I live in a pretty interesting town in New Jersey. There is a diverse group of people but most are artists of some type either by profession or avocation. If I can’t afford Manhattan or New York’s hipster areas then Maplewood is the next best thing (that is of course until the property taxes either bankrupt you or force you to flee). The town has been described as being like Greenwich Village West. This weekend was Maplewoodstock (gotta love the name), a music festival held every year in the town’s main park. It’s a nice mixture of local bands and more nationally know bands such as Marshall Crenshaw and Steve Forbert (who played last night). Yesterday my friend’s band, Test Patterns, played the festival. My friend Mark is the drummer. He asked if I could take some shots and I said sure, no problem. I was hoping he had his Canon since I do not own a Digital SLR (as most of you should know by now). He did not and so I wound up shooting with a Panasonic point and shoot camera and to my surprise it did quite a good job. I have a Lumix DMC-LX3 that I carry around for family snapshots. The only drawback to the camera is that it does not have a viewfinder. Trying to see the LCD screen on a digital camera in bright sunlight is next to impossible. So relying on the autofocus system I pointed the camera and looked at the action directly and then pressed the shutter. It as sort of like using a view camera once you put the film holder in, at that point you have to look at your subject directly and decide when to press the shutter. It is a good exercise to try on whatever camera you have to help develop your photographic vision.
Force Of Seeing 