The heyday of Jazz performance photography is long over. The great masters of the genre and the musicians they captured on film are gone. Those wonderful gritty dark club interiors were of course captured on film.
As far as I know the best album covers ever printed were for jazz LPs in the fifties and early sixties. They were often as avant-garde as the music itself. They mirrored qualities of the music transposed to the visual medium. Maybe you can tell I’m a jazz buff.
Every now and then I try my hand at jazz photography. For one thing I can’t resist music. In this era jazz musicians they are something exotic. They have a presence that may have been overlooked when the music was more common. Of course the best players were never main stream for the pop audience. You had to pay attention to the music and the musicians. They demanded that the audience be up to their standards.
In the recent past I was fortunate to work downtown within walking distance of Alamo Plaza. That gave me the opportunity to spend my lunch hours photographing on the street. One thing I quickly discovered is that tourists are not very interesting subject matter. Eventually I began to explore old streets and alleys of the city. Some areas in downtown go back to the eighteenth century Spanish colonial period well before Texas independence. Peacock Alley probably dates from the end of the nineteenth century about the time Teddy Roosevelt was in town recruiting Rough Riders. The city has always been a vibrant crossroads of cultures.
The alley runs just to one side of the Alamo serving the back doors of many businesses catering to local residents and tourists. Unlike the public face of the business district it exposes unvarnished aspects of the city. Within the mile length you can find some of the poorest residents in downtown and high end boutique hotels. It is an interesting place to do some amateur urban archaeology.
I was prompted to photograph there because the city is rapidly redeveloping areas near the Alamo. Given the pace of change, some places in these photos already look completely different. The residential hotels and old buildings in the area will soon be gone. Progress and change are relentless, no matter how much we would like to preserve the character of the city. San Antonio like all cities continuously renews itself while hopefully preserving at least some history. Peacock Alley has no history to preserve so it will redevelop in due course.
The photographs were shot during several early morning walks in varying lighting conditions. All were made from within the alley or a few steps beyond. Some show surrounding areas but most are of the alley itself. They follow in sequence from one end of the alley to the other. Some images are better than others but they all contribute to the body of work as a whole.
Gimme that thing!You hear people bragging about self professed Gear Acquisition Syndrome all the time in online forums. It seems mostly to be a way for non-photographer photographers to justify new gear purchases. I always thought it was an activity for amateurs but many blogs run by photo professionals seem also to be GAS driven. I guess it happens to some degree to anyone who admires picture taking machines.
My Gear Anxiety Syndrome is closely related in the sense that I have a strong desire to buy new photographic gear. The difference, if there is one, is that I’m selling all my current gear. The act of divestiture is causing a great deal of anxiety. I’m experiencing a sense of loss just knowing that I will be without a dedicated camera for the first time in at least fifteen years. To be stuck with just a mobile phone camera is a cruel fate indeed.
If ever there was an invented marketing driven problem it is the tyranny of excessive choice. Compounding the loss of my old gear is anxiety that I will end up with a new camera system that is less satisfying to own than the one I just got rid of. Last week I was sure that building a Sony full frame system was what I wanted. Now … doubts have started to undermine that decision. There are too many options available. Each with a certain something to make photography more exciting or provide some exotic must have feature. How about huge pixel count wiz bang sensor shift capture? Now that is a feature I’ll use all the time. Not really.
As I consider my options it is clear that I really need several cameras to meet my extensive requirements. I’ve become such a sophisticated non-professional shooter that no single camera can get the job done for me. It is a burden.
If you think long enough about consumer goods you can talk yourself right into a serious mental health issue. I’m buying Sony even if it chaps the pope. You know, he is a hands-on guy. I wonder what he shoots?
