Tag: music

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Bright Lights and Live Music

By Chad Coppess

If you enjoy live music performances, making photographs of concerts can be a lot of fun. Bright flashing light shows, lots of motion and spectacular stage presentations seem like they were made for photography.

Whether it’s local bands playing in the city park or big name acts at the huge arenas, concert shooting can be challenging and fun.

Outdoor daytime events generally have much more even lighting, so the creativity in photography comes from choosing angles to shoot and watching for interesting expressions and poses. Not surprisingly, musicians seem to be good at expressions and poses.

Indoor and night time shows are a study in contrasty lighting and being ready for the unexpected. I usually have my camera set to automatic aperture and realize as the stage lights change quickly I am going to end up with a lot of shots that are not exposed properly. Shoot and shoot more! Not worrying about the bad shots and continuing to look for great ones is the way to go.

Some concerts specify that camera flashes are not allowed, so you’ll have to go without. In most cases that’s okay with me because a flash can wash out the dramatic effects of the stage lights anyway.

I realize that I usually have a press pass for better access than the typical concert-goer has, but it’s still possible to shoot good photos from the audience area. Look for angles where you can take photos without people’s heads and hands in the way. If you are able, move to different spots throughout the show to get a variety of shots.

Getting to know bands and artists is easier than ever these days through social media. Contacting the artists you’d like to photograph and letting them know who you are and that you are working to make them look good will go a long ways toward access. Over the years I’ve come to know several musicians as friends just by taking their photo and showing them later.

Some concerts will not allow professional style cameras, however those kinds of restrictions are beginning to disappear as more and more people are taking high-quality photos and video with their cell phones. Many bands encourage fans to post photos to their websites or Facebook pages.

More of my concert photography can be found at my blog Chad’s Concert Pix.

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.

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Tubing Rocks

By Rebecca Johnson

Looking for a unique activity this holiday season? Rock out on the slopes in Lead at Ski Mystic Deer Mountain‘s Zero Gravity Tube Park. You can tube under the stars on Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Local bands perform in the lodge and the music is pumped outdoors.

“We just wanted to created a venue with a lot of action,” says co-owner, Mark Brockman.”When you combine the thrill of tubing in the park at night with live music, it’s just awesome.” The cost is $25 or $20 with college ID. Tonight (Dec 22nd) features Letta People, the rock/blues band from Rapid City, and on the 29th you can hear Don’t Touch Me from Spearfish.

The Zero Gravity Tube Park is new this season. Tubing was always a popular attraction at Ski Mystic so Brockman and co-owner Alicia Salas decided to expand to what was formerly a beginner’s ski slope. “It’s probably one of the biggest [tube parks] in the country,” says Brockman.”We have a 1,000 foot tube lift with a 250 foot vertical drop.” The park is also open during normal ski hours from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And it’s family friendly — children ages three and up are welcome.

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The Art of the Marching Band

By Pat Boyd

In towns across South Dakota, chilly autumn sunrises are often heralded by the beat of distant drums and random bellows and toots. The sounds of the middle and high school marching bands beginning to warm up bring smiles to the faces around the tables at the cafÈ. The bands are playing, the coffee is hot, and life is good.

As they near the end of this season of games, parades and competitions, let’s give the bands a last appreciative ovation before they head indoors to take their seats in the orchestra. Consider the phenomenon of this traditional art form — what it means to us, and what it takes to make it work in every community lucky enough to have a band marching up Main Street for homecoming.

Marching bands invigorate their communities, stirring up loyalties, patriotism, pride, and the all-important team spirit. The team might be having a bad year or a great one, but the band strikes up with enthusiastic optimism at the start of every contest. They will be there in gleeful encouragement, regardless of the odds of winning the game. Their parents will be there too. The crowd in the bleachers spans several generations.

It is not unusual to see band members wearing their football or cheerleader uniforms instead of the regulation band uniform at halftime. Like most citizens of South Dakota, a number of the players wear more than one hat. What must be confusing to the football player/band members is to switch to a team where the object is definitely not to run into each other and knock each other down.

All hats off to the bandmasters, who not only teach teenagers to play music together, but to play while marching and swinging their instruments in unison and making recognizable shapes and patterns covering the field. After all those morning practices, each member knows how to be a moving part of the whole design. They count on each other to know that part and get it right every time. Their discipline hitches tradition to new moves, our heritage to our future.

Looks like a miracle to me, this work of art.

Pat Boyd is Executive Director of South Dakotans for the Arts, a statewide nonprofit membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts through service, education and advocacy. Pat and her husband, artist George Prisbe, live at Hanna Creek in the northern Black Hills.

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Red Willow Band — Sturgis Reunion Show

South Dakota’s Red Willow Band brought their unique brand of “country swing played with a silver jingle” to the Knuckle Saloon in Sturgis. The band delighted their fans with a rocking three and a half hour, two set performance. Many long-time fans remarked on the years that have passed since the band regularly played South Dakota venues from Ox Yoke Ranch in Nemo to Stockman’s Bar in Sioux Falls. But, all agreed, the band’s skill and enthusiasm were untarnished by the passage of time. All photos by Jeremiah M. Murphy. View more of Murphy’s photos at Tumblr.

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The First Song to the Flood of 2011

Fill Your Hearts with Love & Your Shovels With Dirt

By Bernie Hunhoff

South Dakotans in the way of the river have been too busy sandbagging, moving furniture and — in a few cases — blaming the Corps of Engineers to find time to reflect. But not everyone.

Kris Kitko, a talented folk singer in North Dakota, has written a hauntingly beautiful song about the ravages of the Missouri in her state. Both the video and the lyrics reflect just as well on South Dakota — except that the prisoners in North Dakota who volunteered their assistance are in stripes rather than orange.

Well-known Pierre artist Jim Pollock is keeping a journal of his community’s trials and tribulations. Surely his sketchbook is in a back pocket.

Dave Tunge, South Dakota’s best aerial photographer, has been flying his Piper Cub up and down the river valley, shooting images from 1,000 feet.

Fires come and go in hours. Tornadoes in mere minutes. This particular flood will batter us for weeks, and eventually many more artists and songwriters and photographers will find the time and inspiration to try to explain what is happening to the river people.