Category Archives: music

Esperanza Spalding

57/365

We saw Esperanza Spalding: Chamber Music Society’s sold-out show at The Jefferson Center tonight. The first time I ever heard of her was when she won the Grammy for Best New Artist a few weeks ago (and beat out Justing Bieber which had everyone surprised). But now I know why she won. Her voice is incredibly pure and magnificent. And homegirl can shred it on the upright bass like nobody’s business. She’s beautiful. And her hair is really freaking awesome.

If you like jazz + classical music, do check her out.

The T-Mobile Welcome Back

I got chills the first time I watched this video. And then after the fifth time I may or may not have gotten teary-eyed. It’s beautiful.

Cheers!

Here’s to you and me. And to all the lovely things I’ve been too busy to take the time to indulge in. Like writing. And reading others’ writing. And laundry (thanks Jeff!).

Since I haven’t had the time to sit down and gather my thoughts, I thought I’d do a post on the beautiful things I have come across in between the craziness. Like this wedding post my photographer Jonas Peterson. Try to look through it and NOT be enamored by the couple, the images, the love. Love is a big deal. And had this song with that title (which you can listen to in his blog post) were out at the time we got married, I totally would’ve walked down the aisle to it. Seriously though, the photographs are amazing and I kind of almost got emotional just looking through them while listening to the lyrics.

As most of you wedding photographers probably already know, Jasmine Star is conducting her creativeLIVE course this week. Yes, the entire week. And she’s shooting a wedding which will be streamed LIVE on Friday. Today she’ll be talking about the nuts and bolts of the business as well as branding. I’ve been keeping the session on in the background at work and have found myself LOLing out of nowhere in our quiet office because the woman is hilarious. I’m sure my co-workers think I’m crazy.

In other music news, Jenny Lewis (my all time fave) and her bf, Jonathan Rice, have come together to form Jenny and Johnny, an absolutely loverly singing duo. You can stream their new album on NPR right now. I’ve seen her perform several times and have come to realize that I get completely goofy over her. So I decided it would be a travesty if I couldn’t catch them on this tour and since their D.C. show is sold out I took it upon myself get in touch with their booking agent to ask him to bring them to VA. After a cutesy, semi-clever email, it was a done deal. A new date and venue has been added for Charlottesville in October! I am beyond ecstatic. And lesson learned…ask and you shall receive :)

But between getting pumped up for that and trying to learn all the lyrics to every song on the new album, the hubs and I are moving to a downtown apartment next week-ish. And I only say “week-ish” because that’s when we get the keys but will be in Massachusetts for labor day weekend. We’ll have a bit a lot of juggling to do since we haven’t even started packing yet because we originally weren’t planning to move until end of October/beginning of November. What’s life without some curve balls though? A boring one, that’s what. I mean, who needs an easy-to-manage, stress-free, low-blood-pressure kind of life? I do.

Anyone been to Boston/Cape Cod/Martha’s Vineyard/Nantucket? If so, travel advice is welcomed and in fact, seeked.



Priceless Bargains

Tonight we tore apart our big closet in the second bedroom, unstacked and ransacked each plastic tub in search of the velcro dividers for my camera bag. We did this twice which reminded me why you should never do things half-assed the first time around. We never found the dividers, but I did stumble upon this gem which was hiding in the midst of empty electronic device boxes and a William Byrd High School terrier mascot.

When we were in college, Jeff and I spent a lot of time antiquing and going to yard sales. I found this camera case (and land camera) with the Roanoke Airport travel tag attached and it was love at first sight as I have a fondness for both Polaroid and old travel stickers/tags/boarding passes/etc and suitcases. I haven’t been to a yard sale, Goodwill or antique store in a while but I have to say that some of my most special things were found in these unlikely places. My absolute favorite camera in the whole wide world that I’ve taken my best photos with, the Nikon FE2 was purchased for just $20 at Goodwill (although I tossed the lens it came with). I also found this crazy looking flash bracket and bought an enlarger with developing trays and easel at a garage sale for way cheap which I used to set up a darkroom in my bathroom in college. Unfortunately my bathroom was way too small to be used as a darkroom on a regular basis but I hope that in our future home, we’ll have a space large and dark and ventilated enough for me to re-indulge in the dying art.

I’m still on the hunt for a medium format film camera like a Hasselblad, Mamiya or Rollie and of course a new digital Canon system (I’m almost there!). I also want a puppy. But that’s a whole ‘nother story. Know of any good sites to check out? I used to visit shopgoodwill.com for old cameras all the time and I’m a little iffy about ebay. Also, the craigslist for Roanoke is a joke (at least for photo-related stuff).

Auld Lang Syne

Indie music blog, Sparkups.com has provided a free download of a compilation of 94 songs of what they have considered the best of 2009 Indie Rock. I’ve only listened to four tracks so far but consider it worth downloading already after hearing the second track which is a cover version of Death Cab for Cutie’s I Will Follow You Into The Dark, performed by Amy Millan, who I had not heard of until now. As the few of you who actually read this blog have noticed, we’ve recently made changes to the layout of my blog and are still working out the kinks of how to make it work and what to put where—please excuse the inconsistency of the last few/older posts. For me, the new year has brought a new blog, will bring a new portfolio website with my new name, and new work, and…that’s pretty much all I have figured out for now. I have high hopes that Jeff and I can build a strong husband and wife photo duo business in the near future but we’re just taking baby steps with what we have for now. Do let us know if you would like to have your portrait awesomely taken. We would be terrificly obliged. My new years resolution…to cook more and eat out less, to try to stay away from frozen foods and try to make things from scratch, and to take better care of myself, health-wise. I know it’s nothing unoriginal but it’s a start.

Happy New Year to you and yours, and may the start of a new decade bring you much love and happiness!

Huong Fralin Photography

Episode 1b

One day Huong stumbled upon a Macintosh computer. It had a built in webcam (see iSight).

Huong Nguyen Photography

Jeff saw that Huong’s interest had been peaked and came over to see what all the hub bub was about. The white balance goes out of whack.

Huong Nguyen Photography
Huong Nguyen Photography
Jeff decided to be silly/creepy. I decide to be normal.

Huong Nguyen Photography
Then we made a video. It it suggested that you load the video before playing. Enjoy!

Music: In the Hall of the Mountain Queen by Raymond Scott.

The PEN Story

The PEN Story from PENStory on Vimeo.

Description: “This is the Olympus PEN Story in stop motion. We shot 60,000 pictures, developed 9,600 prints and shot over 1,800 pictures again. No post production! Free download of the music at olympus.eu/penstory/.”

Makes my heart happy =)

Jenny Lewis and My Stupid GPS

Huong Nguyen Photography

Having a GPS is both awesome and frustrating when on a road trip in a town you’re not familiar with. Though it’s good for long distance directions, I find myself calling it unpleasant names when we’re trying to look up local directions and it tells us to take three rights just to get to a place that’s right across the street. And it’s been known to tell us to exit a highway only to get right back on and continue on it. We don’t have the same sense of humor.

Jeff and I saw Jenny Lewis at The National in Richmond on Friday night. It was pretty freaking awesome and was the third time I’ve seen Lewis in the past year (once with her other band, Rilo Kiley). I think it’s safe to say that she’s my all time favorite. She played two new songs which made me happy to know that she’s working on a new stuff already and played a bunch from Rabbit Fur Coat which made Jeff happy because he likes songs from that album more than the ones on her latest. Here’s one of my favorite tracks from her latest album, Acid Tongue…

See Fermando:
[audio:SeeFernando.mp3]

Brooklyn Girl, You’re Gonna Be My Bride

Shannon Roddy Photography

Shannon sent us a few teasers from our engagement session but she leaves me wanting more, more, more! Won’t be posting any others until we get them all and organized in a gallery but I couldn’t resist in not posting any. I just used “and” in front of “organized.” But “an organized” doesn’t look/sound right to me. Exception to the vowel rule? I digress. I re-processed this particular photo a bit and love the way it came out. I think it’s a good prelude to the rest of the set.

In regards to the title of this post, Jeffrey makes mixed compact discs for me and calls them “Heart Beats.” Get it? Heart beats? Eh? Clever one, he is. And sweet. I think he’s currently working on Volume 9 of the collection. Anywho, while I was living in New York he sent me a compilation that included this song by Barton Carol. Made me smile every time I listened to it.

Barton Carol—Brooklyn Girl, You’re Going To Be My Bride:
[audio:Brooklyn_Bride.mp3]

diamonds and gold


Meet George and Kristin.

George is quite literally my oldest friend in the world…not age-wise but number-of-years-being-friends-wise. He lived two doors down from me. Stopped by my house every morning in grade school so that we could walk to the bus stop together and showed up on our doorstep with an umbrella to walk me to his Nana’s car when the weather was too dreadful to stand and wait in. He was one of those people who never had to knock when he came over…my brother from another mother, if you will. One time we were riding bikes on the same sidewalk but coming head-on toward each other. I yelled “you go left, and I’ll go right.” He said, “I go right and you go left?” “Yeah, yeah,…you go right,” I shouted back. But of course my left was his right and his right was my left and we collided straight on and fell onto some stranger’s yard. That’s probably the most memorable thing I can recall during our younger years of friendship. That and him hacking a loogie (sp?) on a windy day and it coming back and getting on his shirt.

Kristin is probably one of the sweetest and most friendliest people I’ve ever met. She is George’s fiancée and significant other…they’re so great and supportive of each other. We’ve been friends on facebook for a while and when I first met her this past weekend, we felt like we already knew each other. Instead of a formal handshake, we immediately gave each other hugs and hit it off from the start. We had a photo session in NYC even though they’re from PA and I’m of course in VA. It was the first time I’ve seen George since high school. That was nine years ago.

George and I have a strange connection as far as numbers and dates. His birthday is only two days before mine. He and Kris have been together for five years. Jeff and I have been together for five years. Not only that, Jeff and I had our first date on April 7th…George and Kris’s anniversary is April 9th. They’re getting married the weekend after Jeff and I are…AND…this is funny…Kris even called George one day because she noticed that we even have the same amount of friends on facebook. I love it.

This past week has been nuts. And not enough sleep. I think that’s a good thing though. Roanoke to D.C. to Brooklyn to Lancaster to Roanoke…and possibly back up to Lancaster again this weekend.

I saw various musical acts last week—headliner was Langhorne Slim with The Whoa’s, some other solo guy from Indiana, and The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players who describe themselves as “Pee Wee Herman on acid.” I also saw Fuerza Bruta which is a performance art show that completely blew my mind. Everything happened above us and instead of sitting, you stood/moved around/interacted. There was a guy on a giant tredmill with people rolling by/falling off, running through styrofoam walls, paper pieces floating everywhere, people tumbling along the wall of silver billowing fabric, suspended every which way, an elevated pool with people swimming/sliding/pounding that moved closer toward us from the ceiling…so close that it was right above our heads and we could touch it. Check out the trailer on their website (might need to push play then pause to let it buffer in order to play without skipping). It reminded me of a rave towards the end sans glow sticks and pacifiers. Water was raining down on the crowd, lights were flashing, and we were all dancing…it was probably one of the best nights of entertainment I ever had. Highly recommended show if you’re in New York and need something to do.

Two of my favorites from Langhorne Slim:

Restless:
[audio:Restless.mp3]

Diamonds and Gold:
[audio:Diamonds_and_Gold.mp3]