Scott Newton Photo

This is a portrait of most of my Mom’s extended family. (There are at least 50 members not pictured.) My mother is the eldest of 12 brothers and sisters. I’m the eldest of over 40 first cousins. Roll in husbands and wives and ex-wives, and children of cousins, and the numbers get big really quickly…and I’m related to all of them. What a family! Every two years we get together from all over the country to renew the wonderful bond we share. The laughing starts as soon as two Merkels even glimpse each other and doesn’t stop until the last one has left the premises…. ….And the last to leave is always me.

This looks out over a unique slice of Americana near Rochester, New York. The sun rises really early up here. Things still seemed to be sleeping, even though the light was on.

I was assigned the task of documenting the dance scene that happens every Sunday night when Heybale! plays at the Continental Club by The Austin Chronicle. Here’s the shot they ran. A photographer can learn to paint vivid story-telling images with today’s digital equipment, on the spot. The instant feedback make it possible to get exactly the balance of elements and light sources that you’re looking for. Here’s a little flash/blur technique, with a one second exposure at about f/4 as ambient colorful, whimsical background. ISO 800. A little camera spin while exposing give it the streaks and glow. It’s fun to introduce depth and movement to what’s really a frozen static medium.

Here’s one of our local colorful, quality bands. Heybale! has been playing Sunday nights at the Continental Club for years. They play Country, and the country-style dancers come out in droves to the roots rock venue. This shot is the cover of this week’s (06/23/05) Austin Chronicle.

I was on a political shoot, and had to convince the other occupants of the car to “just give me a minute” to grab the shot…without thinking, I broke all of my landscape rules, and am glad I did. Here it is, so unlike compositions I normally construct. I NEVER bisect with a horizon line, as a matter of principle. It generally leads to a stolid, static, boring shot. I generally stick to a loose Rule Of Thirds…but after all, rules are meant to be broken… Never get too stuck in what you think is The Formula. You’ll miss shots like this. Look closely and you’ll see the circular ripple of a mullet having jumped in the right foreground. The shot’s not quite as stolid as it seems. The static composition lends itself to a mirror-like, introspective quality….

Ben Harper gets my vote as Most Evolved Performer. Actually, there are several performers out there who could be recognized as Holy, he’s merely one of them. I last saw him perform at the ACL Fest, in September of 2004; he cajoled the crowd to vote, both politically and spiritually, against the madness. He sang about love and peace. He did his part to try and rein in the spirit of hate and destruction that has been turned loose, in our name, in Iraq. (I’m not blaming the soldiers, whom I admire, respect, and sympathize with.) Ever since John Lennon died I’ve been looking for his musical spiritual heirs. Someone who’s not afraid to call hate and deathdealing what they are: the opposite of the Integrating Force. The opposite of Love. Ben Harper’s not afraid. He keeps it positive and doesn’t call names, but sees the possibilities of Oneness and Wholeness instead of “me me mine” Ben Harper is an inspiration.

I think John Prine is one of the best lyricists writing and performing today. I love this shot of him from years ago, when I first got to photograph him.

“Male side-blotched lizards have three heritable throat colors, associated with three divergent mating strategies. These alternative mating strategies can stably coexist because, as a game of rock, paper, scissors, each strategy has strengths over one another, and weaknesses in the case of the third. The strategy of blue-throated males is to guard their mates faithfully, whereas orange-throated males rely on aggresssion and yellow-throated males try to sneak in on females that already have a partner. The faithful blue-throated males sire the most offspring in singly sired clutches, succesfully excluding most sneaker yellow-throated males. The blue-throaters often succumb, however, to the aggression of the orange-throaters. These incursions into the blue-throater territory bring the orange-throated aggressors success, but leave them open to sneaking by the yellow-throated lizards. Yellow-throaters also sire by far the most offspring posthumously, suggesting that their sperm is particularly good at persisting inside the female for later fertilization.” (19 Dec 2003 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Who would have ever guessed? I just saw a bold, in-your-face, proud lizard. Little did I know he was something else, entirely….

These guys have as much energetic life force as 10 bands. Every one of them is an Allstar in his own right, and together they ‘re more than the sum of all the parts. Their ability to play myriad styles, from rap to rock to opera, is unparalleled… Go see for yourself–I guarantee a rockin’ good time.

I love pure forms. When I look at this, I feel the ocean to the left, the seagulls above, and the gritty wind blowing my hair around. Don’t get sand on the camera! It’s all worth it when you can still smell the salt in the air 25 years after taking the shot…