Following Mirrielees Reunion at Stanford, I headed up to the Stork Club in Oakland to see Rae, and Susan. Three bands were playing that night, Model A, Copper Ocean, and Astral. Through the magic known as Friendster, I knew the lead singer and guitarist for Astral, Dave Han, through Susan through Mike. When I arrived at the club, I immediately picked out Dave — he was the only one with this Robert Smith haircut!
Sadly, there weren’t that many people at the club — on a Saturday night! Rae tells me that she’s been to the Stork Club when it was packed. I guess it was just an off-day for the Oakland nightlife. We ended up taking a bunch of photographs in the pool room, where the lighting was nice and dramatic. The lighting where the bands played was dark — typical of the kind of environments I frequently find myself in. There’s a thread (here and here) happening on Digital Photography Review that’s worth reading if you’re interested in debating photographic equipment versus photographic technique. There are a number of people who post frequently on these newsgroups with great equipment but whose skills are lacking. I’ll be the first to tell you that good equipment helps, but it’s the mind and eye which are the most important things in photography. If you lack the eye, you’re not going to take good photos, even with the best equipment. That eye can be developed by studying from those photographers that came before and through practice, practice, and more practice.
Alrighty then, time for some photos. I’ve made some changes to my photojournal scripts, so now you can see all the images from the evening on one page. I’ve got a bit more work to do getting the captions to show up automatically, but that’ll happen with some more time. Stay tuned! Thanks to Rae and Susan for taking some of the photos on this page.
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