Acker Night
Friday night was Acker Night in Prescott, when most of the downtown businesses- restaurants, bars, shops, banks etc.- host musical acts to benefit music programs in town. It went on for blocks, and I have never seen such huge crowds downtown. We only managed to see a few blocks worth of entertainment during our walk around town with our friends, Debbie and Dale, but it made for a fun evening. Below are a few of the acts we enjoyed.
The group below was probably the most fun performance, and this photo is the only one I have of these guys not looking straight into the camera. I discovered that, in a small space, it is just about impossible to be unobtrusive with a camera- even though I was surrounded by iPhoneographers. I only brought my 50mm lens, which was a mistake. I chose it because of its sharpness and low-light capabilities, but found that the focal length on my crop sensor camera made it difficult in tight quarters (next year, I’ll use my 35mm).
I couldn’t resist taking a shot of Dale in his hat- it really suits him!
I loved this old truck we saw along the way.
And eventually it was time to say good-bye to the lights of downtown Prescott and head home.
Editing notes for the curious:
The layout of 4 photos in the beginning were all editing experiments in Lightroom using the Fader plug-in I downloaded a month or so ago and promptly forgot about. If you have a lot of presets like I do, you might enjoy this handy little plug-in. Basically, when you want to use a preset, you choose it from within the Fader and then have the ability to reduce the opacity of the effect, like you would in Photoshop. I normally tweak presets myself, but this gives me the ability to dial it up or down while looking at the results- very cool. What I don’t like about it is FINDING the plug-in in the menu in Lightroom- it’s not hidden, just inconvenient. I wish Lightroom gave you the option to assign keystrokes to an item on the menu- or does it?
The photo of the country band was edited using my trial version of Topaz Impression (which unfortunately expired yesterday)- textures added in Photoshop. The photos of Dale and the truck with the Santa hat also have added textures. The textures were from Kerstin Frank, Shadowhouse Creations, and Kim Klassen.
The processing here is just totally awesome, such a perfect way to showcase these images. I hadn’t heard of this preset but will look into it. Thanks for the tips.
December 15, 2014 at 7:00 am
You really chose a fun and interesting place to retire!
December 15, 2014 at 8:11 am
I ADORE that last photo! What I like is the position of face and the light coming across it. So awesome.
December 16, 2014 at 11:13 am