Enter The Haggis at The Dublin Pub April 3, 2009

As some of you may know, I do a lot of photography for the Dublin Pub in Dayton, Ohio. Steve Tieber has done a fantastic job bringing in Celtic oriented bands and their show on St. Patrick's Day is one of the biggest events in the area. This past Friday, he had Enter The Haggis and I took the opportunity to shoot the band in close quarters and to get to know them a little better.

They just released a new album, Gutter Anthems, and they're on tour promoting it. Catch their show if you get the opportunity! You can check their current schedule here. It's an excellent album that has a great variety of sounds. I was surprised by Sea of Crutches that has Miranda Mulholland, another Toronto based artist, singing with the guys. I love Miranda from her days with the Glengarry Bhoys and she's got a new CD out with her new band, The Roaring Girl Cabaret. The song has a certain folk vibe and is one of my favorites on the CD. The Litter And The Leaves is fast based and starts the CD off right with bag pipes, a fast drum beat and strong guitar and bass. The Ghosts of Calico almost has a Texas rock band feel to me and it's a song I stop and catch myself nodding to Jame's drum beat. Craig's harmonica rounds out the sound of the song with a little synth added in for effect.


I was surprised to hear from Trevor, the lead singer, that some of the Celtic festivals consider the guys too Rock because they have a little synth with electric guitar and bass. I say it's their loss! These guys put on a great show and have a great mix of Rock with excellent mixes of Fiddle, Bag Pipes, Harmonica and Irish Whistle.

You can follow the guys on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Their CDs are available on iTunes and other locations.


You can see more photos from the show on my website here.

Dublin Pub on St. Patrick's Day 2009

Well, St. Patrick's Day started at 4:40 a.m. for me at the Dublin Pub.

By 5 a.m., there were sizable crowds at both doors waiting to start the day of celebration. The Mix 107 and the Celtic Dance Academy were there to start the day with packed house as everyone was ordering Guinness and breakfast.

Bob Ford and the Ragamuffins started off the musical day in the big tent at 7am. The McGovern Ceili Dancers went on at 10:30 and performed again with Father Son and Friends later in the day.

It was surprising how full the tent was from very early in the day throughout the end when it was absolutely packed.

The Miami Valley Pipes and Drum Corp performed for the crowd and got them ready for a fun set with Father Son and Friends. Dulahan had the stage at 3pm and they were promoting their new album release while Jericho and Kramer from 103.9 the X were on hand to broadcast and drink shots of Jameson. Blind Karma was jamming in the VIP tent and had a nice crowd the entire day. The Celtic Dance Academy had one last big performance that had everyone clapping.


The day ended in a Celtic Rock fashion with 9 Castle Close at 6 and Homeland at 9 with Larry the Piper playing for both bands. This was the first time I had gotten to see Homeland play with their new fiddler, Tyler, and I thought he fit in great.


When everything was said and done, I was exhausted. I had spend the entire time at the pub except for 30 min. when I drove home and picked up my wife to join me for the fun.

I have uploaded a ton of pictures on my website and on my MySpace site for everyone to enjoy.

I've created a special Favorites album on MySpace as well where I uploaded a few of the band shots that were my favorite. If you have a favorite photo you want added to the folder, send me an email and I'll copy it over.

You can access more photos on my website at http://www.craftonphoto.com/dubpub to check out all the bands, patrons and staff. You can order prints or downloads directly from the site.

Feel free to send me any comments about the photos. If you were there, I hope you had a great time!

The Kreellers at The Dublin Pub 02/20/09

The Kreellers stormed into the Dublin Pub last Friday, Feb 20th, and gave a great show for the gathered crowd. I got to the pub at 7:30 and it was already standing room only! Thankfully, I had the guys reserve a table for me since I was shooting their performance. Plus I had to save the show since TK forgot his kilt and had to borrow one of my Utilikilts. You can't have bad kharma for a show because TK isn't wearing a kilt!!! The picture above is during The Parting Glass and had the crowd on their feet with Guinness in hand!

Did I mention Guinness??? A few days after the show, the band announced that they are now sponsored by Guinness. Let's see if they like any of my photos (Guinness) for their promotions!

This was the first show I had seen with Chris Wall playing bass. He did a great job and added a little funk during his solo. He impressed the guys with his audition tape and has fit in well.


Earlier in the day, I met up with the guys at WDPS for Hippie and Jay's Celtic Show that airs every Friday from 3-5pm. The guys did an interview and played Sixth and Porter and Tell Me Ma live for the show and had people coming up to the studio glass to check it out!

You can find more photos from the show on my MySpace page or here on my website.

Mother Grove at The Dublin Pub 2/13/09

I finally got to see Mother Grove, out of Indianapolis, play at The Dublin Pub in Dayton on Wayne Ave and 5th St, recently and had a great time. Their logo is Kilt Rock and since I always shoot bands in my kilts, I was set for a good show.

I met Brad a few months ago at the Seven Nations show and talked about shooting them when they were in town. I'm glad I was finally able to catch the show! I don't think I've ever heard a combination of traditional Irish songs mixed with Johnny Cash and the English Beat, with bag pipes! It was a great mix of bag pipes, fiddle and acoustic guitar and I look forward to seeing them play again. I also loved the Superwoman doll attached to Ron's drums.

If you want to see more shots from the show, click here.

I made the cover of the Irish American News Ohio...

Well, for the February cover of the Irish American News of Ohio, the used a photo I took of the Kreellers in Michigan. The shot was taken from Belle Isle and it was FREEZING with over 1 foot of snow on the ground.

John O'Brian, managing editor, contacted me in January as he was working on an article for the publication and wanted to know if I had any photos he could use. John wrote a very nice article on the guys and it was placed in the national Irish American News as well.

The Irish American News of Ohio is a free publication that you can find at various outlets or download off the web here. Check it out if you get a chance as it has excellent articles and updates on activities relating to the Irish American community. It's how I found out about the Chieftains show here in Dayton in March!

The Kreellers on Belle Isle

Back on December 19th, I got the chance to see the Kreellers with their new bag piper, Larry Fortsen, at O'Callaghan's in Milford, Michigan. O'Callaghan's is one of the main places the Kreellers play and where they always have great turnouts.


On this evening, there was over 1 foot of snow and the roads were crap but a great crowd still showed up.

It was cold with a nice wind that made it fun for the guys as they brought up their equipment.

The Pub doesn't have a stage so the band setup in one of the rooms and prepared for the show!

The crowd was great and the floor was shaking numerous times. I brought my latest camera, a Panasonic DSC-LX3 Point and Shoot, to shoot a few high definition videos and it's easy to see the place shaking from crowd jumping on the floor and the strong base beat.

Larry is a great piper and really added to the band. Derek's Harmonica and Larry's Whistles went great together and everyone loved the bag pipes.

The show completed around 1 a.m. and it was time to pack up and crash for the night.

The following morning, we met at Belle Isle to get new band shots with Detroit as the background. First, it was FRIGGIN COLD!!!! There was over 1 foot of snow and a negative wind chill. Of course, I made the guys take off their jackets for the shots. The shot above shows the general feelings of the guys as everyone froze. I couldn't feel my fingers at the end of the shoot and strained my right calf jumping through the deep snow banks.

The guys were great for the shoot and even tried a few jump shots for fun. I look forward to seeing the guys in February when they play at the Dublin Pub in Dayton.

Flatfoot 56 at The Madison Theatre

Thanks to Paddy Rock Radio I got to hear some music by Flatfoot 56, a Celtic Punk band out of Chicago, and discovered that they were going to perform in the area. First, if you want to hear a great mix of Celtic rock, go check out the online radio from Paddy Rock! It's helped me find bands I wasn't aware of and has certainly effected my spending on iTunes.

I decided to contact the band to see if I could photograph them for Paddy Rock as well as myself and thanks to TK of The Kreellers, I was able to get in touch with their management, Christian Picciolini with SINISTER MUSE, and get a photo pass.

There were four bands playing that night: Grooveshire, Duppy A Jamba, Flatfoot 56 and The Toasters. I was there strictly for Flatfoot 56 and got to meet the band. I took this shot of Tobin, lead singer, before their set and loved how it turned out.

The guys were awesome and I've become a big fan of their music. If you get a moment, check out their latest album, Jungle of the Midwest Sea. My favorite songs are Loaded Gun and Chinatown Jail Break. I love the energy of the music and love the bagpipes and mandolin from Josh, the only unrelated member of the band.

These guys are very talented and have great attitudes. Check them out if you get a chance. You can also check them out on their Myspace site at http://www.myspace.com/flatfoot56.

If you want to see more pictures of the concert, check out my website.

The Arcade - Dayton

The Arcade, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

On Monday, 11/17/2008, I got to go shoot with Vincent Laforte at an abandoned building in downtown Dayton, The Arcade. This is an amazing building that used to have stores, restaurants, office space and apartments. There is an effort to restore the building and re-open it.

Thanks to John P. Murphy, we were able to get access to the arcade and shoot with Vincent, a Canon Explorer of Light, as he was in town to do a presentation for the Focus Photo Club.

Vincent had a pre-release of the Canon 5DmkII DSLR. If you haven't been to his website and seen his movie, Reverie, created with a pre-release version of the 5DmkII, go there now and check it out!

While Vincent shot video, I looked for areas to shoot High Dynamic Range photos, HDR. Vincent loved the peeling paint and general decay of the building as we got to work with the 5D and video. The building was very dark and we only had flashlights, so it was a challenge in some of the areas. We only made it to 5 areas as we would stop and shoot for 30 min to an hour in each spot.

I found a door out to the fire escape and could have spent an hour out there alone. The shot here is one of my favorites. It is an HDR made up of 3 shots taken 2 stops apart. I processed them through Dynamic Photo HDR, a windows only program. I'm planning to switch to a new Macbook Pro in the near future and when that happens, I plan to switch to Photomatix as well.

When I shoot landscape HDRs, I go for a natural look to try and capture what I saw with my eyes but I've gotten to do a few shoots in decaying buildings and I like going a little to the extreme to create something different.

We also learned that the Arcade has a ghost! I look forward to going back and documenting more of the building.

CD Review - The Kreellers - "Sixth and Porter"

The Kreellers are a trio out of Detroit that consist of Derek Wade on Lead Vocals and harmonica, Paul Bruno on guitar and bodhran, and TK on percussion. "Sixth and Porter" is a combination of original and traditional Celtic music with great harmony, acoustic guitar, a bit of the harp and strong percussion.

The title track "Sixth and Porter" is about the Irish immigration to Detroit "...working drinking drinking working till I die". Derek's vocals and Paul's guitar drive this song with TK's drum keeping the beat. "Just A Hero" is a song dedicated to Derek and Paul's father. Traditional songs such as "Boys of the Old Brigade" and "Tell Me Ma" are powered by Derek's harmonica playing and an infectious drum beat. "Excursion around the Bay" has Paul on Bodhran, TK on drums and a 3-part harmony that makes their version one of my favorites and caused River Barge captains to complain in Cincinnati!

Where's the bag pipes, Irish whistle or fiddle you say? You won't miss them for a second! The percussion will get your head moving and your foot tapping while Paul's folk guitar playing and Derek's great vocals get you coming back for more. You see these guys at the bar in a Pub and you think, "Yeah, they're from Detroit" but you hear these guys on stage and you say "Wait, these guys are from Detroit???" I had no idea what to expect when I first saw them in Dayton but it re-ignited my passion for Celtic music. I love the album and give it Two Thumbs Up! They put on a great show and constantly interact with the crowd. If you catch them in a pub, go have a pint and enjoy the music!

You can check out the album on their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/thekreellers

Horned Owl at the Howell Nature Center

Horned Owl, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

This past weekend, I went to Howell Michigan and did a Nature Photography Workshop at the Howell Nature Center.

http://www.howellnaturecenter.org/animals/wildlifephotos.htm

The Howell Nature Center is a wonderful place to get close to birds of prey, especially during the Photography Workshop. The Horned Owl has been at the center since the '90s and is well experienced as a model. During the workshop, there are various stations with Hawks, Screech Owls, a Barred Owl, this Horned Owl, a Turkey Vulture, an Opossum and a Groundhog. The staff is very attentive to the photographers and they will attempt to adjust the birds for the best shot.

They do 3 shots a year and on this occasion, the temperature was perfect but the sun was pretty harsh. I didn't bring a flash as I wasn't sure if it would be allowed, and that was a mistake. A lot of people had big lenses with Better Beamers to give some fill light to the birds. A 70-300mm lens is about the shortest lens you would use here. I was using my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR with a 1.7x Teleconvertor to get extra reach.

I also learned a few things about the birds. It's false that a mother bird will ignore an egg or baby if someone puts them back into a nest. This owl and a vulture were examples were people rescued the babies but tried to raise them by hand. As a result, the birds "imprinted" and were unable to be re-released to the wild.

I finally have power!

Well, after over a week without power, I finally got it late last night.

I've got a ton of pictures to upload from the Cincinnati Celtic Festival and from a wedding I shot on Saturday.

I will have a review of the Cincinnati Celtic Festival and an entry from the wedding later this week after I get everything uploaded to my site.

Kristen's Sweet 16th Birthday

On Saturday, August 9, I photographed Kristen's 16th Birthday Party. Nicole, Kristen's mother, went all out and had a large banquet room reserved and a live DJ with an excellent lunch provided to the guests.

As you can tell from this picture, Kristen is a beautiful girl and one of my favorite models.

One of the most moving moments of the party occurred when Kristen received a quilt made from her father's shirt. Her father is no longer with us and it was an emotional moment for Kristen and her family.

The party started at 12;30 and went until 4:30 in the afternoon. The buffet style lunch was excellent and there were small candy gifts for the little kids at the tables and by the cake.

After lunch and gifts, there was a lot of dancing until everyone was exhausted!

This shot was near the end of the party with everyone looking on as Tabitha teaches Kristen how to kick.

Dayton Celtic Festival 2008

Saturday was a busy day with the Dayton Celtic Festival in full swing.

Friday night, my wife and I hit the festival and enjoyed the music. We met up with Larry Fortson and 9 Castle Close before their 10pm set and made plans for me to photograph them during their set on Saturday. I also got to meet the Kreellers and agreed to swing out at 11:30 for their early set.

We ended the night listening to Gaelic Storm and headed home for the night.

Saturday morning, I was looking for a parking space, thanks to the Dayton Dragons game, but got to the stage before The Kreellers performed their set. First of all, these guys were great. I loved the set and had to get one of their CDs and I've been listening to it on my iTouch whenever I get the chance.


After their set, we headed over to a cool spot I noticed on my walk in and did a few promo shots. This is one of my favorites. The guys were a blast to work with and we got some great shots against this old building.

Hey, how often can you get a guy in a kilt leaping off a ledge for a shot?

I ended up having several Guinness with these guys as we listened to several other bands play.

I took the opportunity to shoot Homeland and Gaelic Storm before heading over to the over tent to catch 9 Castle Close.

Homeland put on a great show as well. I love watching these guys play. I had some great shots of Ric from St. Patty's Day at the Dublin Pub and it was fun to give the guys some photos from that show. The first shot in this post is from the stage when they were playing.

After Homeland, I took some shots of Gaelic Storm. It's crazy when these guys are playing. You can't get in front of the stage for good shots and I didn't want to block anyone's view. I settled for shots from the side or the back of the stage.

I didn't get a chance to see Dulahan play as it was time for 9 Castle Close and I headed over to the other stage after grabbing a bite to eat.


The guys put on a nice set even though it had gotten hot and humid! I was sun burned and tired so I know the guys were hot up on stage. It was a blast to see the guys play and I got quite a few shots before they ended their set. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do a band shot as they had to head out for the Dublin Pub for the after hours party.

Military Funeral

Military Funeral, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

I received a call Tuesday evening from a family friend asking me if I could photograph a military funeral. The family had learned that John, as a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer, was eligible for a military color guard and 21 gun salute and they wanted to capture the moments as there were family individuals that could not make it.

I remember when my father passed, a retired Chief as well, and we had the military funeral. It was a powerful memory that I wish I had captured as well.

I posted this image just as a reminder for the men and women serving over seas and for the retired military that served when needed.

Bee at Cox Arboretum

Bee Macro, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

I finally made it out to Cox Arboretum to check out the Butterfly House on Monday. Unfortunately, there weren't many butterflies flying around but I did get to chase a few bees around before it started to rain.

I liked the light bouncing off this little guys wings.

Far Hills Community Church Vacation Bible School

Last week, I spent my evenings at Far Hills Community Church volunteering for the second year as the Vacation Bible School Photographer. This year, the theme was Armor of God and the format was switched to evenings to allow more parents to participate.


There were about 140 kids and the weather was perfect. Everyone had a fantastic time going from craft sessions, recreation (recess) activities and group activities with theatre and music. It was a blast watching the kids jump up, dance and sing to the music as they learned about the Armor of God as John Truthfinder threw down his Belt of Lies, Sword of Hatred and armor of Sin.

Classes were split between Preschoolers, Kindergarten to 2nd Grade and 3rd Grade to 5th Grade.

To close up the week, the parents came in to the Worship Center and the students received their last lesson, received their "Knighting" in service to God and celebrated with music and singing, closing with Stephen Fee's Broadcast.

During the week, the kids had a competition, boys versus girls, to see who could raise enough money for an orphanage in India that was visited earlier this year by a Far Hills Missionary team. It was inspirational to see the kids raising money for children they had never met to help them with food and shelter. In the end, the boys were announced the winners but it was a win for everyone!

Claudia Spradlin and the team of volunteers did a fantastic job and it was a blessing to be able to participate and see the joy and happiness of the children each day!

Caught in a Cattle Drive

Cowboy in Escalante, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

During our trip out to Utah, we headed out to Escalante and headed down the back roads to get Peekaboo Slot Canyon.

On the drive in, we saw a large dust cloud in front of us and discovered that we had a cattle drive coming down the road right at us.

I stopped the car and put it in park to keep from scaring the cattle and had enough time to grab my camera out of the camera bag. There were 3 cowboys and 1 or 2 cattle dogs driving the cattle to a different area to rotate them from eating an area down too much. In different areas, there were cattle crossings to keep the cows in their specific areas.



It certainly made an interesting experience as we had a cattle drive go around us!

Star Trails at Devil's Garden

Star Trails at Devil's Garden, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

One of the plans for visiting Devil's Garden was to try our hand at Star Trails thanks to a website Terry Watson discovered.

Using a photoshop action located here: http://www.schursastrophotography.com/software/photoshop/startrails.html

You run a batch operation on the folder that holds the star trail images and it opens them 1 at a time and combines the pictures.
It looks like it takes the first picture and uses that and then adds the stars before it flattens the layer.

In our test, we setup under the arch at Devil's Garden and I played with Manual Exposure until I got the results that I wanted, using a 30s exposure. From there, I locked my remote release to force the camera to fire every 30s or so. I shot at ISO 200 and used my Sigma 10-20mm lens since I didn't need a fast f/2.8 lens for this shot.

While we were taking the shots, we were frequently buzzed by bats as the insects came out. We also had a 1/2 moon that caused the sky to stay lighter than we initially wanted but it added tot he light on the arch.

I only shot 15-17 min as I wanted to do some light painting with flashlights in a few other areas as well.

One nice aspect of this Star Trail is that the upper left star wasn't moving and it makes for a nice circular pattern for the stars.

Peekaboo Canyon via PS Blend

Peekaboo Canyon via PS Blend, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

In my second part of my HDR blog, here is a shot where I took 2 shots of different exposure, used the Quick Select Tool in PS CS3 and used that to create a Layer Mask to select just the sky from the second shot.

Here is a picture of the results of combining 5 shots via DPHDR:


I like the blend a little better. I think the HDR shot brings out a little more detail in the shadow areas.

Overall, neither picture is perfect. I think the blend is more asthetic to me. Probably, a combination of the two would make the best picture.

Red at the Madison

Red at the Madison, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

Red opened up for Seether on May 21st at the Madison Theater in Covington, Ky. They put on a nice set. Flyleaf was supposed to open but they canceled due to illness.

Seether put on a good show but it was fairly shot and they didn't play a lot from their new CD. Also, they didn't do an encore. I guess the venue was too small.

I used my wife's Canon A710IS Point and Shoot for this shot. I experienced my first ever media card failure in 10 years of shooting digital. The Sandisk SD Ultra II 2 GB card failed to let me write to it shortly after this picture. I've been unable to format it or erase any images. Quite the surprise. I didn't have a spare card in her camera case, another good lesson. In the field with my normal cameras, I always have 3-4 cards available. Of course, I couldn't take those into the theater. Alas!