Dr. Sketchy's...

A few weeks ago my girlfriend Shannon asked me if I would go with her to Dr. Sketchy's anti-Art School at Birdy's Bar here in Indianapolis. If you aren't familiar with Dr. Sketchy's, it's a Burlesque show where the models take poses and everyone takes a few minutes to try to sketch them out. In my case, and in the case of a select few others they allowed us to photograph the event.

Nikon D3s, 2500ISO, Nikon 50mmF1.4G, 1/60th@F1.8

Not to say that I didn't sketch a few things out with Shannon as well as photograph the event, after all we went to spend some time together on top of doing an art related activity; but my sketches were so EPIC that I was asked not to post them here for fear that I would give the troop a bad image devalue the sketches.

There were a few other shooters there, Ryan Baxter whom I met at the Warehouse Photo workshop last year, as well as a guy named Don, whose business card I can't find at the moment but will try to remember to update with a last name later. It was a neat experience as I'd never actually seen a Burlesque show before, but the thing that really excited me was the fact that I was there under no deadlines, instructions, limitations (other than no flash) or any pressure to post the images anywhere. Very un-normal for me.

Nikon D3s, 2000ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@185mm, 1/60th@F2.8

As it also turns out Shannon and my friend Nikki is joining the troop as well, so it looks like we'll be going back to see her perform. That night she was doing the job known as being the 'Stage Kitten', meaning she got to collect the things that the Burlesque Dancers dropped while they were on stage. Unfortunately due to different distractions, as well as a lack of spotlights while she was doing this I was unable to get a photo of her doing her job. Next time Nikki, Next time.

Nikon D3s, 4500ISO(EEK!), Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@200mm, 1/60th@F2.8

That's Violet Phoenix from the Bloomington Burlesque Brigade. She was the special guest/model for the evening and she really genuinely seemed to enjoy what she did. Holding poses for anywhere between 1 and 15 minutes at a time is tough! If you don't believe me, you should try it out and see for yourself. I digress, though. It was quite the event, and it definitely helped me out with working on shooting things just for myself as I wanted to do in 2011. It's not something I concepted out, or had any control of; but whether I took the photos or not didn't matter. I was doing it because I wanted to just like this guy here using crayola crayons to sketch miss Violet.

Nikon D3s, 12,800ISO (hOly cOw!) Nikon 70-200F2.8VR@180mm, 1/60th@F2.8

Last night I gave the opening class lecture for the Advanced Portrait class at the Art Institute of Indianapolis. One of the things that I pushed to them was that their personal work would get them more gigs shooting than anything they shoot with a big name attached. I'm not sure that my night shooting at Dr. Sketchy's really qualifies as 'personal' work for me as it was just kind of an event coverage, but the fact that I was there shooting just to shoot under no real pressure from anyone or anything is a good start. I even broke the ISO barrier in as I very rarely take my camera above 800 normally... Welcome to 2011. More Soon.