Tearjerk

Explanation

Before starting this post, I've just gotta get this off my chest. I should really figure out what I want to do with post ordering. At the moment everything's date based, but that leads to weird re-ordering. Like this post will be put before the SXSW recap post because I wrote that one after this event took place. That's weird because I'm writing this one after that one. But I dunno what I want to do about it. Whatever, not a big deal. I'll either figure something out or I'll just keep on with awkward weirdness.

Pointless personal rant aside, this picture's a nice simple one of Austin based dream pop band Tearjerk. Tearjerk was opening for Elise Trouw who I'll talk about in the next post. Overall, I find Tearjerk's music a bit odd but also comforting. While I can understand the dream pop genre association, with soft and almost feathery instrumentals, the main singer's voice falls more into that folk or even light country territory. This picture is just of the singer, the rest of the band wasn't playing at this show but I should definitely try to see them as a group.

Now onto the picture. I really like this one. It's simple but it has a nice soft and dreamy feel. The yellow backlighting on her hair was the main point of what I was trying to capture and I really like how it turned out. I'll talk more about this in the roll post, but this is another roll of Portra 400 pushed 1 stop. The colors are a bit off, but not in a distracting or particularly crazy way.

As with many of my pictures, there's a fair bit of softness to the image. But as usual, I really like and appreciate it. While she isn't super sharp, I don't really need it. There's a very clear emotion being shown and it doesn't feel lacking in detail, even when blown up a fair bit. In some ways the softness works especially well in this picture. The background blurring is really evocative and matches the music and the emotion on her face. To me, the vibe is serene, peaceful, dreamy. Some of that is the yellow and purple color palette for sure.

Another picture I find myself thinking about in relation to this one is the Mobley picture from one of the first posts I wrote. While the vibe is very different, that kind of singular emotion is still really visible. In my SXSW recap post, I mentioned how it feels like my photography has become more nuanced and complex over the past year and I think this is another example. Even in a simple single subject composition focused more towards vibes than a super strong composition focused on lines or more technical aspects, there's a bit more depth and control to the picture. Even something simple like the mic stand being in the way in the Mobley picture is something I would notice more readily now. That said, these were pictures taken under different circumstances and with different intentions. The Mobley one is secretly a timing picture, the focus there was aligning the lights being on with him at the keyboard and mid singing. This picture as I mentioned was all about getting that soft yellow backlighting on her hair. So yes, there is a timing element to make sure she's in front of the light. But overall, the concept is a bit different.

Somehow this simple picture turned into a much longer post than I expected. What's a bit funny about that is that I didn't even know I was going to this show until the day of. I hadn't even found out about it until 2 days before. But I've gotta say, it was totally worth it. Not just because I could finish out that SXSW roll before what's coming up, but because the music was great. I always appreciate how many cool bands both come from and come to Austin to play. Anyways, that's it for this one.