JJ and I drove into Colorado on a semi-whim to attend this year’s Bluegrass and Country Music Festival. We arrived on the 17th (my birthday) and drove on out of there Monday the 21st. We logged 2400 miles of driving over the course of 4 days, all of which I did. It was absolutely epic.
The festival itself was totally amazing. Of course, I took photos the whole time. I only hit about 330, which is low for me, but I was doing a lot of partying and hanging out and whatever that got in the way of my efficient photo taking. Oh well. I had a blast.
On the way back, we had to take a detour around the Grand Canyon because of a fire raging outside Flagstaff. We’d seen the beginning of the fire on our way through the first time, but it has gotten so out of hand that they closed off 13 miles of highway just a few days later. Smartly, we stopped and got out to sight-see at the Grand Canyon and we lucky enough to experience it completely filled with smoke from the nearby fire at sunset. Pretty god damned awesome.
Here are a few of my favorites.
Check out the whole gallery here:
Telluride Bluegrass and Country Music Festival Gallery
As far as thoughts on technique, I decided to shoot with only primes. Seeing these dudes walking around with their huge zooms and crap gave me a delightfully smug shudder of pleasure knowing that I was probably taking nicer looking photos than they were. But I might just be an arrogant prick. Whatevs.
My beloved 85 f/1.8 performed as amazingly as ever. The 28 f/1.8, though harder to use, worked nicely as well. But the poor 50 f/1.8 really had trouble nailing focus. Enough so that it ruined a bunch of photos that would otherwise have been just fine. Looking through the first two days of pictures today, I regretted sticking with the 50 both days because of the sheer number of just-out-of-focus photos. It made me angry. I will be purchasing the 50 f/1.4 as soon as I can not for it’s slightly faster aperture, but for its improved autofocus. I refuse to let a shoddy, cheap shit lens, ruin another photo. If my photos are going to be ruined, I want the fault to be my own.
Either way, I think there are some good photos in the set. Enjoy.
Love: You, your photos & JJ. Hate: Myself for not being able to attend & your 50 f/1.8.