Sazzy B's Open Mic...

As I've said before, I am not a fan of flash, even less so in places where you cannot bounce it off a wall or two to diffuse it. At the Sazzy B there is not a single surface that is not black, brown or deep dark red – so there there is nowhere to bounce light. The starkness of the flash, therefore, was unavoidable.

Just to play around and see what I could do without flash I shot a couple of early pictures at about 1/8 of a second . Then, I did everything possible to try and take the red cast out of the picture. For these long exposures (an 1/8th of a second hand holding a camera is a pretty long exposure) I was pretty happy. Though the person pictured was blurred the focal point - normally the microphone head - was pretty sharp. That let's me know that I am either getting better at holding a camera still in my old age or that my reflexes are so shot that staying perfectly still is now second nature for me.

There are an uncommon number of tap dance photos in this set. That's because the dancer, Dani, is a friend of mine and I have been meaning to grab some shots of her in action for a while. If I have time, I plan on making a collage out of some of these shots to give to her. 

Thanks to the performers at Sazzy B's open mic. You were all really good and helped make the evening really enjoyable. You dedication to your craft has paid off. One man even went so far as to cut his finger open while strumming. See that picture of the guitar with the rag on it? That rag was used to blot the blood from his finger cut. If you look closely at the guitar you'll see what appear to be bubbles in the paint. Some of that is blood.

Now that's dedication.