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Ben Folds and William Shatner

By
Harlan Landes
– November 23, 2010Posted in: Featured, Music, Television

Musician Ben Folds, one third of the former trio Ben Folds Five (and medium format photographer), must be BFFs with William Shatner. The former captain of the Enterprise teamed up with Ben for the musician’s side project, Fear of Pop. Shatner has a distinctive style of singing that most people would not call “singing.”

Some time after this first collaboration, William became the spokesperson for Priceline. In one commercial, he played against an evil William Shatner, with the requisite goatee, reminiscent of the archetypal evil twin Spock in the classic Star Trek episode, “Mirror, Mirror.” But more importantly, one commercial featured Shatner “singing” with piano accompaniment. The piano was manned by Ben, practically unidentifiable in comparison with the legendary Shatner. The first time I saw the commercial, I was unaware of the actor’s relationship with Ben Folds and the combination struck me by surprise.

William Shatner is now continuing his domination of television with a show I expected to be horrible: “Shit My Dad Says,” the show spelled, “$#*! My Dad Says,” and pronounced, “Bleep My Dad Says.” How good could a television show based on a Twitter feed really be? Well, it’s not so bad. In fact, a recent episode featured a good criticism of self-help gurus — people for which I, like the writers of this episode, have little respect.

The best part of the show is that the theme music and all of the interstitial music is performed by Ben Folds. Check out the short opening credit sequence after the jump. The full song, “Your Dogs,” is on Ben’s latest album and collaboration with author Nick Hornby, Lonely Avenue. Read the rest of this entry »

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TheGoodLife at City Streets

By
Harlan Landes
– November 22, 2010Posted in: Featured, Music, Photography

Earlier this year, my first attempts at concert photography produced a lot of garbage. City Streets Cafe in East Windsor (New Jersey) is a bar and restaurant that has become the home for Bryan Douglas’s band, TheGoodLife. The band performs covers of today’s hot hip hop and pop music. I suggest seeing the band this coming Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, at City Streets in celebration of their first anniversary. I’m going to try to make the show, but I’ll be flying back from Los Angeles earlier that day and may not make it in time.

Getting quality photographs is a struggle at this venue. Like most bars, it’s dark, and with the band’s colorful and hyperactive lighting set-up, you never know what color you’re going to get. In the future, I’ll need to look out for stray spotlights.

Particularly with this shoot, it’s evident that the photographer’s job is not done once the memory card is full and the lens cap is placed back on the lens. My first attempts at post-processing shots from City Streets did not result in normal-looking final products. You can see some of the earlier attempts in the Flickr set linked below.

My post-processing skills have continued to improve though I’m still working on developing (get it?) the best methods.

View some of the selected photographs after the jump.

For the full set — not the full full set, because that would be about 1,200 photographs over three nights — take a look at the best 81 shots in this set on Flickr. Read the rest of this entry »

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Portraiture Class

By
Harlan Landes
– November 19, 2010Posted in: Featured, Photography

A few weeks ago, I completed a class at the Arts Council of Princeton on portraiture, conducted by Peter C. Cook. Most of our class time was spent talking about portraiture, looking at photographs created by famous and non-so-famous individuals, and critiquing each other’s work.

We did, however, spend two sessions working with a model and one session in the darkroom developing our own black and white photography. This was my first opportunity to work with a model and my first time in a darkroom in the last twenty years. The last time I developed my own work was when I took a short session on black and white photography at summer camp as a kid.

I hope the model, Rebecca, doesn’t mind that I’m posting a few of my better shots (after the jump). My XTi produced the less appealing of all the photographs, so I won’t include them here. The best photographs came from my medium format Holga with black and white film and my Mamiya RZ67 Pro II with color negative film.

For the full collection, view the set on Flickr. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Doctor and a Dalek on Craig Ferguson

By
Harlan Landes
– November 18, 2010Posted in: Featured, Television

Matt Smith is the latest actor to portray the Doctor in the long-running British television show, Doctor Who. He was on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson the other night, during which the British actor highlighted his insight on American society.

If you know me, you know I’ve been a long-time Doctor Who fan. I didn’t have high expectations for the latest series, but I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the stories were well done.

In an interesting move, speaking to the globalization of television (and to the fact that most American fans simply download the episodes from file sharing services, distributed by kind British folk, so they don’t have to wait too long before seeing the episodes air on SyFy or BBC America or whatever network airs the show on delay), this year’s Christmas special, “A Christmas Carol,” will air on Christmas Day both on the BBC and in the United States.

With the time difference, the five to eight hours between the airing may not be enough time for British viewers to record the show, encode it, and host it on bittorrent, and for American viewers to download it. Speaking of the latest Doctor Who news, the Children in Need special is airing Friday on the BBC, so check your local bittorrent server this weekend (if that sort of illicit activity appeals to you).

Back to the Craig Ferguson interview, which is available here in its entirety after the jump. Here were some of the highlights:

  • Matt Smith places Las Vegas on “the coast.”
  • He expected to meet more bears in the American suburbs.
  • Bow ties are cool.

Apparently, the cast and crew have been in Utah, filming the two-part Season Six premiere, set in the late 1960s. They should have chosen Zabriskie Point.

Here’s the video of the interview with Craig Ferguson. For those who aren’t familiar with either Matt Smith or Craig Ferguson, they are both a bit wacky. The interview is followed by a trailer for the next episode to be aired. Read the rest of this entry »

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Central Jersey Walk for PKD

By
Harlan Landes
– November 18, 2010Posted in: Featured, Photography

In early October, I supported my friends Stacey Trzesinski McClain and Randi Trzesinski with their efforts with the PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) Foundation. Stacey organized the Central Jersey Walk for PKD as she does every year, and I brought my camera along.

I prefer shooting outdoors if the weather is nice, so this was a good change from the indoor concerts. It was a little chilly that day in Mercer County Park, but it was a successful event with good participation. Walking undoubtedly kept the participants warm. As you can see from the photographs, the walk is a family event. Teams walked together at this event as a culmination of fundraising to support the organization.

My XTi was on call for the event, and I used a variety of lenses (28mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8, 10-22mm, 17-85mm). See some of the results after the jump.

Most of the better photographs are being displayed on the PKD Foundation’s Flickr page. Read the rest of this entry »

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