather than simply 'really' impressive.
Curators made several references to works form the American Wing throughout the ceremony, so I decided to take a walkthrough afterwards and as a bonus I've included some of those HDR's.
Here are pictures from my latest shoot at the Met - an improv show by The Upright Citizens Brigade touring company, featuring SNL's Bobby Moynihan. The event coincides with the museum's Infinite Jest exhibit.
ARTICLE COMING SOON - (From the Met's Website:)
"Shen Wei Dance Arts performed in the Charles Engelhard Court as part of the Concerts & Lectures department's Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Series. Shen Wei is an award-winning choreographer, painter, designer, and photographer known for his dramatic choreography of the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing."
The other night I had another amazing opportunity to take pictures for the Spectrum, a great program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized by Christopher Gorman and Morgan Holzer. I've previously taken pictures for their Guster and Duke Special concerts. This time it was songwriter, Academy Award-winner and costar of the movie "Once," Glen Hansard (the broken-hearted-Hoover fixer-suckin' guy himself!), more commonly known as one half of The Swell Season, who played a concert in the museum's Temple of Dendur exhibit.
The show began with a walk through the museum's Guitar Heroes exhibit, which featured guitars and other stringed instruments crafted by John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto and John Monteleone. These were some beautiful instruments - works of art themselves.
The crowd then filed into the Temple of Dendur, an ancient Egyptian site that was moved to its own giant exhibit at the museum in 1967. The temple was amazing in itself, but it also made for a beautiful performance space. Once the crowd was settled, and had kicked back a few beers, Morgan Holzer and Christopher Gorman raffled off 25 hand-crafted gig posters designed by Hero Design Studio, a company from Buffalo run by Mark Brickey and his wife, Beth Manos Brickey.
Glen finally worked his way through the crowd, which by now was on its feet. He played an amazing solo acoustic set, giving off more energy with a single voice/guitar than I've seen from five-piece, so-called "rock" bands. At one point he invited a young kid named Donovan Dwyer onstage to play a song (Christopher Gorman asked him after the set if that was planned, and Glen replied that he didn't even know the kid - he just saw him next to the stage with a guitar and invited him on up). Unfortunately I was in the middle of changing vantage points while all this happened, so my pictures of Donovan are a little blurry/shaky, but the moment was too great; I had to include a few shots. Hansard finished up his set sharing the stage with Mark Geary for a song, and serenading the crowd a capella with an old Irish folk song.
Once again, I found myself incredibly lucky to bear witness to another night of amazing music, performed by amazing musicians, and put on by some pretty amazing people. Also, by some twist of fate, I was asked to share my photos with Brooklyn Vegan, a very cool live music photo website. It's nights like these that help me validate all the stress and early hours of working for a yearbook photo company (that and the steady paychecks), and inspires me to keep taking pictures. Many thanks to everyone involved for the opportunity!
Anyway, without further ado, here are my shots from the night, including a hefty amount of HDR images. Hope you all like!
The past few of months have been pretty interesting. On one hand, we had some nasty flooding, but on the other hand, I've had some amazing opportunities as an aspiring/up-and-coming/dude-with-a-camera photographer.
It all started when I got tickets to see Gusterperform at the Met with artist Jon Sarkin. Through a back-and-forth of emails with the co-chairs of Spectrum, I was able to attend the sound check and take pictures backstage. I had originally just wanted to bring my camera to the show, but now I got to meet the band, watch them rehearse, and eat their food! My pictures from the evening ended up getting posted on the Metropolitain Museum of Art's website, their flickr page and Jon Sarkin's website. Besides the obvious excitement about all this exposure, I feel incredibly lucky just to have had the chance to meet these incredible people -- some of whom just happen to be in one of my favorite bands ever.
A few weeks later I was invited back to the Met to take pictures at a similar event. This time an irish musician named Duke Special was playing original songs inspired by photos from the Met's temporary exhibit, "Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand," which showcased the iconic photos of Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Paul Strand. The show consisted of Duke Special playing songs while the photos were displayed on several screens. Again, I found myself backstage with some more incredibly interesting people.
Embarrassingly, I had never been to the Met just to look around and see the art. So finally, a few days ago, I hopped back over (rather, tunneled under) the Hudson River one day after work to check out the museum and take some pictures for their Get Closer contest. The point of the contest was to submit a picture of a complete piece of art as well as a close-up detail shot. I had a lot of fun with the assignment; here's the piece I ultimately submitted,
Chuck Close's "Lucas," 1986-87
Oil and pencil on canvas.
and here are some others that I almost submitted:
Andy Warhol's "Still Life," 1976
Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas.
Chuck Close's "Mark," 1978-79
Acrylic on canvas.
Georg Baselitz's "Adler im Fenster," 1982
Oil on canvas.
Jackson Pollock's "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)," 1950
Enamel on canvas.
I'm currently waiting to hear back about the contest, but in any case I've finally been to the Met, and I've made some pretty cool diptychs!
That pretty much sums it up. The big highlights of 2011 so far: flood, Guster, Duke Special, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other than that I've just been working, living on the cheap and saving up for my long, expensive shopping list of out-of-date-equipment-in-need-of-replacing. Assuming you've read all the way to the bottom, thanks for reading!
Last Friday I had the amazing opportunity of shooting a sold out show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, featuring the music of Guster and the art of folk artist Jon Sarkin. I have been a huge Guster fan since the early 2000's, so this was a bit of a dream come true for me. While I was unfamiliar with Sarkin's work, throughout the evening I quickly became a fan of his as well. I also had the pleasure of meeting a number of interesting people, including Spectrum co-chairs Morgan Holzer and Chris Gorman; string players K Ishibashi and Dana Leong; and Amy Ellis Nutt, a writer for the Newark Star Ledger. All in all a pretty unforgettable evening - one I hope I was able to capture adequately in photos!
Below are some of my best shots from the night. (I'm using Flickr slideshows for the time being, until I can upgrade my Photoshelter account.)
