Photos from the 2015 Summer Concert Series straight from the Plaza at Tysons Corner Center. In order to bring more people out to their community-building space outside of the mall, they started this series last year. Together with 94.7 Fresh FM, a great lineup of musicians brought everyone outside on Friday evenings.
Piano playing – songwriting singers are my favorite, and Gavin DeGraw is one of the best. He rocked the first crowd of this year’s Summer Concert Series. His performance was so good, they shot fireworks off of the parking garage to celebrate!
Black Alley won a spot in the 2015 Summer Concert Series through a performance contest held at the mall last year. Due to the amazing reception the crowd had for their music last year, they came back to repeat raves!
The first repeat performer in the Summer Concert Series was Andy Grammer. In like fashion, his vocals really soared over the Plaza to the cheerful crowd. Whereas last time was an acoustic set with him and a guitar, the brought a full band this year.
The Legwarmers closed out the Friday concerts. During their performance, the crowd was given glow sticks to wave after the sun set. To illustrate the motion and light, I used a long exposure to blue the colors.
Last March, I was invited to cover the SingStrong in Reston, Virginia. SingStrong is an a cappella music festival held at South Lakes High School on this occasion. Overall, musicians come together to do workshops, have master classes, and hear from performers from around the country. A cappella, in short, describes a style of music where all of the sounds from the band are create from the human voice. Popular culture has show off these performers especially in movies like “Pitch Perfect” or TV shows like NBC’s “The Sing – Off.”
Blue Jupiter are the main hosts for all the attendees of this event. Diana and Jonathan emcee the larger shows over the weekend including the Aca-Idol competition and the main show on Saturday evening. Marty sets up the audio-visual presentation on the stage running the sound board. The sound of the singers sounds amazing from the crowd and along with the theater lights really elevates the concerts.
The 2015 edition of SingStrong continued their tradition of bringing passionate musicians together. They spend a weekend full of learning, networking, and inspiring each other. I enjoy being a part of the weekend to help preserve some memories that the groups can look back on when they get back home. I hope it keeps them working to sound better, and to continue their progress to be even better. The proceeds from participating or attending the shows over the weekend help to support the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. With the tickets and silent auctions, all of the funds help to support an amazing cause. I hope to see what the groups have in store next year!
Chimping? That is a term that is associated with digital photography. You take a photo then quickly look at the back of the camera and exclaim “Oo Oo Ah Ah!” like a chimpanzee when you see the results! If you made the switch from shooting analog to digital, this is the first departure in the experiences. Immediately, you have a tangible result from your photography. There is no waiting, no guessing whether or not you captured a usable image.
AMC shows movies on their TV channel that describes behind-the-scenes facts about the film as it is playing. One of our favorites was the 1984 movie, “The Karate Kid”. When watching it on AMC, there is one scene of the boy practicing forms on a boat floating in a small pond as the sunset in front of him. It is an amazing piece of cinematography that they could only shoot twice before the light disappeared. There was no chimping back then – everything was shot on film with no immediate preview of the footage. No way to know if the shot was really made until after the film was developed and viewed later.
Yes, everything may have looked okay with the settings on the camera. For example, the lenses, and the meter readings taken before rolling the cameras, but how could you be sure? Obviously, a large professional film crew should have all their checks in place. But how confident would you be as a lone photographer on an important assignment?
This is the second bit of magic – giving you the confidence that you do have the images that you or your clients absolutely need. When you say the images are “in the can” with digital photography, you have a good feeling about it because of chimping. This frees you to get additional images that you would not take unless you had the time and opportunity to do so after fulfilling all your requirements. During the performances at the Tysons Corner Center Plaza, I have been very lucky to have an all-access pass from behind the stage, to the front of the stage. With the open plaza as the “house” there is are a number of different places you can make images of performers during their concerts.
From the front of the stage, you get the performers with the banners of all the sponsors, and some of the imposing buildings in the back. In the crowd, you get the performers with out of focus crowd in the foreground bringing you into the frame.
But when you get to try some different angles, you may find yourself behind the performers catching just an edge of light from the spotlights at the front of the stage. It is very tricky to correctly meter and focus, but the results produce a much different view than the audience sees. Getting to experiment with this much success is very magical indeed!
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