Steel Highway

"Life's a Journey"

Out West a Railroad Roams
Rusty Red, Dry, Chained to the Ground
Nothing Travels on its Cold Hearted Steal
but the Cold Salty Rain
It Says Nothing to the Animals that Pass
It Looks on Ignoring an Opportunity
to Escape from its Past
It Will Just Sit in One Place,
never to Move, or Shift...
Out of Fear of what may come
As it Will Continue from Sunrise to Sunset
Watch its Life
Go Right By.

For Effect

Evoking an emotion with a photograph is how we work. Evoking an emotion wrought by a song via an image is a bit tougher. I have over 1000 images of Toby and JK in my work. Finally one that inspires (I hope) the feeling of the very first seconds of a JK performance.

Toby and a Fan

Toby is always good to the audience. He grabbed this man for a sudden duet. Wow. How many fans get a moment on stage with their favorite rock star? Not bad at all. Better him than me.

Dale and his beautiful new guitar a Cole Clark.

Sounds great Dale.

Air Toby

Leaping off the drum platform... Frequent flyer?

Juke Kartel Key Club

After bands Ambrose and the Chicago band Lovehammers, JK showed the house what the late set is all about. The street team was there, Brian Hopkins of Paperback Hero brought his lovely lady Natalie, and a lot of hard core fans hung in there late. I was in a more creative than documentary mood so I was using the always difficult lighting for effect with Toby here. The upper shot uses an old technique for a psychedelic mood.

The Flash Question

Part of the job is dealing with the venue rules. This club had a no video/no flash posting on a small sign near the front door. Given this is more of a dinner club than many places like the Viper Room, I was not surprised. But some fans were using little point and shoot cameras and the flash. Nobody said a word so I stuck a few flash shots in. For comparison I offer one each. The shots have very different looks. The club had very low lighting, I was at ISO 3200 wide open 4.5 lens and 1/30th exposure. No way could I shoot at a lower ISO or shutter. These wre shot two seconds apart.

So I ask you to comment which is better to your eye? The top image is without flash, the lower image with flash. Anonymous comments are allowed. No need to register.

Flash Question II

These show the sometimes harsh choice between two looks. These were shot a fraction of a second apart. Without flash in these conditions we get a lot of digital noise, far more ugly than film grain. Flash image above, non flash image below. Both are retouched in the usual ways-noise reduced, some red saturation reduced, etc.

Jason Pinfold-The under-appreciated side of the band.

This is a special edition post-Twofold. First, Jason is one wicked good percussionist. As the "new" (a year or so I think) member of the band, some are less familiar with him. For photography, the drummer is always in back and almost always under-lit to not upstage the vocalist. Getting good shots back of the stage is an appealing challenge to me.

Second I want to specifically thank the fans in Australia. When I post Juke Kartel, suddenly this blog gets lots and lots of visits. Many from Australia so you Aussies get my thanks for coming by and enjoying my photography. Some of you are even kind enough to dig down through older posts and take in my other shots such as the local fires or landscape shots.

So without further ado, thanks Jason, and thanks Aus!!!!! If you click on the shot you will link to a screen-saver sized version, on a PC you can right click and make this your screen-saver. With my compliments!

Juke Kartel Acoustic

Antelope Valley View

Skyscape