Thinking of Hawaii

Today I found a batch of photographs I had taken in Hawaii in 2009 while there for a baseball clinic. I used the Canon G9 for my snapshots, carrying it with me for dinners, sailing excursions, on the golf course,

out on the baseball field, at the beach, and on the plane for our flight home to California. At the time, it was one of the best point-and-shoot, go anywhere cameras around. It has since been displaced by even smaller and higher resolution models.

It's Baseball Season

Friday was the opening of the college baseball season, and I was able to take in two games. Saturday I watched my alma mater, the Santa Clara Broncos, take on the Boston College Eagles at Schott Stadium in Santa Clara. Today I headed about 15 minutes north to Stanford to watch the Cardinal against the Rice Owls. I felt badly for those poor folks on the East coast as I basked in 70 degree sunshine at Stanford. Photograph taken with the Sony NEX 7 and Tamron 18-200 lens.

Bruce Airborne, Oakland Coliseum, 1980

This had to be one of the last shows I ever shot with an SLR and a long lens. I had been lucky to see Springsteen a few times in smaller venues than the Oakland Coliseum, a cavernous basketball arena, but the view looking down on the stage from my seat off the floor gave me a different perspective. I was also with friends who had never seen him before, and it was enjoyable for me to see their reactions to his three hour performance. I was using an inexpensive, slow 300 mm tele but came away with a few keepers because the light was good. There's no way I could hand hold one of those monsters today.

Bruce Springsteen, Santa Clara University, October 3, 1976

In the middle of a big nation-wide tour in 1976, Bruce Springsteen filled a date at Toso Pavillion on the Santa Clara University campus. For some reason, I lucked out into front row seats. I was so close, I had trouble focusing. I actually had to lean backwards to get accurate focus. Shot number two shows The Big Man, the late Clarence Clemons, and in number four, "Miami" Steve Van Zandt of "Sopranos" fame. Bruce and Stevie share the microphone in the third photograph. I was using Kodak Ektachrome slide film at 400 ASA and a Nikon FM 2 with a lens I can't remember. Good memories.

Graham Parker and the Rumour Down the Years

Ever since the first time I heard Graham Parker and the Rumour, probably on KSAN in San Francisco, I was hooked. Recently, I bought a dedicated film scanner to replace my dead one and set out to scan some decades-old slides. Even though it's a flat-bed model, it runs rings around my old Canon model which took forever to complete the same task my new Epson is doing in a third of the time. These photographs are from three shows, The Old Waldorf in 1979 when Parker was at the height of his career, the Savoy Hotel in 1976 when I saw him for the first time, and Winterland in 1977 when he opened for Thin Lizzy. The photos were taken with the Nikon FM 2 and a lens I can't remember. Kodak Ectachrome 400 slide film, if I recall.

Rain at Last and a Bird

Here it is February 2nd and we're finally getting some rain. Normally, I don't really enjoy rain, but we've been without it for so long, it's a welcome sight. The second photograph is of a bird my wife likes for some reason. I took these because I was fooling around with the Sony A7 and kit lens which has been roundly disparaged on the internet but I like just fine. Today is the Super Bowl and I could care less who wins, but it's an excuse for a party my friend Tom is hosting.