Nashville Came to Memphis

Last week it was me in Nashville messing with my camera, and it instead messed with me.  I never really used the automatic functions on my cameras much, that was the point of getting a point and shoot camera in a non-compact form, with full user controllable shutter and aperture features.  But when I picked up a DSLR for the first time, it really kicked my a55.  I have been taking some form of pictures for 37-8 years.  But I never thought I could come home with photos that were SO wrong.  Lazy mistakes and blurry vision.  Too much Viewfinder-to-glasses issues, back and forth. It is a dinosaur, the Nikon D70, but it is capable of taking great photos.  I just had to catch up with the lack of....well, pointing and shooting.  Being able to SEE well is kind of a requirement to being consistent with focus and exposure in low light at lower speeds I found, haha.  I look at that little TINY screen on the back of the camera, (state of the art in 2004, I guess), and I think, ehh, "I can trust the autofocus accuracy".  Its better than putting on my glasses.  It looks kinda in focus and its the right general exposure.  No.  Actually you can't.  Better to put on your glasses after every test shot.  At least on MY old, ornery camera.  You need to be on manual focus when the camera is having trouble focusing where you want it.  I should know that, but I got lazy.  I learned that if I don't have to RUSH to get a shot, and the light is iffy, I need to manually focus as a matter of course.  I wasted a ton of 'exposures', but that allowed me to make ALL the mistakes and get ALL the shots I needed, too.  I only had a few setups where I thought I wasted the entire series of photos out of focus, or in some other doofus manner.

So my friend Mark calls me up at work and asks me if I felt like coming out that night to see a couple of ladies he books sometimes who play as a single act a lot, but like to play together to good effect, financially and musically I guess.  They had driven over from Nashville, and he told me he thought I should come out.  I'd surely have a good time.  But he rarely calls without something in mind, (although it has been 8 months since we have talked, so I also took it as a greeting), so I sensed he needed a photographer, video or otherwise.  He often wants SOMEONE to come out and shoot pics when he brings someone to town.  And I REALLY needed to get out and flog this damn vexing lil punk-a55 camera.  In the end, I STILL had to shoot a LOT of shots before I even began to see where the hell the camera thought I should be shooting, in both exposure and focus.  I wish I had stayed manual focus most of the night.  The focus sensors need work, or I need to pay attention.  After while I managed to get it all right, but I learned a lot about how I have to do it to pull everything I know together a little easier next time.  I'd fix one of my issues and another would pop up.  I am not fast enough to react yet.  I am not maximizing my opportunities.
But the only reason I was there in the first place was to FORCE the camera to show me what the hell it was and what the hell it was doing.

So I got there early by fifteen minutes so I could check out a lens that I doubted I could use, but was gonna try.  The lens I needed to test was not good in low light, and also soft when it is wide open, so I shouldn't have even taken it, and as a result I got 15 shots in before it became useless as night fell in the streets of downtown Memphis.  

Here is where it gets funny.  I have a friend, Jesse Scherr, who is a skilled photographer, and I respect him as much for that skill as I do for the fact that we worked together for many years and he is a great friend, very reserved yet hilarious.  So I walk into Double J Smokehouse, in sight of the notorious Memphis Lorraine Motel.  I am wearing a black photographer's vest, (because I had a LOT of lenses to test with this new camera and in this light condition.)  It is stuffed with a few lenses, cigars, lighters, cutter and batteries and a few other things.  And I figured if I caught any guff at the door, I could say honestly I was not there to have fun, I was there to do a job.  I am too cheap to pay for the privilege of doing a friend a favor.  Well there was no need for that apparently, but I still needed mobile storage, so I walked in with it.  And there is Jesse sitting at the bar. He's waiting for the same friend.  And I walk in like this doofus in a photog's vest.   So he watches my camera and beer while I return the useless crap to the car a block away, embarassed that I had all kinds of cool crap for this ancient camera with a woodpecker inside, peckin' out the photos. I needed to take my short, fast lens and dump the rest, for many reasons I can't bore you with here.

The girls were pretty easy to shoot, they were both photogenic and stage polished, and everything they might do that I actually intended to shoot, I could have easily shot in three songs.  So I shot three songs and sat down for a beer.  I found out that I was 'welcome' to smoke my cigar upstairs, apparently out on a balcony, lol.  But there were tables and a nice breeze, so I smoked a Serie P No.2 from Partagas and kind of enjoyed it.  It was fresh out of a tube, so it was not properly dried, but it was 6 years old, maybe 5, so it was somewhat dessicated already, for a tubo.  I enjoyed it, even though I dropped it before I lit it, and the foot got bashed up a bit. Not the best of circumstances, and I had to rush it somewhat, so while it was smooth, strong and creamy, I didn't get a lot of interesting flavor.  But hey, does it look or sound like I suffered?  

I had a good chance to test out the camera, and I am skipping one tonight.  I could shoot a TON of great stuff at the St. Patrick's day parade on Beale St., but I think I will avoid people this afternoon.
What with the new pope and all.  Might be safer to stay at home and clean the house.