boyziggy and I went to the Octavia Lounge to see a jazz concert by The Bunbury Quintet, a group consisting of Blue Bear School of Music alums, two of whom I performed with in a jazz workshop with Jim Peterson a couple years back. We'd seen the group at the Octavia Lounge before, but this time Generosa, the bass player, asked me to take photos. This was a paid shoot, which was good experience for me and good for my fledgling business, funcrunchphoto.com. The photo below links to the public gallery. I enjoyed using the new "local adjustment" features of Lightroom 2 when editing these photos.The lounge was very dark, so I used my 50/1.4 almost exclusively. But the arrangement of tables in the restaurant made it increasingly difficult to get any wide shots of the stage as more people arrived. So today I bit the bullet and ordered the Sigma 30/1.4 that I'd had my eye on since reading Phil Greenspun's recommendations a year or two ago. I'd wanted to avoid buying more APS-C lenses because they won't work when I upgrade to a full-frame sensor camera, but since there's still no word from Canon on a 5D replacement (though it looks like there might be a 50D shortly), it didn't make sense to wait any longer. Besides, my friend Dave has been getting great shots with his Sigma 30/1.4 on his Pentax, including those from our recent modeling shoot.
I have a second paid gig later this month, The New Up at Bottom of the Hill; also some Blue Bear affiliated people in that band. It's all about networking...
