I have a few bits of excitement to share. First, I bought myself a quality camera Friday. It’s my dream camera: Nikon D70. The Taste of Tippecanoe last night was really the first big trial run with it, and I’m so pleased with the results. I used my film SLR external flash with it, and finally got the manual settings so the lighting was great for band shots. Oh, here’s a link to all my shots from last night: gallery. Once I learn how to really take advantage of all the controls, there will be really good things.

It was so easy to use the entire night, and the CF card is my new best friend. With my old camera and CD media, I could delete images but it wouldn’t free up the space. Now, I can really get quality test shots without eating up space. I can get about 200 high quality JPEGs on a 512 card, and for what I plan to use it for, my laptop & card reader can always be handy to free up the disk. The camera has lived up to all that I dreamed it would be. Photo guy at work congratulated me on the purchase and said the nicest thing, “Enjoy playing! I look forward to seeing what you see.” He also mentioned that I had some really nice shots from the other night that they’ll definitely be able to use for the project.

I’m really warming up to taking people photos, which opens up a new realm of possibilities, that will be very necessary if I want to assist at MediaSauce in the future. Everything seems to be shaping up to work out. Oh yeah, some random guy last night hunted me down in the crowd to take a photo of him & his girlfriend. With a nice camera, people just assume you know what you’re doing. I love it.

Taste of Tippecanoe was great fun! My parents came up and absolutely loved it. They hope to make it an annual adventure.

Clayton Miller Band rocked the house yet again. I never get tired of hearing them play. I took a photo poster I created with me to have them sign after the show. The sis and I had nice chats with all of them. They were all curious where I got the photos. When I said I took them, the drummer was like “No shit?!?” Good times. I love that they don’t forget their hometown when booking shows. Had a really funny conversation with Clayton:

C: So what show are these from?

Me: Terre Haute last year

C: Oh, man I’m sorry. I could barely stand at that show.

Sis: Why’s that?

C: I had a…beverage

Me: yeah…we talked to your photographer and he said you were umm…

C: An alcoholic?

Me: I didn’t want to be the one to say it

C: *laughs* what’s the photographer’s name? I need to set him straight

But yeah, we remembered he was pretty gone at that show. It was good times talking to them. Really nice guys. The funniest part of the conversation was that he didn’t know the photographer. We talked to that kid the whole night and he acted like he was a family friend of the Miller’s. Apparently, there was some major exaggeration in his attempts to impress us.

What a scatterbrain post this was. Hah. Oh, my Dallas journalist contact emailed me this morning. He’s venturing above the arctic circle in a few weeks. Maybe I’ll share some of his photos when he returns.

Also, according to my site stats, I have my first website linking to me, and it’s German. Pretty cool I say.

And I’m really enjoying The Dears after I heard them on KEXP last week.