Daniel Romano at Bootleg Theater, LA | Music Photography

lil RVA in the LA  <3 <3

Matt ‘Roddy’ Kuester is living the dream all because he reached out and asked for what he wanted. Thanks to a lot of talent (from years of practice), being a great person and asking for his dream job, he is now on a tour around the country and  the first RVA’er that I’ve gotten to see play on my adventures on the west coast.  Forever first and always one of my favorites. Fantastic player and seriously one of the best people.  The Kuester clan breeds them well.

I was psyched for the lucky band that had added him to their lineup. He told me they were a country band from Canada and sent me some links. Good stuff. Sounded like a great music family for him to join. Perfect amount of drawl, interesting voice, beautiful harmonies, some great pickin’  and a genuine sense of the golden area of country cool. And some kickass suits.

So he was off around the country with a show in LA on the books, hell yes!

With a new gee-tar and a suitcase, adventure abounds.

The show was at the Bootleg Theater, which turned out to be a groovy little spot. It is pretty non descript from the outside and the area I drove through to get there looked a little hmmm but the inside was great. Huge stage with high ceilings and a lot of standing room. You could fit a lot of people in there. There is a smaller theater off the main room where a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire was currently taking place.
The only possible improvement that I would make would be a foosball table, because foos always makes everything better.

Bootleg Theater Pingpong Championship Games

The Players.

The Champion, Kenny Meehan – One sound guy to rule them all.

This is what a band that brings IT, looks like.  thank you.  

bands like this make me ecstatic about music photography.

& the show – yes!  The Bootleg Theater was packed, I love how many country music lovers there are in LA.  Great crowd of smiles and friendly music loving people.  & music to love they were given. The LemonTrees and Dylan Earl hooked the crowd early (another blog) and then Daniel Romano and The Trilliums took the stage and delivering a crooning melody of country, weaving stories and enchanting the crowd, who were swaying their hips, heads thrown back and eyes closed lost in a memory painted by the music.

photography stuffs.
I’ve been rocking prisms and bottles or glass, whatever is handy, in images (a fave for my music photography)for a long time. Most of my prisms come from a craft store or some random holiday store. My favorite one has a big beautiful scar and is missing a chunk and I often freeze in white hot fear when don’t instantly feel it in my Shootsac. It is my imperfect masterpiece worn from rough use.

But the question I’ve been getting is what is this new magic prism, the one that creates such a unified evenness to the image? It is one of the Fractal Filters!!!  I’ve been experimenting with the new Fractal Filters created by Nikk Wong.  Nikk came up with this handy dandy piece of gear for prism photography and I’ve been playing with them for a few months.   There are 3 different versions, the one that I used a bit at this show is the version with the center cut out. It gives a pretty cool effect.

I will be writing up a really long and detailed review with images of the Fractal Filters and photo examples from all three filters at a later date.  I’m still testing (oh, time, time, time) and taking notes.  I’m pleased with what I’m seeing so far (LOVE the handle) and also remain excited about their future evolution as Nikk rarely takes his head up from fine tuning the design.

1/160 at 1.8 85mm Canon Mark III – Fractal Filter (center hole)