Wanderfull's Wanderings: The Merry Month of May

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The Merry Month of May

What a wild few weeks it has been. The more I do the less time I have to write this blog, but I'll try my best now to catch up.

National Music Centre

After the oops with the Garbage Fest, I did photos for the hip hop concert otherwise known as the Global Fest Urban Arts Youth Forum, both nights of the Jazz Summit, and a private function where gifts were exchanged between the NMC and the Hills-Powers Foundation.

The Youth Forum was full of great performances from young hip hop and spoken word artists, who could also dance!

Although I was told the Saturday night Jazz Summit concert was the one to definitely shoot, I attended both and was glad I did. The first night had local band, Both Sides Now (they jazz up Joni Mitchell songs).

The second night had charming recording artist Laili Biali with her phenomenal drummer and upright bass player. She also had very cool leopard print shoes. Tim Tamashiro MC'd the second night where he promised the audience they would be Lailified. The NMC pulled some of their collection instruments out for Laili to play, which was why photos were so important.

On Monday night the National Music Centre celebrated a gift of $1 million from the Jaimie Hill & Tammy-Lynn Powers Memorial Foundation. It was to be a night of mostly posed photos (which terrified me) and candids of the family touring the NMC instrument collection (which I loved!). Learned how to use Nik to brighten the people hiding in the shadows in group shots.

DI Mural

A friend of mine, along with a couple other artists, have been commissioned to create a mural on the wall near the Drop-In Centre. After shooting the Hill-Powers affair, I booted over to shoot the artists projecting their drawing onto the wall while the homeless hung around nearby.

One native woman drew close to me to whisper, "Somebody got stabbed on that corner last night. Did ya know that? People get stabbed here all the time." I told her that while I didn't know about the night before, I had heard of other stabbings that have happened there. Still, shooting posed shots was more terrifying that shooting near the DI in the dark, with possible drug dealings going on at the corner.

Multicultural Night

Every May, my photographer friend Len and I do two cultural events; Multicultural Night and the University of Calgary Filipino Student's Association Culture Nite. Unfortunately, due to the Jazz Summit commitment to the NMC I was only able to do the Multicultural Night held at the Jubilee Auditorium on May 18th. There was much speechifying (almost too much) and a variety of folk performers. Always colorful.

Calgary Public Library Photography Club

After a brief talk on lenses, a bunch of us did a Prince's Island Park walkabout, Saturday May 17th. I had to work that afternoon, so I didn't stay long.

Lilac Festival

The Lilac Festival, my most favorite festival, was celebrating 25 years this year. As usual, the crowds were huge with lots of people, dogs, kids in strollers, vendors, musicians and dancers. I discovered a band to add to my local favorites list, Freak Motif.