Kyle Cassidy's Blog, page 8
November 16, 2016
My Philcon Schedule
I'll be at Philcon this weekend 11/19-11/20 -- come see me! I'm doing four panels, a workshop and a reading / autograph session. And freaking CHIP DELANY is going to be on one of them with me. Also SUNDAY at NOON is my workshop on authors headshots -- if you need a headshot or if you want to learn how to do them, this is for you.
Sat 4:00 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (1 hour)
REMEMBERING DAVID HARTWELL (2406)
[Panelists: David M. Axler (mod), Samuel R. Delany, Kyle Cassidy, Grant Carrington, L.E. Modesitt Jr., Michael J. Walsh]
A celebration of the life and achievements of one of the genre's greatest figures
Sat 7:00 PM in Plaza IV (Four) (1 hour)
SEEING THE WILD: ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHY, ART, AND CONSERVATION (2470)
[Panelists: Alan Beck (mod), Kyle Cassidy, Lisa Hertel]
Does using the newest photo technology to take pictures of wild animals in their natural habitat help or hinder conservation efforts? How are new techniques for studying behavior and raising public awareness impacting the subjects being focused on
Sat 9:00 PM in Plaza II (Two) (1 hour)
PENNSYLVANIA WEIRD (2440)
[Panelists: Darrell Schweitzer (mod), Mary Spila, W. Randy Hoffman, Jeff Young, Kyle Cassidy]
Let's explore science fiction and fantasy either set in or about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Sun 11:00 AM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
MARKETING MULTI-GENRE WORKS (2418)
[Panelists: Danielle Ackley-McPhail (mod), Kyle Cassidy, Tee Morris, Elizabeth Crowens]
With all the slipstream and mash-up fiction being published, where do you draw the lines between genres? Who is publishing works that fall under multiple sub-genres? And how do you write and successfully market stories that don't fit standard expectations
Sun 12:00 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (1 hour)
HOW TO TAKE HEADSHOTS FOR AUTHOR BIOS (2649)
[Panelists: Kyle Cassidy (mod)]
Need to update the picture on your website's About page? Want the perfect photo for the dust jacket of your latest novel? Just interested in learning the basics of portrait photography? Photographer Kyle Cassidy will teach you how to find the best angles for yourself and others. (If you have a camera, please bring it along!
Sun 2:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour)
READINGS: KYLE CASSIDY AT 2PM & PETER PRELLWITZ AT 2:30PM (2689)
[Panelists: Kyle Cassidy (mod), Peter Prellwitz]
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Sat 4:00 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (1 hour)
REMEMBERING DAVID HARTWELL (2406)
[Panelists: David M. Axler (mod), Samuel R. Delany, Kyle Cassidy, Grant Carrington, L.E. Modesitt Jr., Michael J. Walsh]
A celebration of the life and achievements of one of the genre's greatest figures
Sat 7:00 PM in Plaza IV (Four) (1 hour)
SEEING THE WILD: ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHY, ART, AND CONSERVATION (2470)
[Panelists: Alan Beck (mod), Kyle Cassidy, Lisa Hertel]
Does using the newest photo technology to take pictures of wild animals in their natural habitat help or hinder conservation efforts? How are new techniques for studying behavior and raising public awareness impacting the subjects being focused on
Sat 9:00 PM in Plaza II (Two) (1 hour)
PENNSYLVANIA WEIRD (2440)
[Panelists: Darrell Schweitzer (mod), Mary Spila, W. Randy Hoffman, Jeff Young, Kyle Cassidy]
Let's explore science fiction and fantasy either set in or about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Sun 11:00 AM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
MARKETING MULTI-GENRE WORKS (2418)
[Panelists: Danielle Ackley-McPhail (mod), Kyle Cassidy, Tee Morris, Elizabeth Crowens]
With all the slipstream and mash-up fiction being published, where do you draw the lines between genres? Who is publishing works that fall under multiple sub-genres? And how do you write and successfully market stories that don't fit standard expectations
Sun 12:00 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (1 hour)
HOW TO TAKE HEADSHOTS FOR AUTHOR BIOS (2649)
[Panelists: Kyle Cassidy (mod)]
Need to update the picture on your website's About page? Want the perfect photo for the dust jacket of your latest novel? Just interested in learning the basics of portrait photography? Photographer Kyle Cassidy will teach you how to find the best angles for yourself and others. (If you have a camera, please bring it along!
Sun 2:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour)
READINGS: KYLE CASSIDY AT 2PM & PETER PRELLWITZ AT 2:30PM (2689)
[Panelists: Kyle Cassidy (mod), Peter Prellwitz]
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November 14, 2016
run run run
trillian_stars
and I did the 5k Gobble Wobble race to help the Woodlands cemetery (where suffragette Mary Grew is buried). It was perfect racing weather. We unexpectedly won -- not the whole race, but a prize and we worked on a Top Sekrit Project after, in conjunction with the cemetery which might turn into something awesome. Or not. Who knows at this point.Getting ready to start.
Clickenzee to embiggen
There was a turkey luring in the cemetery.
Clickenzee to embiggen
The sprinting in action.
Clickenzee to embiggen
We won a cake.
Clickenzee to embiggen
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November 8, 2016
Mary Grew & Trillian Stars
There's a suffragette buried in West Philly not far from our house. Her name was Mary Grew and she worked her entire life to end slavery and get women the right to vote. Unfortunately she died 20 years before the 19th amendment.
trillian_stars
wanted to leave her "I voted" sticker there today after we voted. So we made a placard (to discourage other people from putting their stickers right on the stone which is in bad enough shape already)
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
She's buried in Section C, Plot 566. It's a marble tombstone with almost all the writing eroded off of it under the largest three trees in that section.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
The lines were pretty long at the polling place. We got there at 6:50, but were out by 7:11 and at the cemetery by 7:30.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
The cemetery had predicted people might come out and had erected some message boards and signs about her.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
Mary Grew famously said "what is woman going to do with the ballot? I don't know; I don't care; and it is of no consequence. The right to the ballot does not rest on the way in which they vote."
So however you voted, if you voted, I'm sure she'd be proud. And if you happen to walk past her grave today, leave your sticker on the placard, not on her stone.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
The easiest thing to do is follow the path to the mansion, then go around behind. The road bends deeply to the south, and then comes back up north and east to a point. She's in the area between the furthest south bend and the point, under three giant trees.
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trillian_stars
wanted to leave her "I voted" sticker there today after we voted. So we made a placard (to discourage other people from putting their stickers right on the stone which is in bad enough shape already)
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
She's buried in Section C, Plot 566. It's a marble tombstone with almost all the writing eroded off of it under the largest three trees in that section.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
The lines were pretty long at the polling place. We got there at 6:50, but were out by 7:11 and at the cemetery by 7:30.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
The cemetery had predicted people might come out and had erected some message boards and signs about her.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
Mary Grew famously said "what is woman going to do with the ballot? I don't know; I don't care; and it is of no consequence. The right to the ballot does not rest on the way in which they vote."
So however you voted, if you voted, I'm sure she'd be proud. And if you happen to walk past her grave today, leave your sticker on the placard, not on her stone.
Trillian. You may clickenzee to embiggen.
The easiest thing to do is follow the path to the mansion, then go around behind. The road bends deeply to the south, and then comes back up north and east to a point. She's in the area between the furthest south bend and the point, under three giant trees.
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
September 30, 2016
This is not a fitness blog: but I just found out what happens if you go for 3 months w/o training
2016 was a banner year for me, fitnesswise. At least the first part of it. There wasn't a personal record that I didn't break. I ran, by far, my fastest 5K, I knocked a huge ball of time off of my 10 mile time and, in February, I crushed my half marathon time, and PR'd with 1:44:45, which, without looking up numbers, is something like five minutes off my previous best. I was on top of the world.
And then the summer came and it was awful and every time I was supposed to run, I'd open the front door, get blasted by the wet furnace and go back inside and eat a taco instead.
After massive successes, it's nice to take a bit of time off, but I took the entire summer off. Early in the year I was thinking that I'd be able to break my PR again at the Rock and Roll Half in September, all I'd have to do was keep training like the beast I'd become.
Oh well.
As it turns out I went into Rock and Roll not having run a race since I smashed Broad Street in April. I had no idea what pace I'd be capable of but decided to stick with the Two Hour pace group, which is a 9 minute pace. I'd done the Love Run at 7:59.
It was a warm, muggy day. Really muggy. Which didn't bode well. And when we went out of the blocks, the pace group immediately got stuck behind some slow people. (In big races hundreds, or thousands of people wildly overestimate their paces and even with staggered starts, the first mile is often just trying to get around people who put themselves in a far too ambitious corral) I was worried that if I ran too slowly at first I wouldn't have enough to make it up in the end -- If we ran a 9:30 the first mile, I'd have to run an 8:30 somewhere else to make it up and that sounded bad. So I left the pace group. And by mile 6 I was about a minute and a half in front of them (I know this because I saw them at an out-and-back) and things were going really well, I thought I might be able to do a 1:55, which would be really great. By mile 8 they'd gotten a bit less well, and by mile 10 things were terrible. I had to fight to keep my head up and every step was a constant battle to keep from stopping. There's a loud voice in your head saying You can end this pain right now! You can walk for a bit! There's no shame in walking! but even when the race isn't important, quitting is bad -- it has a catastrophic and cascading effect because you've allowed quitting to be possible -- once you've done it, you can never again be the person who's never quit. That's the other voice. I figured that as long as I could still possibly make it in sub 2:00 I'd have to keep pushing, even thought I didn't have much push. I slowed down a lot and started losing all the time I'd banked but I kept willing myself to go faster. It was all I could do in mile 13 to speed up to 9:13 from the 9:30 I'd run in mile 12 and as I finally saw the finish line up ahead I was starting to lose my peripheral vision. Trillian had come out to watch and although I knew where she should be, I couldn't see her, despite passing within a foot of her. I figured I'd just run as hard as I could and if I blacked out and fell over, I'd at least get a good photo as medics dragged me across the finish line, or, possibly better yet, I insisted on crawling while they hovered over me with an IV bag.
I don't really remember it ending but when trillian found me a few minutes later I was starting to feel better. It was, I think, the toughest race I've ever run, at least at the end.
I finished in 1:59:13.
That's what happens if you stop training and spend the summer eating junk food.
But. I did it. I'm back. I'll get fast again. Tomorrow is another day.
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
And then the summer came and it was awful and every time I was supposed to run, I'd open the front door, get blasted by the wet furnace and go back inside and eat a taco instead.
After massive successes, it's nice to take a bit of time off, but I took the entire summer off. Early in the year I was thinking that I'd be able to break my PR again at the Rock and Roll Half in September, all I'd have to do was keep training like the beast I'd become.
Oh well.
As it turns out I went into Rock and Roll not having run a race since I smashed Broad Street in April. I had no idea what pace I'd be capable of but decided to stick with the Two Hour pace group, which is a 9 minute pace. I'd done the Love Run at 7:59.
It was a warm, muggy day. Really muggy. Which didn't bode well. And when we went out of the blocks, the pace group immediately got stuck behind some slow people. (In big races hundreds, or thousands of people wildly overestimate their paces and even with staggered starts, the first mile is often just trying to get around people who put themselves in a far too ambitious corral) I was worried that if I ran too slowly at first I wouldn't have enough to make it up in the end -- If we ran a 9:30 the first mile, I'd have to run an 8:30 somewhere else to make it up and that sounded bad. So I left the pace group. And by mile 6 I was about a minute and a half in front of them (I know this because I saw them at an out-and-back) and things were going really well, I thought I might be able to do a 1:55, which would be really great. By mile 8 they'd gotten a bit less well, and by mile 10 things were terrible. I had to fight to keep my head up and every step was a constant battle to keep from stopping. There's a loud voice in your head saying You can end this pain right now! You can walk for a bit! There's no shame in walking! but even when the race isn't important, quitting is bad -- it has a catastrophic and cascading effect because you've allowed quitting to be possible -- once you've done it, you can never again be the person who's never quit. That's the other voice. I figured that as long as I could still possibly make it in sub 2:00 I'd have to keep pushing, even thought I didn't have much push. I slowed down a lot and started losing all the time I'd banked but I kept willing myself to go faster. It was all I could do in mile 13 to speed up to 9:13 from the 9:30 I'd run in mile 12 and as I finally saw the finish line up ahead I was starting to lose my peripheral vision. Trillian had come out to watch and although I knew where she should be, I couldn't see her, despite passing within a foot of her. I figured I'd just run as hard as I could and if I blacked out and fell over, I'd at least get a good photo as medics dragged me across the finish line, or, possibly better yet, I insisted on crawling while they hovered over me with an IV bag.
I don't really remember it ending but when trillian found me a few minutes later I was starting to feel better. It was, I think, the toughest race I've ever run, at least at the end.
I finished in 1:59:13.
That's what happens if you stop training and spend the summer eating junk food.
But. I did it. I'm back. I'll get fast again. Tomorrow is another day.
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
September 26, 2016
What do you fight a ghost with?
So, I’m staying at Amanda Palmer’s house, and it’s big, and we’re both on slightly different schedules, so I’m here alone a lot, in the SpookyHouse doing Top Sekrit Things (that are not Top Sekrit if you are part of her patreon) and this afternoon I go back to the house and I notice there’s a towel laying on the floor in my bathroom where I didn’t leave one. And I realize that it’s a folded towel that was on a shelf when I left. It’s just jumped two feet to the floor. And I’m really puzzled. And then I notice that there are two rolls of toilet paper laying on their sides that were previously stacked up. And then I notice a washcloth also on the floor.
Was there an earthquake??? I think.
Then this is starting to freak me out. I start to notice stuff all over the place that’s been moved slightly or has fallen over. There’s a trail of magazines spilled out of piles and sofa cushions that weren’t where they were….
Is Amanda doing this? Why would Amanda do this? She wouldn’t do this. She’d leave half a banana on the kitchen counter, or a teabag in the sink, but she wouldn’t pull out three National Geographic’s and shove them into a boot.
It’s a goddamn ghost! I think. I’m staying in a freaking haunted house! Something has come up from the spooky basement and moved things around. Not a lot, but everything’s just a bit off from where it was.
So then I'm all like What do you fight a ghost with? You can swing a baseball bat a ghost all you want and it's just going to shoot ectoplasm at you or crawl out of your TV and scare you to death or whatever. Like you need to call an exorcist or something, or solve the riddle of it's untimely death or whatever.
And I’m seriously worried for like five minutes, wandering around the house looking at all the stuff that moved until I realize that there’s a baby living in the house and that they crawl around and knock stuff over and shove fistfulls of oatmeal into your socks. This is, in fact, their job.
This is how my brain works.
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Was there an earthquake??? I think.
Then this is starting to freak me out. I start to notice stuff all over the place that’s been moved slightly or has fallen over. There’s a trail of magazines spilled out of piles and sofa cushions that weren’t where they were….
Is Amanda doing this? Why would Amanda do this? She wouldn’t do this. She’d leave half a banana on the kitchen counter, or a teabag in the sink, but she wouldn’t pull out three National Geographic’s and shove them into a boot.
It’s a goddamn ghost! I think. I’m staying in a freaking haunted house! Something has come up from the spooky basement and moved things around. Not a lot, but everything’s just a bit off from where it was.
So then I'm all like What do you fight a ghost with? You can swing a baseball bat a ghost all you want and it's just going to shoot ectoplasm at you or crawl out of your TV and scare you to death or whatever. Like you need to call an exorcist or something, or solve the riddle of it's untimely death or whatever.
And I’m seriously worried for like five minutes, wandering around the house looking at all the stuff that moved until I realize that there’s a baby living in the house and that they crawl around and knock stuff over and shove fistfulls of oatmeal into your socks. This is, in fact, their job.
This is how my brain works.
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August 24, 2016
Conversations with famous writers
Me: So, I know you're writing, but are you reading anything interesting now?
Famous Writer: Funny you should mention that. Someone came up to me in a signing line the other day and said "X is my favorite book of yours." and I said, "That's nice, but I don't have a book called X. And she said "Yes you do, it's my favorite book, I've read it 40 times." And after the signing was over I got my Kindle out and went to Amazon, just out of curiosity, and sure enough, there was a book by me called X that I have absolutely no memory of writing, so I bought it and I've been reading that for the past few days and it's actually quite good."
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Famous Writer: Funny you should mention that. Someone came up to me in a signing line the other day and said "X is my favorite book of yours." and I said, "That's nice, but I don't have a book called X. And she said "Yes you do, it's my favorite book, I've read it 40 times." And after the signing was over I got my Kindle out and went to Amazon, just out of curiosity, and sure enough, there was a book by me called X that I have absolutely no memory of writing, so I bought it and I've been reading that for the past few days and it's actually quite good."
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August 11, 2016
Dear Magic Hotel! NYC & Wisconsin
Hi folks! Two Magic Hotel requests --
trillian_stars
is in Macbeth (again) in New York and she's looking for a sofa to crash on tomorrow night (august 12, 2016) after rehearsal so that she doesn't need to sleep in the theater.
From the original production. You may clickenzee to embiggen!
SECONDLY, I'm going to be in Franklin Wisconsin at some point in the next couple months to do one photo. Anybody in the area? Looking for a driver & photo assistant for Top Sekrit Projekt. It will be exciting.
rock on!
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trillian_stars
is in Macbeth (again) in New York and she's looking for a sofa to crash on tomorrow night (august 12, 2016) after rehearsal so that she doesn't need to sleep in the theater.
From the original production. You may clickenzee to embiggen!
SECONDLY, I'm going to be in Franklin Wisconsin at some point in the next couple months to do one photo. Anybody in the area? Looking for a driver & photo assistant for Top Sekrit Projekt. It will be exciting.
rock on!
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
July 17, 2016
louYou Got Me Singing - The Album Cover Photo: Behind the Scenes
So ... a few months ago Amanda Palmer texted me & asked if I could do the album cover for a new album of covers she was doing with her dad, Jack. She wanted it (for complex reasons) to look like this Bob Dylan album cover:
And, (for complex reasons) we had access to the actual set from that photo shoot. Including a lot of the props. I spent a lot of time in the days before studying the original photo and trying to deconstruct how it was done. But when we got there, Neil had done a lot of research already about the type of camera and the light effects and had compiled stories from many of the people who were there on the set. It really was remarkable. I had initially thought that the blurry circle was added as a second exposure, something that Neil agreed with but in an interview the photographer denied. After spending a lot of time with it, I think it actually was a single, long exposure with the camera rotated during it. Camera starts at 10:00, shutter opens, camera rotation begins, when camera gets to 10:30 flash is fired, camera keeps rotating until it's at the 11:00 position and the shutter closes. Most of my evidence from this is from the lit candle in the upper left and the lamp shade right under it.
In any event. I did mine in two exposures because it was easier that way.
You Got Me Singing album cover. Bob Dylan was once right in this spot.
You may clickenzee to EmPalmerize
It's a bit maddening how difficult it is to get all the right angles and placement when you have the original right there in front of you.
trillian_stars
doubted my placement of the chaise lounge and in retrospect she was correct.
I lit it with one light behind an umbrella off to the side.
It took about 30 minutes of shooting to redo the cover photo and after that we did some publicity shots and played with the baby. (Trillian played with the baby, I just waved at him mostly. He smiled. Ash is a happy baby.) (Here's one of the publicity shots in a video for one of the songs.)
Outtake from publicity photos. I think this one got nixed for being "too arty".
But you may Clickenzee to EmArten.
Amanda, Trillian, Jack and Me. Jack is actually a stupendously charming guy. He's one of those people you meet and you're like instant friend. I hadn't met him before, though over the past 15 years or whatnot I've met Amanda's sister and her mother. Amanda spent about 40 minutes explaining her family tree, which is convoluted and I'm still not sure how anyone is related to one another, but Jack is a great guy and during some of the publicity photo shoots he sang and played guitar and I got goosebumps. So, there's that.
Setting up the scene you can see my high tech lighting system here -- on small shoot thru umbrella with a voice activated light stand. It was pretty simple. I used a 28mm lens and a Leica M9, triggered with Pocket Wizards. I'm trying to do everything with the Leica now because it's just so much smaller than the Nikon and I find myself thinking "what on earth am I going to do with a 36 megapixel file?" You can see that pile of things on the chez that Amanda picked out as being important. They range from magazines to influential records to a dalek. (Is dalek capitalized? You would't capitalize "lion" but you would "Parisian"... Ellen Datlow would know.) The 28mm was just barely wide enough to get the shot that I needed, and I ran out of room, I had to press the camera on the back wall -- I couldn't look through the viewfinder or put it on a tripod. I was actually facing the wall, holding the camera up against it, trying not to get my shoulder in the shot (it was in a bunch of them) while Neil helped to make Ash smile -- not that he's not always smiling. So we banged away at it for a while and it was done and we opened a bottle of wine. Like you do.
If you know me at all, you know that my favorite band ever was the 80's Goth Rock juggernaut The Fields of the Nephilim -- a few months before their guitar player, Peter Yates had posted a blog about how their record company had screwed them out of their profits. I sent it to Amanda, she reposted it because she knows that Sh!t is Real and Amanda & Peter met because of it and ... hopefully they're working on a collaboration now -- this might be my greatest contribution to the history of humanity. Here are Amanda & I talking about musicians, record companies, and how you stay relevant (along with a copy of Elizium, which is my favorite FOTN album. (You can buy a copy of it here.))
I discovered the Fields of the Nephilim while working in a bookstore and flipping through a book called "1000 record reviews". And the author gave the FOTN album an F- with the review "This album is only good in a black world where David Bowie is God." And I made a puzzled face thinking well ... he is, isn't he? & bought the album & never looked back. Finding good music isn't just looking for music that the right people like, it's also sometimes finding music that the wrong people hate.
Before we left Neil helped me out with a Top Sekrit Projekt, here at this restaurant. I'm continually amazed at what a nice person he is. Even with walls of deadlines, he'll lend his voice and his talent and his sphere of influence when he really doesn't need to but he does it because he's a genuinely kind person. If I'm ever about to post something snarky on the Internet I try and take step back, breathe for a second and ask myself "Would Neil Gaiman post this?" -- most of the time the answer is "no" and I delete whatever stinging criticism I had penned.
The Top Sekrit Projket thing becomes un-top-sekrit in January or February, something like that. I'll let you know when the world is supposed to know.
Trillian Stars returning from breakfast with a wandering writer who
was always lurking about the place committing acts of kindness.
You may clickenzee to Emawesome.
So we finished the album cover, we finished the publicity shots, we finished the Top Sekrit Projekt, I met the baby that I'd known as a bump, created from two people I'd watched meet and fall in love and get married, I met the singer without whom none of this would happen, I saw gigantic wild turkeys walking around like lazy squirrels, I went for a run along roads that Bob Dylan had driven his motorcycle, I deconstructed a photograph, learned about history ... I took a long ride on a train with Trillian Stars, I slept in a tiny room made by elves from a hollowed out tree, I ran in the forest, I searched for Drow ... I tried out a steam shower which is a truly terrifying thing, it's like a shower, but you're also blind at the same time.
And on the train on the way home I got what might be the most surreal, weird & wonderful text message of my life.
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And, (for complex reasons) we had access to the actual set from that photo shoot. Including a lot of the props. I spent a lot of time in the days before studying the original photo and trying to deconstruct how it was done. But when we got there, Neil had done a lot of research already about the type of camera and the light effects and had compiled stories from many of the people who were there on the set. It really was remarkable. I had initially thought that the blurry circle was added as a second exposure, something that Neil agreed with but in an interview the photographer denied. After spending a lot of time with it, I think it actually was a single, long exposure with the camera rotated during it. Camera starts at 10:00, shutter opens, camera rotation begins, when camera gets to 10:30 flash is fired, camera keeps rotating until it's at the 11:00 position and the shutter closes. Most of my evidence from this is from the lit candle in the upper left and the lamp shade right under it.
In any event. I did mine in two exposures because it was easier that way.
You Got Me Singing album cover. Bob Dylan was once right in this spot.
You may clickenzee to EmPalmerize
It's a bit maddening how difficult it is to get all the right angles and placement when you have the original right there in front of you.
trillian_stars
doubted my placement of the chaise lounge and in retrospect she was correct.I lit it with one light behind an umbrella off to the side.
It took about 30 minutes of shooting to redo the cover photo and after that we did some publicity shots and played with the baby. (Trillian played with the baby, I just waved at him mostly. He smiled. Ash is a happy baby.) (Here's one of the publicity shots in a video for one of the songs.)
Outtake from publicity photos. I think this one got nixed for being "too arty".
But you may Clickenzee to EmArten.
Amanda, Trillian, Jack and Me. Jack is actually a stupendously charming guy. He's one of those people you meet and you're like instant friend. I hadn't met him before, though over the past 15 years or whatnot I've met Amanda's sister and her mother. Amanda spent about 40 minutes explaining her family tree, which is convoluted and I'm still not sure how anyone is related to one another, but Jack is a great guy and during some of the publicity photo shoots he sang and played guitar and I got goosebumps. So, there's that.
Setting up the scene you can see my high tech lighting system here -- on small shoot thru umbrella with a voice activated light stand. It was pretty simple. I used a 28mm lens and a Leica M9, triggered with Pocket Wizards. I'm trying to do everything with the Leica now because it's just so much smaller than the Nikon and I find myself thinking "what on earth am I going to do with a 36 megapixel file?" You can see that pile of things on the chez that Amanda picked out as being important. They range from magazines to influential records to a dalek. (Is dalek capitalized? You would't capitalize "lion" but you would "Parisian"... Ellen Datlow would know.) The 28mm was just barely wide enough to get the shot that I needed, and I ran out of room, I had to press the camera on the back wall -- I couldn't look through the viewfinder or put it on a tripod. I was actually facing the wall, holding the camera up against it, trying not to get my shoulder in the shot (it was in a bunch of them) while Neil helped to make Ash smile -- not that he's not always smiling. So we banged away at it for a while and it was done and we opened a bottle of wine. Like you do.
If you know me at all, you know that my favorite band ever was the 80's Goth Rock juggernaut The Fields of the Nephilim -- a few months before their guitar player, Peter Yates had posted a blog about how their record company had screwed them out of their profits. I sent it to Amanda, she reposted it because she knows that Sh!t is Real and Amanda & Peter met because of it and ... hopefully they're working on a collaboration now -- this might be my greatest contribution to the history of humanity. Here are Amanda & I talking about musicians, record companies, and how you stay relevant (along with a copy of Elizium, which is my favorite FOTN album. (You can buy a copy of it here.))
I discovered the Fields of the Nephilim while working in a bookstore and flipping through a book called "1000 record reviews". And the author gave the FOTN album an F- with the review "This album is only good in a black world where David Bowie is God." And I made a puzzled face thinking well ... he is, isn't he? & bought the album & never looked back. Finding good music isn't just looking for music that the right people like, it's also sometimes finding music that the wrong people hate.
Before we left Neil helped me out with a Top Sekrit Projekt, here at this restaurant. I'm continually amazed at what a nice person he is. Even with walls of deadlines, he'll lend his voice and his talent and his sphere of influence when he really doesn't need to but he does it because he's a genuinely kind person. If I'm ever about to post something snarky on the Internet I try and take step back, breathe for a second and ask myself "Would Neil Gaiman post this?" -- most of the time the answer is "no" and I delete whatever stinging criticism I had penned.
The Top Sekrit Projket thing becomes un-top-sekrit in January or February, something like that. I'll let you know when the world is supposed to know.
Trillian Stars returning from breakfast with a wandering writer who
was always lurking about the place committing acts of kindness.
You may clickenzee to Emawesome.
So we finished the album cover, we finished the publicity shots, we finished the Top Sekrit Projekt, I met the baby that I'd known as a bump, created from two people I'd watched meet and fall in love and get married, I met the singer without whom none of this would happen, I saw gigantic wild turkeys walking around like lazy squirrels, I went for a run along roads that Bob Dylan had driven his motorcycle, I deconstructed a photograph, learned about history ... I took a long ride on a train with Trillian Stars, I slept in a tiny room made by elves from a hollowed out tree, I ran in the forest, I searched for Drow ... I tried out a steam shower which is a truly terrifying thing, it's like a shower, but you're also blind at the same time.
And on the train on the way home I got what might be the most surreal, weird & wonderful text message of my life.
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
You Got Me Singing - The Album Cover Photo: Behind the Scenes
So ... a few months ago Amanda Palmer texted me & asked if I could do the album cover for a new album of covers she was doing with her dad, Jack. She wanted it (for complex reasons) to look like this Bob Dylan album cover:
And, (for complex reasons) we had access to the actual set from that photo shoot. Including a lot of the props. I spent a lot of time in the days before studying the original photo and trying to deconstruct how it was done. But when we got there, Neil had done a lot of research already about the type of camera and the light effects and had compiled stories from many of the people who were there on the set. It really was remarkable. I had initially thought that the blurry circle was added as a second exposure, something that Neil agreed with but in an interview the photographer denied. After spending a lot of time with it, I think it actually was a single, long exposure with the camera rotated during it. Camera starts at 11:00, shutter opens, camera rotation begins, when camera gets to 11:30 flash is fired, camera keeps rotating until it's at the 1:00 position and the shutter closes. Most of my evidence from this is from the lit candle in the upper left and the lamp shade right under it.
In any event. I did mine in two exposures because it was easier that way.
You Got Me Singing album cover. Bob Dylan was once right in this spot.
You may clickenzee to EmPalmerize
It's a bit maddening how difficult it is to get all the right angles and placement when you have the original right there in front of you.
trillian_stars
doubted my placement of the chez lounge and in retrospect she was correct.
I lit it with one light behind an umbrella off to the side.
It took about 30 minutes of shooting to redo the cover photo and after that we did some publicity shots and played with the baby. (Trillian played with the baby, I just waved at him mostly. He smiled. Ash is a happy baby.) (Here's one of the publicity shots in a video for one of the songs.)
Outtake from publicity photos. I think this one got nixed for being "too arty".
But you may Clickenzee to EmArten.
Amanda, Trillian, Jack and Me. Jack is actually a stupendously charming guy. He's one of those people you meet and you're like instant friend. I hadn't met him before, though over the past 15 years or whatnot I've met Amanda's sister and her mother. Amanda spent about 40 minutes explaining her family tree, which is convoluted and I'm still not sure how anyone is related to one another, but Jack is a great guy and during some of the publicity photo shoots he sang and played guitar and I got goosebumps. So, there's that.
Setting up the scene you can see my high tech lighting system here -- on small shoot thru umbrella with a voice activated light stand. It was pretty simple. I used a 28mm lens and a Leica M9, triggered with Pocket Wizards. I'm trying to do everything with the Leica now because it's just so much smaller than the Nikon and I find myself thinking "what on earth am I going to do with a 36 megapixel file?" You can see that pile of things on the chez that Amanda picked out as being important. They range from magazines to influential records to a dalek. (Is dalek capitalized? You would't capitalize "lion" but you would "Parisian"... Ellen Datlow would know.) The 28mm was just barely wide enough to get the shot that I needed, and I ran out of room, I had to press the camera on the back wall -- I couldn't look through the viewfinder or put it on a tripod. I was actually facing the wall, holding the camera up against it, trying not to get my shoulder in the shot (it was in a bunch of them) while Neil helped to make Ash smile -- not that he's not always smiling. So we banged away at it for a while and it was done and we opened a bottle of wine. Like you do.
If you know me at all, you know that my favorite band ever was the 80's Goth Rock juggernaut The Fields of the Nephilim -- a few months before their guitar player, Peter Yates had posted a blog about how their record company had screwed them out of their profits. I sent it to Amanda, she reposted it because she knows that Sh!t is Real and Amanda & Peter met because of it and ... hopefully they're working on a collaboration now -- this might be my greatest contribution to the history of humanity. Here are Amanda & I talking about musicians, record companies, and how you stay relevant (along with a copy of Elizium, which is my favorite FOTN album. (You can buy a copy of it here.)
I discovered the Fields of the Nephilim while working in a bookstore and flipping through a book called "1000 record reviews". And the author gave the FOTN album an F- with the review "This album is only good in a black world where David Bowie is God." And I made a puzzled face thinking well ... he is, isn't he? & bought the album & never looked back. Finding good music isn't just looking for music that the right people like, it's also sometimes finding music that the wrong people hate.
Before we left Neil helped me out with a Top Sekrit Projekt, here at this restaurant. I'm continually amazed at what a nice person he is. Even with walls of deadlines, he'll lend his voice and his talent and his sphere of influence when he really doesn't need to but he does it because he's a genuinely kind person. If I'm ever about to post something snarky on the Internet I try and take step back, breathe for a second and ask myself "Would Neil Gaiman post this?" -- most of the time the answer is "no" and I delete whatever stinging criticism I had penned.
The Top Sekrit Projket thing becomes un-top-sekrit in January or February, something like that. I'll let you know when the world is supposed to know.
Trillian Stars returning from breakfast with a wandering writer who
was always lurking about the place committing acts of kindness.
You may clickenzee to Emawesome.
So we finished the album cover, we finished the publicity shots, we finished the Top Sekrit Projekt, I met the baby that I'd known as a bump, created from two people I'd watched meet and fall in love and get married, I met the singer without whom none of this would happen, I saw gigantic wild turkeys walking around like lazy squirrels, I went for a run along roads that Bob Dylan had driven his motorcycle, I deconstructed a photograph, learned about history ... I took a long ride on a train with Trillian Stars, I slept in a tiny room made by elves from a hollowed out tree, I ran in the forest, I searched for Drow ... I tried out a steam shower which is a truly terrifying thing, it's like a shower, but you're also blind at the same time.
And on the train on the way home I got what might be the most surreal, weird & wonderful text message of my life.
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
And, (for complex reasons) we had access to the actual set from that photo shoot. Including a lot of the props. I spent a lot of time in the days before studying the original photo and trying to deconstruct how it was done. But when we got there, Neil had done a lot of research already about the type of camera and the light effects and had compiled stories from many of the people who were there on the set. It really was remarkable. I had initially thought that the blurry circle was added as a second exposure, something that Neil agreed with but in an interview the photographer denied. After spending a lot of time with it, I think it actually was a single, long exposure with the camera rotated during it. Camera starts at 11:00, shutter opens, camera rotation begins, when camera gets to 11:30 flash is fired, camera keeps rotating until it's at the 1:00 position and the shutter closes. Most of my evidence from this is from the lit candle in the upper left and the lamp shade right under it.
In any event. I did mine in two exposures because it was easier that way.
You Got Me Singing album cover. Bob Dylan was once right in this spot.
You may clickenzee to EmPalmerize
It's a bit maddening how difficult it is to get all the right angles and placement when you have the original right there in front of you.
trillian_stars
doubted my placement of the chez lounge and in retrospect she was correct.I lit it with one light behind an umbrella off to the side.
It took about 30 minutes of shooting to redo the cover photo and after that we did some publicity shots and played with the baby. (Trillian played with the baby, I just waved at him mostly. He smiled. Ash is a happy baby.) (Here's one of the publicity shots in a video for one of the songs.)
Outtake from publicity photos. I think this one got nixed for being "too arty".
But you may Clickenzee to EmArten.
Amanda, Trillian, Jack and Me. Jack is actually a stupendously charming guy. He's one of those people you meet and you're like instant friend. I hadn't met him before, though over the past 15 years or whatnot I've met Amanda's sister and her mother. Amanda spent about 40 minutes explaining her family tree, which is convoluted and I'm still not sure how anyone is related to one another, but Jack is a great guy and during some of the publicity photo shoots he sang and played guitar and I got goosebumps. So, there's that.
Setting up the scene you can see my high tech lighting system here -- on small shoot thru umbrella with a voice activated light stand. It was pretty simple. I used a 28mm lens and a Leica M9, triggered with Pocket Wizards. I'm trying to do everything with the Leica now because it's just so much smaller than the Nikon and I find myself thinking "what on earth am I going to do with a 36 megapixel file?" You can see that pile of things on the chez that Amanda picked out as being important. They range from magazines to influential records to a dalek. (Is dalek capitalized? You would't capitalize "lion" but you would "Parisian"... Ellen Datlow would know.) The 28mm was just barely wide enough to get the shot that I needed, and I ran out of room, I had to press the camera on the back wall -- I couldn't look through the viewfinder or put it on a tripod. I was actually facing the wall, holding the camera up against it, trying not to get my shoulder in the shot (it was in a bunch of them) while Neil helped to make Ash smile -- not that he's not always smiling. So we banged away at it for a while and it was done and we opened a bottle of wine. Like you do.
If you know me at all, you know that my favorite band ever was the 80's Goth Rock juggernaut The Fields of the Nephilim -- a few months before their guitar player, Peter Yates had posted a blog about how their record company had screwed them out of their profits. I sent it to Amanda, she reposted it because she knows that Sh!t is Real and Amanda & Peter met because of it and ... hopefully they're working on a collaboration now -- this might be my greatest contribution to the history of humanity. Here are Amanda & I talking about musicians, record companies, and how you stay relevant (along with a copy of Elizium, which is my favorite FOTN album. (You can buy a copy of it here.)
I discovered the Fields of the Nephilim while working in a bookstore and flipping through a book called "1000 record reviews". And the author gave the FOTN album an F- with the review "This album is only good in a black world where David Bowie is God." And I made a puzzled face thinking well ... he is, isn't he? & bought the album & never looked back. Finding good music isn't just looking for music that the right people like, it's also sometimes finding music that the wrong people hate.
Before we left Neil helped me out with a Top Sekrit Projekt, here at this restaurant. I'm continually amazed at what a nice person he is. Even with walls of deadlines, he'll lend his voice and his talent and his sphere of influence when he really doesn't need to but he does it because he's a genuinely kind person. If I'm ever about to post something snarky on the Internet I try and take step back, breathe for a second and ask myself "Would Neil Gaiman post this?" -- most of the time the answer is "no" and I delete whatever stinging criticism I had penned.
The Top Sekrit Projket thing becomes un-top-sekrit in January or February, something like that. I'll let you know when the world is supposed to know.
Trillian Stars returning from breakfast with a wandering writer who
was always lurking about the place committing acts of kindness.
You may clickenzee to Emawesome.
So we finished the album cover, we finished the publicity shots, we finished the Top Sekrit Projekt, I met the baby that I'd known as a bump, created from two people I'd watched meet and fall in love and get married, I met the singer without whom none of this would happen, I saw gigantic wild turkeys walking around like lazy squirrels, I went for a run along roads that Bob Dylan had driven his motorcycle, I deconstructed a photograph, learned about history ... I took a long ride on a train with Trillian Stars, I slept in a tiny room made by elves from a hollowed out tree, I ran in the forest, I searched for Drow ... I tried out a steam shower which is a truly terrifying thing, it's like a shower, but you're also blind at the same time.
And on the train on the way home I got what might be the most surreal, weird & wonderful text message of my life.
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
July 8, 2016
The Yellow Wallpaper: Invited Dress
"There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will."
-- The Yellow Wallpaper
So, last night I went to the invited dress rehearsal for The Yellow Wallpaper at the Physick house. This is the show after tec where the lights have been figured out, the props and the costumes, and they run everything. It's possible in a dress that things will stop and back up and that happened about 2 minutes into this performance when a lighting cue was amended -- but then the show went flawlessly from top to bottom and everybody was spooked and horrified -- in different ways.
Clickenzee to get this big enough to be your computer wallpaper.
The Yellow Wallpaper is the story of a woman imprisoned by her husband while suffering what at the time was called "hysteria". She's locked away in a horrid room in a beautiful house and kept from books and people and writing. When she begs her husband to end the "treatment" he takes her in her arms and calls her a "blessed little goose". At every corner she is ignored and diminished and stripped of any autonomy.
While this is happening, things begin to manifest themselves in the room in which she's been kept, and strange things unfold.
Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes--a kind of "debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens--go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. -- But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. -- The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.
Clickenzee to Embiggen!
The Yellow Wallpaper was written in 1892, but it's not any less important today. It's one of the early handclaps that lead to women's suffrage. I was happy to see such a glorious production in such a great space. The show opens Sunday July 10 and runs until the 15th. There aren't a lot of seats, so most of the shows will probably sell out so, getting your tickets ($10-15) in advance is a good idea.
After the performance, discussing lighting cues with Stage Manager Sam Wend.
You may Clickenzee to Embiggen!
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
-- The Yellow Wallpaper
So, last night I went to the invited dress rehearsal for The Yellow Wallpaper at the Physick house. This is the show after tec where the lights have been figured out, the props and the costumes, and they run everything. It's possible in a dress that things will stop and back up and that happened about 2 minutes into this performance when a lighting cue was amended -- but then the show went flawlessly from top to bottom and everybody was spooked and horrified -- in different ways.
Clickenzee to get this big enough to be your computer wallpaper.
The Yellow Wallpaper is the story of a woman imprisoned by her husband while suffering what at the time was called "hysteria". She's locked away in a horrid room in a beautiful house and kept from books and people and writing. When she begs her husband to end the "treatment" he takes her in her arms and calls her a "blessed little goose". At every corner she is ignored and diminished and stripped of any autonomy.
While this is happening, things begin to manifest themselves in the room in which she's been kept, and strange things unfold.
Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes--a kind of "debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens--go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. -- But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. -- The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.
Clickenzee to Embiggen!
The Yellow Wallpaper was written in 1892, but it's not any less important today. It's one of the early handclaps that lead to women's suffrage. I was happy to see such a glorious production in such a great space. The show opens Sunday July 10 and runs until the 15th. There aren't a lot of seats, so most of the shows will probably sell out so, getting your tickets ($10-15) in advance is a good idea.
After the performance, discussing lighting cues with Stage Manager Sam Wend.
You may Clickenzee to Embiggen!
Add me: [LiveJournal] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
