Andy Pauquette | Photography and Music

The Visit

andypauquette — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:01:13 +0000

Every house has them, but old houses are especially gifted. They are those little corners and angles that, at just the right time of day (or year, or lifetime) light up and play with you for just a minute or two. Or they draw pictures that last for a second. If you are quick enough you can usually figure out what is happening — a sunbeam reflecting from a nearby car, through the curtain and on to the wall. But it’s still a magic moment, if you ask me…

Today the dining room lit up, for about 7 minutes. Everywhere I turned I found patterns and images begging to become photographs. The sun decided to stop by for a visit, just to remind me that spring is on the way. But it also reminded me that winter is no excuse to be waiting for a reason to pick up the camera.

Here are my favorites, hours old. Canon 5dMkII, Pentax 50mm/1.4 lens, processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Jazz At The Brass Rail

andypauquette — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:45:18 +0000

Jamie Simon, Mike Patterson and Cliff Webb at the Rail last month. Great show — so sorry it took so long to get these posted. They will be back this coming Sunday night, I believe.

Stuff For Sale

andypauquette — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:48:00 +0000

I’m having an Internet Garage Sale…

COMPUTER STUFF
Dell D-620 laptop (works, but has a few issues)
Creative Labs 5.1 computer speaker set, 6-pc with subwoofer
Dual SATA NAS enclosure
Dual SATA USB enclosure

PHOTO STUFF
Canon EOS 40d camera body, with grip (not available until November 15, but let me know if you are interested)
Canon ST-E2 wireless flash transmitter (missing red lens on front, but still works)
Porter case (condition: 3/10)
Porter case (condition: 7/10)
Bogen tripod and 3047 head
VERY heavy duty roller background support system — single background
Large light stand with boom and counterweight
Small light stand
Reflector bracket for light stand
Random light modifiers
Adjustable posing stools (2)
Newton flash bracket
Canon Off Camera Cord 2
Canon Hot Shoe adapter (for longer off-camera TTL cords)
Tele lens for Nikon Coolpix 990 series

MUSIC STUFF
Roland A-90 EX 88-key keyboard MIDI controller (needs some weights reset on 10-12 random keys)
1962 Epiphone Pacemaker Tremelo amp
Small Crate guitar amp
Presonus Firepod
Presonus Faderport
Peavey FX-1 guitar (like a 335)
3-space SKB rack
6-space carpet covered rack
10-space SKB rack on wheels

MISC STUFF
Box spring set for king size bed (two-piece box springs only, no mattress)
Set of 4 Pier One wicker saucer-style chairs

The list will be updated as I find more stuff in the garage – maybe I’ll even sell the Wagovan! Email me at info@andypauquettephotography.com and let me know what you are interested in. Thanks.

iDC Viewfinder for Canon 5dMkII

andypauquette — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:48:08 +0000

For those interested in shooting video (and stills) with the 5dMkII, this gadget looks great! Santa, are you listening?

iDC Viewfinder

Kenny Taylor Plays The Great 28

andypauquette — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:16:40 +0000

This is the second year that Fort Wayne guitar hero Kenny Taylor has celebrated Chuck Berry’s birthday by performing “The Great Twenty-Eight” (in order, in the original keys!) at the Latch String Inn. Kenny was joined by Patrick Borton on bass, Mitch Frazier on guitar, Jamie Simon on drums and Paul Stewart on keys, and they sounded great! I missed last year’s event, but this year I was there with the 5dMkII and a vintage Pentax Super-Takumar 50mm/1.4 M42 screw mount lens (c.1965-1971 — perfect for this show!). It’s manual focus (and aperture) all the way of course, but the focus ring feels so much more substantial than modern auto-focus lenses. This in combination with the EG-S matte focusing screen made the camera operate almost like an old Spotmatic. These images were shot at or around ISO 5000 and processed in Adobe Lightroom:

Kenny and Pat perform at the Latch String Inn every Tuesday night — check them out!

Fine Art Prints — Part II

andypauquette — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:53:54 +0000

As addendum to my post about revisiting my earlier fine art work, I’ve created a gallery in which selected images are now available for purchase, in formats from note cards to framed prints. All are produced individually using archival materials. Please take a look: Fine Art Prints

Fine Art Prints

andypauquette — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:21:19 +0000

I have finally begun to revisit and digitize some of my old art images, and am excited about making prints with the new archival pigments and papers. Here are some of my first projects — the first two were originally toned silver prints made with toy Diana cameras; they are followed by three Polaroid transfers, three Polaroid SX-70 manipulations, and two Polaroid emulsion transfers.

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UPDATE: Selected images are now available for purchase — Fine Art Prints.

Left Lane Cruiser – The Brass Rail

andypauquette — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:22:40 +0000

Another great low light work out for the 5dMkII — here are a few photos from Left Lane Cruiser‘s CD release party at the Brass Rail in Fort Wayne:

I am looking forward to Abby and Shaun’s wedding on Saturday — stay tuned for photos!

Archival Pigment Prints!

andypauquette — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:57:49 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve posted — I’ve been working hard to finish up websites for all of the summer weddings. The big news is that, effective immediately, I am making all of my prints in house rather than outsourcing to a traditional photolab. All prints (both standard photographic prints and matted and framed art prints) will now feature premium papers and archival pigment-based inks. Accelerated tests predict that these images will show no signs of fading or color shift for 200 years under normal display conditions! This comes with absolutely no quality concessions — in fact the wide gamut prints are superior in sharpness and tonal range to the prints that I used to make by hand in my own darkroom. I am excited not only to offer museum quality prints to my couples and families, but also to return to making fine art prints of my own personal work. Stay tuned for more info.

Also “in the news” — I will be posting a tutorial video this week which will show the features of the individual wedding websites, which couples can use to show off photos to family and friends as well as order albums and prints. There are some great features to the site format that are not necessarily obvious at first glance. Again, stay tuned…

5d MkII – Just Like Old Times.

andypauquette — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:17:32 +0000

My first “serious” camera was a Pentax K1000 with a 50mm/f2 lens. It was a solid chunk of metal, but functionally it was about as basic as it could get — manual focus, manual exposure, even manual film advance. No batteries, except those that powered the bare-bones light meter in the viewfinder, but if you knew your stuff you could shoot even when those batteries were long dead. I learned so much shooting with that camera (and processing the hundreds of rolls of film I ran through it) because it forced me to slow down and think about each frame — how it should be exposed, framed, focused and, most of all, when was the precise moment to push the shutter button. So different from today’s digital “machine guns” shooting 5 to 10 frames (or more!) per second.

Ironically, it’s my newest camera (the Canon EOS 5d MkII) that has reacquainted me with this style of shooting. Having a sensor (the chip that captures the photo) that is the same size as a frame of 35mm film means not only increased detail and low light sensitivity, but it allows the camera to duplicate the field of view of my old 35mm film cameras. And of course even with the 21st century electronics it still allows me to turn it all off — manual exposure, manual focus, single shot advance. The only thing missing is the film advance lever under my thumb.

Here are some images made recently with the 5d and a 50mm/1.4 lens. Almost all were taken in full manual mode, and they were then processed entirely in Adobe Lightroom 2.4. The animals are from around the house, the band is my friends URB (joined by Matt Cashdollar) at the Gin Mill in Fort Wayne, and the scenics are from northern rural Indiana. I hope you enjoy!