Last week I had the always fun opportunity to photograph The Turn in the studio, where they are starting to record their 3rd (yet to be titled) album. I’ve heard a bunch of the new songs at recent shows and they are so awesome! The new album is going to ROCK!

This studio session was mostly about getting the drums (Chris) and the bass (Brian H) recorded.  Wow, those boys can really play!

Brian on vocals and guitar. In the funky red isolation booth. And we noticed that his shirt is the same shirt he wore at the last recording session I photographed during The December Sessions.

And Pat doin his thing on guitar. With the beard that comes and goes.

The Turn is once again working with ‘General’ George Fullan to produce and engineer their album. George was anti-pictures that night due to a total lack of sleep for a few days beforehand (I think he said it was like something around 8hours of sleep in 3 days due to work commitments). But I caught him a tiny bit in one. Sorry George!

It’s great seeing them all work together to make everything sound perfect.

To see all of the pictures from the studio, please click HERE.

And if you are interested in catching the band at one of their shows, here’s the latest calendar card I made for them.

A few weekends ago my most favorite of bands, The Turn, played at a festival/race up in Pomona. Of course, I was there to take lots of pictures. And sing and dance a little too. (but no one needs to see that part!)

I was so excited that it was an outdoor venue with tons of natural light (my favorite to shoot in). And boy, was I ever right! I took what I think are the best pictures of them to date (and that’s saying a lot because I have literally several thousand pictures of The Turn since starting with them about a year and a half ago). The clouds were totally threatening rain, but it somehow held out. Had a few drops on my camera during the last song- couldn’t have asked for better timing.

And speaking of timing- there was terrible traffic (not surprising) on the way up there. The Turn was supposed to go on from 1:30-2:15, and I arrived at 2pm. Figuring I would get like 5 shots in I was so annoyed but after hiking over the hill from the parking lot I was so happy to see that they hadn’t started yet. Some problems with the sound, but it worked out all okay in the end. And I got a TON of pictures. So hold on for a zillion new ones below.

The whole band, rockin it out. Love the changing leaves in the background.

Brian. Just when I think he’s amazed me with his talent, he sings something new and I’m blown away all over again.

My favorite Brian Ripps singing expression.

My favorite picture on the left. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s just SO him.

Total rock star. I mean, seriously.

I had the picture on the right in my head before I took it. Came together perfectly- love it when that happens. Plus, hopping up on the stage during a show is so much fun!!

Chris. Who can go from scary to sweet in one frame! And the broken drum sticks are just the coolest- he plays really hard.

Brian. Who after seeing the pictures told me that his bass dosen’t look this good in real life! It’s always a challenge for me to get a good picture of Brian and we can’t figure out why. But I was so happy to get a bunch this time.

And Patrick. He had it all going on that day. The sunglasses, the singing, the new beard, the guitar playing. Just wow.

During sound check (which went on for quite a while due to the aforementioned problems) Pat and I snuck off for a 5 minute mini shoot. Loved the field, the trees, the rockstar…

The whole crew. Visit them at www.myspace.com/rocktheturn for show dates and to listen to some of their music (for the very few of my blog stalkers who haven’t yet). I promise you will love them. They are so talented and just good people. Plus, when they really make it huge, you can say you knew them when…

They are going back into the studio next week to work on their 3rd yet to be named album. I’ll be there to document it all! Can’t wait as I’ve heard most of the new songs and they are so, so awesome!

(*all the pictures were taken with my 135mm L lens. I love, love that lens and really should use it more often. The colors that come out of it are to die for.)

To see all of the pictures from the show (oh yes, there are more), click HERE.

After doing a newborn shoot for this family, and sitting around chatting while packing up all the newborn props, I found out that Marco is the lead singer of Radio Riot- a cover band that plays all over the area. He took a look at my Turn pictures here on the blog and after discussing it with the rest of his band, they decided to hire me for a band shoot for them.

They were playing out at Claudio’s in Greenport, and since I had a shoot in West Hampton earlier that evening, it looked like it was a good fit for the night (for those of you that follow me on Facebook, this is the last shoot of the day where I drove 243 miles leaving my house before 10am and not getting home until around 2am).

I am a big fan of Greenport (John’s parents have a house in Peconic where we go every fall for the weekend) but had never been to Claudio’s before. It was a lot of fun walking around, taking pictures and I enjoyed hearing them play, too!

They have a great rapport with the crowd and they had everyone jumping and dancing.

Thanks for the fun night, Radio Riot! To see all of the images from their shoot, please click HERE.

Started and ended my month “off” with my favorite band. We needed some new pictures for promotional material that we’re working on. So into the city I went to snap some pictures and listen to some rockin music!

The show this night was particularly awesome…they played a bunch of new songs of theirs (which are all so great and I can’t wait to hear again- at my party!!) and some covers that I had never heard them play before that were SO good. The fact is that after I hear them play a cover of a song it’s a pretty safe bet that I like their version better than the original! Which makes it difficult to listen to it on my ipod thereafter.

Love this one:

There were a few technical difficulties throughout the evening, including 2 or 3 broken guitar strings and me running out of fresh batteries for the flash. Way to be prepared, huh? Big thanks to Ronan and Eric for the battery loans! And my favorite technical diffuculty? The kid in the shiny silver lame (pronounced lamay, but lame is true too) baseball hat. It reflected the crap out of my flash and I had quite a time cropping and cloning him out of the pictures!

Another for my collection. The collection is rather large at this point, but that will not stop me from taking more.

Pat and his girlfriend who I adored! We were finishing eachothers sentences within 10 minutes!

The Ripps men.

And my favorite of the night.

Two posters we recently made up. Go see them if you can. I promise you won’t be dissapointed!!

To see all of the shots from Arctica, please click HERE.