2006 Highland Games at Grandfather Mountain, NC.
(c)2006 Rash Photo.
I found it interesting the level of involvement kids play at the Highland Games. It should be no surprise, because most kids fall in love with sports, playing a music instrument, or dance at an early age. Highland games are so culturally specific I always imagined only adults being dedicated participants, however music, dance and athletics all play a major role in a highland weekend. Whether a spectator or participant, the games bring together many generations, all to celebrate a common culture and tradition. Something about that is much more heart warming than playing football or learning to play trumpet.
Urban Texture
Textures found on and around Elm Street, Greensboro, NC.
(c)2006 Rash Photo
The as the city continues to grow, our eyes crave clean, sleek, well designed environments. Walk around the corner, explore the alleys behind street-level facades and even the most beautiful architecture might have a differnt story to tell. Paint peels from the walls, basement windows sealed and resealed, and service entry paths never seen by patrons but always by the workers. The top image is peeling plaster, digitally stitched to create a rorschach-esque eye. The bottom image is unaltered, found texture from behind a bank in downtown Greensboro.
Barton Carroll: Folk Singer
Barton Carroll. 9/21/06. The Green Bean, Greensboro, NC. 
(c)2006 Rash Photo.
Thursday nights at the Green Bean are usually good nights to see friends and catch up on the latest Greensboro gossip while enjoying a half-priced coffee drink. Occasionally, this coffeehouse / part-time computer lab (thanks wi-fi) transforms into a venue for local and traveling musicians, which can be a double-edged sword. A planned evening of homework at the Bean can quickly go down hill on the unfortunate occasion of a bad indie rock band or jazz ensemble gigging on a weeknight. Weekends have a different vibe, and loud band scan usually get away with interrupting concentration and conversation. However, the typical coffehouse fare of singer/songwriter, bluegrass, and soft pop can function quite well as both entertainment and environmental backdrop. This past Thursday offered a pair of singer/songwriters who are both friends tightly knit into my life, but from different chapters. Nathan Tarr, playing under the name "Wood Ear", is a college friend and played a set of stripped down Replacements-esqe pop songs. This was his first show, and a good representation of tight friends from Greensboro turned out to support. The headlining act is my old high school buddy Barton Carroll, who has been living in Seattle, WA and playing in Crooked Fingers for the past few years. This is his first trip back to the East Coast on tour as a solo musician, and his set was more from a traditional folk influence. I wanted to document both performers, however due to problems with my strobe, I was only able to grab a few decent shots of Barton. What you see here is a representation of two different ideas I had in terms of capturing Barton. The color image purposely includes the checkered floor and the orange lights, but attempts to omit the remaining environment to give a dark feeling overall. The second image hugs in on the face, and actually came out surprisingly reminiscent of photos of Woody Guthrie that were used on the Asche Series CD collection (and on the cover of Joe Klien's biography). As a huge Guthrie fan, it was rewarding to see this turning out so close to those that are dear to my heart, however I'm not sure Barton would be completely comfortable being likend to Guthrie musically. His songs are certainly from a slightly different tradition, and this is way I wanted to experment with a few different ways of capturing his performance.
GREENSBORO ROCK 02: MAN MAN
Man Man @ they Flying Anvil, Greensboro 8/03/06
(c)2006 Rash Photo
Man Man seem to occupy a musical space somewhere between Tom Waits and uber art-school circus music. Their live performance brushes vaudeville with a touch of pretention, as the band gathers tightly, forming a intimate circle on the stage; elbow to elbow, face to face. Shooting over the shoulder of the drummer, I tried to capture the spectacle of equpment parked back to back, and band members literally staring each other in the face. The pile of drums in the forground is just one visual (and physical) obstacle between these players, but the energy created as a result is quite unreal. Somehow, you can't help feeling as if you are observing the same setup that exists in a dirty practice space in Philidelphia where this music was first composed.
Family 01: Maw Maw Ramsey.
"MawMaw", Banner Elk, NC. 8/06/06.
(C)2006 Rash Photo
I love my grandma, and I've always admired her enthusiasm and knowlege of growing beautiful flowers and vegetables. I learned more about gardening from my grandparents than any book or website I attempted to study as I constructed my beds in Greensboro. I asked Maw Maw to pose for me during my last visit home, and after loading in my CF card I look up to discover her sticking flowers in her hair and cracking jokes about how she "looks like a ho." Regretfully, I was not equipped to record those comments, but these photos serve to capture the moment and the laughter that followed her gag. Like I said before, I love my Maw Maw.
Greensboro Rock: Tiny Meteors
Tiny Meteors @ the Flying Anvil, Greensboro, NC. 8/03/06.
(C)2006 Rash Photo
I tend to hate band photography because it usually looks the same. Maybe I'm on a search for a new way to shoot this kind of event, but feel like whatever that is I have not yet found it. Rock bands with motion blur and light trails is a tired technique with an abandonment of some aspects of controlling the final image, yet seems to be a formula I find myself relying on all too often. Composition can also be difficult with limited angles and shooting positions in smaller venues or packed rooms. Toting your camera around a small rock club, stepping on and around people who paid good money to be there is certainly no fun. However, it is important to document our musical experiences, especially local artist that run the risk of playing a handful of shows before evaporating forever. Tiny Meteors played their second ever show in Greensboro last night, this is my attempt to archive the show with a handful of typical rock n roll photographs.
NYC 06: Coney Island Revisited
(C)2006 Rash Photo
On July 15th Coney Island became a playground for NYC's indie music scene. The Village Voice sponsored the Siren Music Festival, which crowded the boardwalk and the amusement park with a sea of hipsters and rockers. However, the scene was not entirely surrendered to the uber-pretentious, as many families and Coney Island regulars completed the scene. Here are two images that could have been taken on any day at Coney Island, rock n roll backdrop or not. People come to Coney Island to see the ocean (but never to swim), to walk on the boardwalk, and to enjoy a variety of junk food. The food offerings of Coney Island are just as important as the 75 year old wooden Cyclone rollercoaster, the Wonder Wheel, or the boardwalk itself. Here we observe only a few of Coney Island's culinary choices.
NYC 04: Handball Silhouttes
Chinatown, Manhattan. 7/16/06.
©2006 Rash Photo
Challenges can sometimes reveal the beauty in an otherwise ordinary experience. Capturing images of handball players against a brightly lit wall made it almost impossible to pull detail and emotion in the participant's faces from the deep cast shadows. However, I realized the shapes created by the player's out-stretched bodies were the real objects of beauty. Graceful and continuously changing forms unraveled with each new serve. The challenge became preserving moments of overlapping boides and dance-like gestures, and lighting was given back to nature. The handball players had no idea what beautiful shapes their bodies created, as their arms and legs worked to grasp for the ball.
NYC 04: Central Park Faces
Central Park, Manhattan, NY. 7/16/06.
©2006 Rash Photo
Sometimes when you stand in a crowd, looking around, the faces become the same. Blurring together, individuals assume a new collective identity. The crowd often becomes it's own beast. Living in the city must feel like this fairly often, and only rare moments of clarity remind us that we feel lost from our position in the belly of crowd. Here are a few faces, picked from a collection of many, captured on a Sunday afternoon in Central Park, Manhattan.
Nyc 03: Summer Heat in the City
Washington Square Park, Manhattan, NY. 7/17/06.
©2006 Rash Photo
How do you beat the summer heat?