Category - Digest

From ‘The Joy of Making Music’ Bonnie Bishop

February 3, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
celestial jukebox, Digest, JOYMM, music, photography
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Bonnie Bishop

Bonnie Bishop

I had the pleasure and privilege of photographing Bonnie Bishop when she performed a showcase at The Rutledge in Nashville back in the winter of 2009.

I’d only learned of Bonnie a few months earlier at the Americana Music Fest. Well, no, not actually at the Americana event, but a week or so later.

I’d sat down to go through some of the printed material from the conference, and then went online to LaLa.com – the site I had been using as my “celestial jukebox” before it was acquired by Apple and shut down in the spring of 2010 – to listen to the recordings of performers whose actual Americana showcases I’d missed. Read More

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Looking Forward to the Super Bowl?

January 31, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
commentary, Digest
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I know I am. Especially the commercials.

Screen Shot 2014-01-31 at 9.30.05 AMAnd you will be too, after watching this clip from an old The Daily Show with Rob Corddry nailing the essence of “The Big Game:”

“The Super Bowl is the night when the advertising industry takes all of our black, empty yearning and spins it into dreams, finding that sweet spot of consumer desire that can only be accessed with the right balance of poop jokes and misogyny:

I’m really looking forward to watching this year’s game in the company of a hip, young, marketing/design-and-tech crowd. I can only hope that they show sufficient reverence during the commercials so that we can all revel in the year’s climactic revelation of our “sick consumer society.”

Hike! And pass the Doritos!

– – – – – – – – –
P.S. Denver. Peyton. I’m rooting for the “old” guy.

When Business Is Like “Twister”

January 29, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
"industry", Digest, tools
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Michael Lovett and Chris Deline

Nice to see a little “ink” for my friend Michael Lovett and his partner Chris Deline for their online marketing and social media venture, Fairly Trill in David Ross’s new online e-news site, NEKST.biz

“I’ve spent most of my professional life in a contorted game of Twister,” says Michael, in a bit of understatement about life as a creative entrepreneur in the too-often web-disconnected world (where sometimes shit works, and sometimes it doesn’t).

I’ve known Michael for a couple (several?) years now and have come to rely on him as my resident web guru. Whatever you see on this site or the others I run has been largely due to his behind-the-scenes engineering. He’s got WordPress pretty well wired, is reliable and dependable, and I recommend him heartily for anybody who is thinking of setting up or needs help maintaining a WordPress installation.

He’s also one of the more interesting and down-to-earth people I’ve met in my (almost) 20 years in Nashville (I think he’s been here for about 3 of them), and somebody I’m proud to consider a good friend.

Nice write-up, Michael and Chris.

Labor Saving Devices

January 29, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
commentary, Digest, gizmos
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Or: Why Our Modern Lives Are Crazy
(well, mine, anyway)

The Babbage Difference Engine - a mechanical precursor to today's electronic computers

The Babbage Difference Engine – a mechanical precursor to today’s electronic computers

I set aside an hour Monday morning
to address various “desk chores”
that have gone neglected
for the past week or so.

I know now
why I put these things off.
Bear with me here.
And tell me:
Does this sound like anything
that has ever happened to you?

The first thing I needed to do
was submit documentation
to my “Health Savings Account.”
They wanted me to account
for the $800
that I put on the account
for some dental work
I had done a couple of weeks ago. Read More

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Introducing: The Joy of Making Music

January 28, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
Digest, JOYMM, photography
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Live Performance Photography for Nashville

Pru Clearwater

Pru Clearwater

Today I’m hanging a “virtual shingle” for one facet of my photography business. Find it on the web at

TheJoyOfMakingMusic.com.

Ever since the Internet started tearing up the the music business in the waning days of the 20th century, we’ve been hearing that music is now about the live performance more than the recording. Musicians used to tour to sell records; Now they give away downloads to attract an audience for their tours, then sell CDs and merch at the shows.

With live performance becoming the focus of the business, it is essential for touring musicians to have high quality photographs that convey the essence of their shows and the experience they offer their current and future fans.

I’ve been an a avid photographer all my life, and in the past few years I’ve shot a lot of shows around Nashville. I’ve nailed down some techniques for “getting the shot” even in the most crowded and poorly lit of conditions.

Capturing the essence of live music is something I enjoy doing, I seem to be pretty good at it, and I want to do more of it.

So I’ve come up with the ‘Caught In The Act Pack’ — a very affordable package of my services as a club and concert photographer.

To learn more, kindly follow this link to TheJoyOfMakingMusic.com. to see a slide show of my best work over the past few years. Follow the links there for details on the deal.

Keep it in mind next time you go to a show.

Maybe I’ll see you there. I’ll be the guy with the cameras…

Omnivore’s Delight?

January 27, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
commentary, Digest
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Really? Chicken-flavoured vegetarian ham??

It’s fine with me if vegetarians don’t want to eat meat.

But why do they insist on naming their food after it?

Why don’t they just call it “Processed Plants” or “Packaged Edible Flowers” ?

Photo source unknown; found it on the Facebook. And the guy whose page it showed up on, he doesn’t know where it came from either. That’s why I try to put a © watermark on all the stuff I post there, for whatever good it does.

And You Think Photoshop Is Deceptive?

January 24, 2014
Paul Schatzkin
Digest, gizmos, photography
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Check this out:

 

I can’t tell from the YouTube page what the software is, but it’s the most impressive portrait (and video?) retouching software I’ve seen yet.

Screen Shot 2014-01-24 at 2.28.27 PMWait a second… maybe I’m the one being deceived here.

In mean, I can’t even tell for sure if this is software… maybe it’s just a music video for a band called “Boggie” and this is their song “Parfum.” Maybe the vocalist is singing to us (in a language I don’t recognize) about the evils of photo-retouching.

For once, Google wasn’t much help.

I know… I’ll go check The Onion…

If annybody else who knows the secret… post a comment, please.

– – – – – –

Update 140126: I know the answer now. Popular Photo has disclosed that the video is, indeed, a music video for a Hungarian pop singer named Boggie. So me – and the friend who sent me the link in the first place, among the the fools.

You would think that if such software actually exists, I of all people would know about it by now.