January 2007 – Claude Schneider's Photoblog

January 31, 2007

Nerina Pallot

Both Nerina Pallot’s and Imogen Heap’s concerts were due to take place last October, but were both postponed until this week; this made for a busy week of photography, but great for my listening entertainment!

Nerina is starting her latest tour, promoting her recent album “Fires”, which contains the excellent singles “Everybody’s Gone to War” and “Sophia”, and my other favourite track “All Good People”. While she may still be unsure about how to entertain the crowd between songs, her piano- and guitar-playing, and singing, were spot on, and definitely pleased. Memorable moments from the evening include the moving finale, “Sophia”, and Nerina’s take on Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”.

Nerina Pallot

More photos are available on CantabPhotos.com

January 28, 2007

"Elemental" – CUCDW Dance Show @ ADC Theatre

As I wasn’t able to get photographs of the whole show last Monday evening (see previous post), I went to the last performance of the week, and took photographs from the lighting box, accompanied by the show’s very talented lighting designer, Eddy Langley. Having spent well over an hour just downloading the photos, rotating them, sorting them into each of the 25 dances, and discarding any unusable photos, I finally got a chance to look at the photos. As usual, the choreography and lighting produced some wonderful imagery, but one of the photos took my breath away (well, I actually said “wow”). In the piece “Fire from Water”, the dancers wore loose strips of orange and yellow ribbon “bringing to life the beauty of flames dancing playfully in the breeze” (seen clearly in the photo I took on Monday). This time, I took some long-exposure photos, and the one shown below looks like real fire. I wonder if the choreographer, Vaughan-Alicia Watts, had this image in her mind. Simply stunning.

UPDATED 31/01/2007: Photos of all dances are now on CantabPhotos.

“Prelude”

“Fire from Water”

“Samsui Water Women”

“Homelands”

“Bittersweet”

Monkey
“Monkey”

“Just Happen”

“Five Breaths”

“Swan Song”

“Sandstorm”

January 24, 2007

Cambridge in the snow

I woke up this morning to find snow lining the tree outside my window. With great glee, I grabbed my camera and headed in to work, taking a long scenic detour through St. John’s college backs. The last time I remember snow settling in Cambridge, and when I got photos, was in March 2005 (see the album on Cantabphotos). I tend to gravitate towards St. John’s, my alma mater, whenever there are interesting lighting/meteorological conditions, though I’m quickly running out of novel photos to take there!

Snow-covered trees reflected in the River Cam
Compare this to the same view taken a mere 10 days ago

St. John's College chapel in the falling snow

Moorhen venturing out into snow from behind a tree

Avenue of snow-covered trees

January 22, 2007

Imogen Heap @ Cambridge Junction

The second of my photoshoots this evening was Imogen Heap’s concert at the Cambridge Junction. Postponed since October 2006, this was the last date of her UK tour, and her last tour performance until she completes a new album, sometime in 2008. Hounded with technical problems (misbehaving Mac and repeaters (her ‘Parrot’)), she nevertheless wowed the crowd with her voice and creativity, making all the music herself. In addition to popular favourites “Hide and Seek”, and Frou Frou’s “Let Go” (here performed bare, with just her vocals and piano), the highlight of the evening was definitely “Just For Now”, which would have relied heavily on the Parrot for backing vocals (similar to KT Tunstall’s ‘Wee Bastard’ pedal). Instead, the crowd (full of her loyal fans) offered to sing along for her, and she orchestrated a 3-part harmony, with the whole room filled with powerful harmonies – most (including Immi herself) would say that this version sounded better than ever!

I shall sort through my photos when I find time later this week, and post them all on CantabPhotos but for now (and just for now ;) here are a pair that caught my eye:

Imogen Heap

Updated 23/01/2007 – the rest of the photos are now on CantabPhotos at http://www.cantabphotos.com/view.php?album=claude/070123193949

January 22, 2007

"Elemental" – CUCDW Dance Show @ ADC Theatre

I’d been looking forward to this year’s CUCDW Dance Show (Cambridge University Contemporary Dance Workshop), as I used to dance with people who performed in previous shows, and have always enjoyed the performances, lighting and music. Last year, I managed to get some wonderful photos of the show, called “Touch”. This year, I was asked back to photograph the show, except unfortunately I was double-booked for the evening of the tech/dress rehearsal. I managed to photograph the first four pieces before having to rush off to another photography assignment (Imogen Heap at the Cambridge Junction). Here are some of my favourite first pics from the dances that I saw.
The first photograph below makes me think of Fire…

Elemental

I hope to be able to photograph some more of the dances later this week.

January 22, 2007

Coloured Discs

Haven’t had much time recently to sort through my latest photos, but as I’d like to update this photoblog regularly, I’ll add some older photos that haven’t had public airing yet.

Here’s one I took at Strawberry Fair in June 2006.

January 14, 2007

Landscape fading into the sunset

Another clear and mild day in Cambridge, so I took my camera out to capture some of magic hour. This time, I wandered around the St. John’s backs briefly, before heading up to my favourite haunt, Castle Mound, to watch the sun set.

Reflection of trees at sunset

Reflection of St. John's College

People watching the sunset

Airplane trails

These next two photos were taken 4 minutes apart, and are quite similar to a stunning mountainscape I took in Edinburgh. I love photos where the landscape gradually fades to grey in the distance. I can’t decide which I prefer, so here are both of them!

Landscape fading into distance as sun sets

Landscape fading into distance after sunset

Crossing pink and white airplane trails

Orange clouds after sunset

January 4, 2007

Cambridge Sunset Panorama

I took a panoramic view of a stunning sunset back in November 2005, viewed from Castle Mound in Cambridge. Lord knows why I waited a year to stitch together the photos. I only stiched about 340 degrees of the view, so don’t have a full wrap-around, but there were 40 photos, resulting in an output file weighing in at a hefty 108 megapixels. I’ve cropped it down to 70 megapixels, as much of the dark ground isn’t interesting. What prompted me to take the full wrap-around is that the pink clouds are visible across the whole sky, not just over the setting sun. Friends have asked how I get such colours – I just capture what nature does best – amaze us with its wondrous beauty.

You can scroll around the panorama in the Java Applet linked below. You can drag the view around with your mouse, or use your keyboard’s arrow keys. Pressing – or + lets you zoom out or in, although the images are displayed at 1:1 resolution already.

Cambridge Sunset: Panoramic view from Castle Mound. Visible in the panorama are the University Library, King’s Chapel, St. John’s Chapel Tower, and the moon.

Cambridge Sunset Panorama
Click to view panorama

I also took a second set of photos of the same sunset. Much of the sky on the left was too dark to keep in the panorama, so I cropped this one down to 31 megapixels:

Cambridge Sunset Panorama