Pictures From All Asia, 8/5/10 (First Batch)

By my standards, this is really quick to get around to post processing. It hasn't even been three weeks yet. Maybe I'll get these done before the next Pink Parts show.

Anyways, let's start off with Maniac and Meredith. They look great in this picture. I tried to do what I could about the noise, but this was all at ISO 3200, which is the upper limit of what my camera can do. If I were a rich man, I'd get fancy noise reduction software, and a computer fast enough to run it on, and a million other things, like a decent meal now and then. But I digress. I do that sometimes.


Next up is an extreme close-up of Ben. The noise is less obvious in this one. Maybe I should try resizing these down to this size before uploading, rather than letting Picasa's uploader handle that part. Perhaps I'll have better luck uploading to Flickr. So many things to worry about.


Now we've got Ben and Steve sharing a scorpion bowl. Aren't they such an adorable couple? It was at this point in post-processing that I first discovered that the GIMP has the ability to imitate various black and white films. I'm a fan of Kodak Tri-X, though not really for any particularly good reason, so I chose that. Much better at hiding all that ISO noise.


Oh, and there were also bands playing. This is the lovely Meredith, of the Pink Parts. Having photographed these guys before, I've found that the best strategy is to take lots of pictures of Meredith, as she's hard to capture. Maybe one shot in ten I can get to work out well. I think one's a keeper. One nice thing about shooting with no flash is that you can get that cool motion blur on her right hand, really showing off the action. The disadvantage, of course is being pretty much stuck at f/1.4 and ISO 3200, so there's that noise I keep bitching about.


And another one of Meredith. Also another one in simulated Tri-X. Probably not the most flattering facial expression (sorry Meredith), but I think it was the only one with that sweet fist pump.


And lastly (for tonight), here's Tara blowing me a kiss. I think at this point, it was totally too dim for autofocus to work, so I was stuck focusing manually, which is a pain up close at f/1.4. This took a few attempts to get in focus, then I decided I liked this one better than the one that was in focus. It's got a certain feel to it, ya know? Used the Tri-X simulation again, then added a bit of the color back in. I think that was the right call for this image.


OK. That's it for now. My computer's old and slow, making the post-processing more of an annoying time-consuming pain in the arse than it should be. I promise to fight my way through more pictures soon. Still got two thirds of the Pink Parts that haven't even made an appearance. And whichever of Brian's bands it was that played after them. And some other stuff.