The Start of Something
I'm finally starting to feel comfortable taking pics in the Black Cat. I got some good ones on Saturday that I was very happy with. Now I just need to beef up my Photoshop skillz for post production work. Small steps. I wrote a short review of the show on DCist (which should be up soon), and you can peep all of my photos over at Flickr.
But enough about me, I have some Super Furry News straight from the band's mouth! Let's get the bad news first. There will be no US tour following their June show in NYC. That's too bad but one show is better than no shows in my book. But the big news is the reason that the band won't be doing a full tour (although I'd also bet the World Cup has something to do with it). After the gig in June, the band will be returning to the studio to start work on a new record! I was very happy to hear this, since on their last tour, I kept asking everyone in the band what their next move was and no one knew. Which is not to say there was ever a danger that the band wouldn't record a new album (actually I should clarify that to say as far as I knew, that was never an issue), it was just that they didn't have concrete plans to do so, which was a first for them. Generally bands have their lives planned out months and months ahead of time, especially if they are working records in different territories. Since the SFA didn't have a record contract, their last US tour was the end of the record/promote/tour cycle for Love Kraft. And they had no future plans after that. I was a little nervous about all of that when I saw them during the tour (and this was the issue I kept dropping hints about way back then) but I was still fairly positive that everything would work out. And it has! So no US tour, but new record. I can live with that. And I have no idea what label this new album will come out on if and when it's released. I've heard some Rough Trade rumours from the Super Furry messageboards, which I think would be really great for the band, but nothing concrete.
Completely unrelated but yet equal in its besteverness, the jPod website! There are also Douglas Coupland book tour dates, but sadly, none for Washington DC. Do I have to start a "Why Does Douglas Coupland hate Washington DC?" rumour now? Here's a Coupland interview to get you started.
nice pics, Kyle. Something that I've found is key in the Photoshop post-processing is the filter unsharp function. DSLRs don't do as much in-camera sharpening as P&S, so even if your focus is smack-on, things could still look a little soft. I'm still learning to use it effectively but it can make a world of difference in the final image.
And try shooting RAW - the RAW processing lets you increase exposure without, to my eye anyway, increasing noise, so if you underexpose two steps by cranking up the shutter speed to get a sharper image, you can recover a lot of brightness in the RAW processing.
Oh, and manual focus on the Rebel XT can sometimes work better than the autofocus in clubs - the camera uses contrast to determine autofocus so in dim light, where there's not a whole pile of contrast, it can end up being off. Manual is tricky, but can get a better result. And you look more "pro" fiddling with the ring...
Douglas doesn't hate DC. Wife of DCeiver:Coupland::informationleafblower:Bret Easton Ellis, and she's seen him 2x and missed him at least one other time. One time, he even brought Spike Jonze's mom.