amezri | ten year vamp @ sandy's (Reply)

smashedrecords and I went to the Ten Year Vamp show last night, which was once again at Sandy's Clam Bar. Last time I went, I hadn't brought a camera but when I got to the venue, I sort of regretted that as it was a perfect place for photos. You could get right up to the stage and the band has an awesome strobe light that makes for some fabulous photos in an otherwise poorly light place.

The drive down was pretty good (I'm sure it was mostly due to the company) and when we got to the bar, the band was still setting up and the place was mostly empty. It filled in within the hour, though, and the usual suspects showed up. We'd all already put ear plugs in (because I like being able to hear) and

erintheodd and I sort of just stood around looking like idiots in front of the stage.

smashedrecords, however, was chatting away and.. well, sometimes I'm a bit jealous at her ability to just chat people up and have a good time. Well, not really jealous because I know it's my fault for being a bit stand-offish so it's no one's fault but my own. I tend to figure if I don't have anything smart to say,I'm better off not saying anything.

Anyway. The show was great, but I really wish they would.. not play the same goddamn set every single time they play. Sure, it makes photography pretty easy because you know exactly what they'll be doing when, but honestly... change the order or mix in some new songs. I don't know how some of these people can just go to what is essentially a rerun every week. Don't get me wrong, the band is great and they do awesome covers, but seriously, if this is the setlist for the rest of eternity, I'm not sure how many more times I will want to go.

On the bright side: I didn't get a drink spilled on me. I attribute this to the fact that Josh had departed earlier in the evening. Heh.

On the not so bright side, I got hit on three times - twice by the same guy. All three encounters were awkward and totally unwanted, though that third times was really creeptastic. The first guy was... well, he was all right if you went for that type (and were really desperate and very, very drunk). Which I didn't. He started by asking me if the ear plugs helped to which I replied that, yes they did. Then he asked me my name and introduced himself and followed that with really lame lines like, "you're really beautiful, I just thought I'd tell you that." And omg, I could not get rid of him. I sort of smiled and turned away. A few minutes later he comes back and starts in again, so I flat out told him that I wasn't really interested and hey, don't take it personally, it was a good try, but I was completely not interested in him at all. I think he was faking the embarrassment, but either way, I told him that it was fine, but next time he would do better not being so forceful. "So next time I see you I shouldn't be so forceful?" he asks. I say, "oh, no, not with me, with someone else." And then he finally went away. Right after that, a really smelly, overweight guy in an overcoat sidled up and said, "You're like the only Asian girl in here." Swear to god, he said that. "Uh, that's.. cool." I said and turned away. He tried to talk to me again and, fed up with it, I finally said, "Look, if you're trying to chat me up, I am really not interested, so you can just move along." And he was all, "oh, no, just want to be friends," and tried to shake my hand. Uhm, yeah. No. Thankfully, that was the end of that, but holy crap.

Moving on.. One of the main points of me going to the show was to take some photos and practice the whole low light venue thing because fstops and shutter speeds totally defeat me. The photos from the Knitting Factory are total crap because I let the camera handle all that and basically what it did was to crank the ISO to 1600 which... well... it's pretty horrible. Fairly sharp images ruined by unbelievable grain.

I read up on low light photography Friday and was determined to use some of that knowledge at the show. I think it was pretty helpful. With the help of Deb's fabulous on stage strobe, I managed to take some really great shots. I kept switching up the ISO, fstop, and shutter speeds before I finally stopped after the second set because... uh.. I ran out of card space (or was rather close). I took something close to 700 shots, but that was because I was using the continuous shooting mode. This afternoon I got rid of the really blurry ones and ended up with 400 decent shots. The final gallery has about 200. I learned quite a bit, but it was all about experimenting, so I'm wondering how much of that learning process will have stuck. Most of these were taken without flash. A few dozen were taken with the slow-sync flash, and only a couple were with traditional flash settings.

Full gallery is here. Some of my favorite shots are under the cut, along with a video.