What a wonderful world

Whew, what a month it’s been!  I’ve worked more 14-16 hour days this month than I ever have before.  Between basketball tournaments, SXSW, and everything else happening this spring, I’ve put my cameras through quite the marathon.

I have many blogs posts to catch up on, but I’m going to start with SXSW.  I covered three and a half days of the music festival in down town Austin last week.  Wednesday night and Thursday were for the Dallas Morning News.

I started off my SXSW coverage with former Dixie Chick Natalie Maines at ACL Live Moody Theater.  (Click for review by DMN’s Mario Tarradell)  I love shooting at ACL Live.  It was built to be a TV studio as well as concert venue, so the lighting is always nice.  Natalie Maines was pretty good.  She was a bit more rock and roll than I expected, but that’s not a bad thing.  She did a great set.

It wasn’t as crowded as I expected, so I ended up not getting in the photo pit and just shooting from the front of the crowd.  Here are a few of my favorites:

After a few songs I headed home to transmit and get to bed early because I had to be back down town before 8 a.m. on Thursday.

Thursday was a full day, starting with a band portrait of Alpha Rev at the W Hotel.  Those photos are for a story running later this week, so I’ll skip them for now.

Next up was rock musician Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.  He was giving a keynote speech at the Austin Convention Center at 11 a.m.  I got there early, knowing that this would be a popular event and that photographers were only allowed in for the first 2 min., and to my surprise there was an opening act.  Black Violin was a great combination of classical violin/cello and R&B beats.  These guys were super talented.

Dave Grohl spoke to a huge crowd and probably 100 of them were photographers huddled at the front of the stage trying to get a decent shot in the first 2 min.  Grohl was on an elevated stage, standing behind a podium, and after the first 30 sec. he put on his glasses.  It wasn’t the ideal situation, but not the worst I’d get all day.  (Click for a review of his speech.)

Next up was Stevie Nicks, who was being interviewed by NPR music critic Ann Powers.  Grohl went on at 11 a.m. and Nicks didn’t start until 5 p.m.  It was early in my SXSW coverage and I knew I needed to pace myself, so I sent in my morning photos, got some lunch and huddled in my car in a parking garage for an afternoon nap.

There was a huge line to see Stevie Nicks in a medium sized room, so I waited until the line thinned and walked in and sat down on the floor in front of the stage.  We were allowed to shoot from the front for the first 5 min., or so we thought.  Just before the interview began, all of the photographers were moved to the back of the room, behind the TV cameras recording the show, and we were told we’d only have 2 min. to shoot.  (Yes, they use a stopwatch.)

Nicks finally appeared with large sunglasses covering her eyes, then the first question from Powers took up about half of our allotted shooting time.  All of the photographers were huddled in one spot, sort of like a totem pole, and every time Nicks moved her arm or smiled, it was rapid shutter fire.  They rushed us out after 2 min. and that was that.  (Click here to read Mario’s review.)

After the interview, I had a couple hours before my next assignment, so I walked over to the Grammy party at the Four Seasons.  My husband, Nick, is the vice president of the Recording Academy Texas chapter, and I wanted to be a good wife and be there for one of the biggest events of the year for their organization.  (Plus, it’s a great party and there’s food.)  The dress was business casual, so I would usually wear some kind of sun dress or something fitting for an outdoor party at the Four Seasons, but this time I was in full photo-gear attire.  I’m sure people at the party wondered who the tall red-head was with the personal photographer.

Here’s Nick, me, and very talented musicians Zach Balch and Karyna Micaela at the party.

Anyway, while I was there, I snapped a couple shots of one of three bands performing – Quiet Company.  I missed the Wheeler Brothers since I was shooting Stevie Nicks and I missed Ray Wylie Hubbard because I had to leave early for my next assignment.  Here’s Quiet Company:

I left the party to head over to Rooftop on 6th, a small venue on Sixth Street, to photograph Charlotte Church.  I’ll admit, I didn’t know much about her, but everyone I talked to was a huge fan.  It wasn’t terribly crowded for the show, which was perfect, and there was only one other photographer.  Church was delightful to shoot, she was just odd enough to make it interesting, but not so unpredictable that I might miss something.  Plus, she’s beautiful and so was her voice.  (Click here to read Mario’s review.)  (Click here for a photo gallery.)

It was a great way to end my somewhat leisurely 14-hour day.  Two more, much faster-paced days were still ahead of me, so I sent in photos and got some rest.

Photos from Day 2 will be posted on Wed. 3/20 and Day 3 will be posted on Fri. 3/22.