Trigger...It's Part Of Willie's Distinct Sound

Last weekend a good friend offered me a free ticket to see Willie Nelson in concert at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, GA. Considering what I had planned for the evening, this was an easy decision....hell yes! I have been a fan of Willie's since the late 1970's and it's been years since I've seen him in concert.

But this blog is not about Willie, it's about Trigger, that old guitar that is so worn out it has holes in it from decades of use. The sound that comes from Trigger is one of the most unique sounds in music. If only one note from his guitar is heard, most of his fans would immediately know it was Willie Nelson playing that tune.

Willie was given a three cord electric guitar by the Baldwin company in 1969, but soon the guitar was broken by the intense style he played. He sent the guitar to Shot Jackson in Nashville and was told it was beyond repair. Shot offered to replace it with a Martin nylon-string acoustic and Willie asked him to add the pickup from his Baldwin guitar and then...Trigger was born.

After decades of strumming a guitar pick across the strings a large hole has been worn into Trigger near the sound hole. Many guitars have a pick-guard where the hole is, but Trigger is a classical guitar and is meant to be played with fingers instead of a pick. Now, I'm no guitar tech, but Trigger's age and that big hole has to be a huge part of the sound that Willie creates when he strums that ol' guitar. Over the years, hundreds of Willie's friends have signed Trigger; from musicians, athletes, coaches and even lawyers. Due to his infamous run-ins with the IRS, Willie has known his share of lawyers over the years. As a matter of fact, in 1991 during one of his bouts with the IRS, he had his daughter Lana pick up Trigger from the studio and send it to him in Maui. An IRS agent was on the way to to list properties to be auctioned off and Willie was afraid Trigger would be auctioned off with everything else. He hid Trigger at his manager's office until his tax debt was paid off two years later and then...out came Trigger again.

And so, after more than four decades of making music and helping Willie write countless hits, Trigger is still hanging in there. On the day that Willie passes from this world, that guitar should never be strummed again. It should be put in a museum under a glass case and be given the rest of time off after a lifetime of making great music.

Thanks for letting me Ramble On...

Celtic Woman

This week I had a shoot with Celtic Woman, a musical ensemble with four lovely lassies(as they say in Ireland) singing traditional Irish as well as contemporary tunes. They were in town to shoot a new concert DVD at Atlanta's Fox Theater. It was an early morning shoot, so I wasn't happy at having to wake up before 5AM, but it's a tough life and someone had to be there. Sometimes it's so hard to do these shoots, I mean who would really want to hang out all morning long with four beautiful women with incredibly sexy Irish accents, listening to them sing and tell stories of life in Ireland and on the road.

Yeah...it sucks, but like I said, someone had to be there. Never let it be said that I won't take on the tough jobs. Actually, I've been to Ireland twice on two week trips. Both times I was hired to shoot for a week in Galway on the western coast and then I stayed for another week after the shoot seeing Ireland on my own time.

River Corrib, Galway, Ireland

I rented a car and drove up and down the western coast of Ireland staying in B&B's, traveling through typical Irish countryside, visiting ancient castles and landmarks and checking out every pub that had music coming out of it.

All of the people I met while driving the countryside were consistently such friendly people. This was one of those slam on the brake moments. I was driving through Doolin in County Clare and these three girls were playing traditional Irish instruments outside this music shop. No….I didn’t set this up.

And Irish Woman just reminded me how nice the Irish are. It's early in the morning and they're in a small studio in a foreign country and they made themselves right at home...laughing and smiling all the while. At the end of the shoot they even asked me to take this picture of us all together. What? It could happen…

Okay...I'm just Ramblin' On now.....

Defining Photography

The word photography comes from the Greek words phos(light) and graphis(stylus or paintbrush), which together mean to "write or paint with light." Over the years as I have learned more and more about photography, I have found that this is the most important thing to understand to be able to take better images. With this blog I am going to try and give a few examples of how much light can influence how we feel about an image.

First let me say, to take really good landscape images you have to be willing to either get up early to catch the morning light or maybe forego that relaxing dinner to catch the last light before the sun sets. These are the two best times of day for landscape photography. The reason for this is that the light from the sun at these times of day gives off a warmer cast than the boring white light of midday. I won't get too deep into the science of this, but it is about the distance the light has to travel through the atmosphere when it's closer to the horizon, which effects the specrums of colors that reach the landscape. Also, the shadows created at these times of day usually can enhance the drama within the image.

Let me first show you two examples of a sunrise at Reflection Lake in Mount Rainier National Park. Notice how the different colors created as the sun comes up makes you feel differently about the images, even though they are practically the same shots.

The sun has yet to crest the top of the mountain in this image, which gives it a cooler appearance.

In this image the sun has just crested the ridge and has added a warmer feeling to the scene.

The next set of images are four shots taken at practically the same location as the sun sets on Otto Lake in Alaska. I can't remember the exact time frame for these images, but my guess would be about an hour or so. Notice as the sun goes down, light hitting the landscape changes not only in color temperature, but intensity, as well.

I would call the lighting on this image more like late afternoon. It is warmer than midday light, but still has a whiter look to it. This is a really good time to begin shooting because the shadows are just starting to creep across the landscape, as you can see in the foreground.

In this image the sun is so close to the horizon that only the mountains can catch the light. At these times of day, a split neutral density filter is needed because the amount of light hitting the mountains and the foreground differs so greatly that the foreground would appear too dark to make a good image and in some cases may go almost black. This is not manipulating the image, it is just giving you a helping hand to show a closer representation of what you saw when you pushed the shutter release.

In this image, the sun is just setting down below the horizon, which means only the last levels of the red spectrum are allowed to hit the landscape, giving a pinkish hue to the light. It gives the image a very soft feel and is one of my favorite lights of the day to photograph.

The sun has now set below the horizon, which now gives the image more of a blue cast. But in return the colors of the leaves on the lake shore are a bit more intense.

To me, all of these are good images but because of the different ways that the sun is lighting the landscape, the way in which the images are interpreted by the viewer is greatly effected. Because of the effect that light has on my images, I usually only shoot landscapes for a few hours a day. Most sunny days when I'm shooting landscapes, I usually quit shooting within an hour after sunrise and only begin shooting again just an hour or so before sunset. Many times when I'm shooting in a national park or similar location, since I woke up at maybe 4 or 5 AM to get to the location I wanted to shoot, I find myself a nice spot by a lake or river to take a nap after lunch since I won't be shooting any images once the sun is higher in the sky.

Now cloudy days are another story, but I'll save that for another blog. Hope this has helped you understand just a little bit more what it takes to be able to take better images that you would be proud to hang on your wall and not just snapshots that end up in a box in the closet under your winter coats.

Thanks for letting me Ramble ON