Art Flows in Cultural Pittsfield – Yankee Magazine
Nice article in Yankee Magazine blogsite about the Jump In! art show at the Lichtenstein in Pittsfield, opening Friday 9/4 at 5.30pm. I’m honored to be selected and included and pleased that Yankee managed to get that this is a photomontage and NOT the Colonial underwater, which was not my attempt to make political commentary back in 2006 but just something that came together that I thought was lovely and cool and was part of a show called “Tidal Forces” that I did back then, just a couple of months before Katrina hit!
Mari Provencher’s Circus Photos
Mari Provencher (www.mariprovencher.com) did a short internship at
Studio Two some years back and helped us out with shooting theatre in
the summer at Shakespeare & Co. She’s gone on to other things and is
roaming (apparently) around the country in and around circus culture.
She has a great gallery of photos taken of performers and performances
here http://www.mariprovencher.com/circus/# which is really
interesting and unusual. The image I’ve attached to this post is just
a knockout. Clearly, these are two performers taking a break, chatting
backstage, but their look is almost 19th century, and the lighting and
expression of the woman on the left is cinematic. This feels like it
would be at home in high-concept fashion book with its tension between
the mundane and the extraordinary. It makes we want to know more,
which is really (for me) the mark of an interesting photograph, a
moment in time that connects to a story. Great work Mari! I hope many
more people see this.
Word x Word
Third thursday in Pittsfield has a whole new dimension with wordxword festival. Thumbs up to Jim Benson, Jay P. Elling and all the other unsung heros behind this great move. I sat in on Hope Sullivan, Carrie Saldo and Juliane Hiam as they worked with a small group doing improv on their play in progress, which was a lot of fun. I don’t know if it will stick, but I think the Ben is going to get everything he wants and deserves! Great job Pittsfield. Creativity Lives Here.
Sienna Gallery – Innovative Modern Art and Craft
Sienna is a long-time client and friend of mine and Studio Two (www.studiotwo.com) and as a fellow small business entrepreneur, we talk a lot about the state of the universe that we work in. I’m hoping that we’ll be seeing big changes in Sienna’s web presence in the weeks and months ahead as we migrate aspects of her site from the elegant custom CMS that we built for her some time ago into the open framework of Wordpress. I’m encouraging her to build her strategy going forward around posterous as well (www.posterous.com) as I think that it is a terrific tool for integrating the communications that a business, institution or individual needs to make across the many different social networks, sharing sites and rich media sites. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and it is changing my habits around posting and communicating in big way.
One of the interesting aspects about the revolution taking place on the web today, the transition from technology to language, is that it rewards experimentation and participation like nothing else. You have to “play” within this space to learn it. Businesses like mine, that were formerly the gate-keepers to the web, have to learn to not only throw open the gates by building frameworks and foundations where our clients can play, but much like bringing up children, we have to encourage them to go outside and make their own mistakes.
The internet is a language now. Not a technology. Fluency comes with practice, experimentation, and making mistakes and learning by listening. We’re learning new words every day. Good Luck Sienna!
Lenox Coffee
Just tripped across this from FB to here. Great photo album of patrons at Lenox Coffee. The best part about this is that sooner or later, clearly, everyone goes to the coffee shop. It’s a riot. Great job. That’s a shot of Heather caught in the act of buying her iced latte on the first really hot day all summer!
Last week’s photos
Here’s a gallery of last week’s activites in the photo department. I shot some harsh, dramatic portraits of Dennis Krausnick for his upcoming Lear Project, as well as a nice quick head shot. “A Man for all Seasons” at BTF provided a lush pallette to work with. I worked on image ideas for “As You Like It” for the Tennessee Shakespeare Co., I shot some tricky art pieces at Sienna Gallery by Lauren Fensterstock (a lovely person, I might add), and I shot my friend Michael Zaretsky along with Violinist Victor Romanul and composer John Williams all together on the back porch of Blantyre during a thunderstorm for a new CD that they all collaborated on. Oh, and quick setup up shots for “The Goat Woman of Corvis County” at Shakespeare & Co, as well as an impromptu appearance by Governor Deval Patrick at the opening of “Othello”, and some nice landscape architecture shots for client Greylock Design Associates….Phew!
Shakespeare delivers.
I called it. Othello at Shakespeare & Company is the hit of the summer in the Berkshires. Read this great review about all the current productions at Shakespeare & Co. in the Wall St. Journal by Terry Teachout. Good news for the company, and good news from the Berkshires. Also, here’s the great New York Times review! If past experience is any indicator, a solid national class review like this is pure box office gold. Combined with the “new theatre in the Berkshires” summary last week in the New York Times, it looks like a slow start will end up being a raucous follow through to the season. Kudos to the many, many people involved who are doing the work (all Berkshire Creative Economy jobs, mind you!) with special kudos the the hardest working gal in showbiz, Elizabeth Aspenlieder, who not only puts in major roles in two productions simultaneously this summer but also manages to deliver a PR push with her associate Jeremy Goodwin that is nothing short of world-class in its effect.
Oh, and not to toot my own horn, but those great big photos on the page don’t look so bad either, if I say so myself. Good pictures sell tickets. Great pictures sell a LOT of tickets.
My Brother Michael Rocks.
After years of work, My brother Michael is hitting it out of the ballpark. Wavepxress, his company, has been selected as the provider of video download services for NBC for the Olympics! Run out now and get your Vista media center going so you can watch the Olympics in HD without annoying interviews with crying gymnasts! Watch what you want, when you want and not in some crappy little youtube window:
The “NBC Olympics on the Go” service will take advantage of Wavexpress’ TVTonic Internet video service to allow Media Center users to watch channels of NBC’s coverage of Olympic events in up-to-HD quality on the go on their laptop. The free service will enable viewers to watch NBC’s extensive coverage of the Beijing Games on a sport-by-sport basis, with channels designated to match the hundreds of events included in the Games. Users can simply sign up for the channels they are interested in, and the service will automatically synchronize NBC’s video clips as they become available, so viewers will have a fresh slate of Olympic content to watch on their morning commute.
“This service will provide a fantastic viewing experience for Olympic fans with Windows Vista Media Center,” said Sprague. “They can choose their favorite sports, from diving to water polo to gymnastics, and extended coverage is automatically synchronized to their PC in the middle of the night. With a laptop, they will get a high-quality video experience to view on the train, the plane, or in the college quad.”
How cool is that.
