Scott Diussa Photo Travels

FIFA 2010 World Cup Soccer

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:15:15 -0500

Please click the image below for my “side blog” about being at the World Cup Soccer event in South Africa.

Rock Sugar

Mon, 17 May 2010 11:02:45 -0500

A couple of weeks ago I shot a bunch of bands at the Melodic Rock Fest in Elgin, Illinois. There was one band there that really was “different” and that band was Rock Sugar. When I was preparing for the event that day I did some research on each of the bands and this one really caught my eye. They have a great look and from the YouTube videos that I saw they looked like they would put on a great stage show... and, they did! Take a look at this video...

Accept - NYC Sold Out Show!

Mon, 10 May 2010 17:42:42 -0500

I have been waiting for this since I was 15 years old! When my parents bought me a stereo for my 15th birthday many years ago the first record (yes... vinyl that is!) was Accept - Balls to the Wall. That summer I had a job as a lifeguard at a pool in an apartment complex in Mahwah, NJ. To say that there was a lot of down time during that summer would be an understatement. I think I had two tapes (yes... cassettes!) that I listened to that entire summer. Those were... Michael Schenker - Built to Destroy, and Accept - Balls to the Wall. I memorized every not of every song on those two albums! That was also the summer that I saved up enough money to buy myself a Carvin half stack for my guitar, about a thousand bucks if I remember correctly.

Since that summer I can say that two of my biggest guitar influences have been Michael Schenker and Wolf Hoffmann. Maybe there was something great about German guitarists that summer... I don’t know. :-) To this day I can hear both of these people in my own playing style.

Now, if you remember, I got to meet Wolf Hoffmann this past January in Nashville. He’s a photographer there and I met him at the Imaging USA show. We had a great time sharing a few pints in an Irish pub one night. You couldn’t meet a nicer person. In my mind I was constantly thinking back to that summer that I memorized every note of every guitar solo that he played on that album... and now we’re having a beer together. What a trip that was...

So, I called Wolf when I saw the date for the NYC show which was the first show of Accept’s new tour. They have a new singer named Mark Tornillo and a new CD (I almost typed album) coming out soon. So, instead of being a full time photographer right now, Wolf gets to be a full time rock star again! He set me up with a photo pass for the show with no “three song rule”. I really did my best to not only capture the show but to also stand back and take it all in. So many times I find myself so intent on the images that I forget to realize what’s really going on. So, I got to do both.

Well, enough typing, let’s see some images. These were all shot with a Nikon D3 with a 24-70mm lens and a Nikon D3s with a 70-200mm lens.

JC Satellite

Mon, 10 May 2010 14:45:18 -0500

I had a great opportunity to shoot a show this past weekend in NYC that I couldn’t pass up. It was the first show of the new tour for the German Heavy Metal band... Accept. I’ll post another entry on them next. But first, here is the band that opened up for them... JC Satellite.

Before the show I checked out their website to see if I could get an idea of what kind of band this was. Boy was I surprised to see that the oldest member of the band is seventeen years old and the singer/guitarist is only 13 years old! They have a really good website with some pics and videos that will give you an idea of what they sound like.

I will say that I was very impressed with this band. They were just a good, straight ahead rock band that sort of reminded me of AC/DC a bit. Very tight rhythms which I will say I didn’t expect. Having been in numerous bands myself I listen pretty closely to each of the players while I shoot pictures. The whole band was just locked in with it’s timing. For players that young there was certainly a much greater sense of maturity than you would expect. And, they didn’t try to “over play” if that makes sense. They kept to what they do best and they did very well... So, here are some pics of them.

These were shot with both Nikon D3 and D3s cameras with 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses. The ISO was pretty high at 4000 to 5000 which is pretty incredible.

Y&T - Melodic Rock Fest

Thu, 6 May 2010 21:28:01 -0500

I guess when it rains... it pours. Sometimes it can be months between concert shoots but recently I’ve had, and will have, some good opportunities. This time I got to shoot the “Melodic Rock Fest” in Elgin, Illinois on May 1. It was a weekend long event but I tell you this, to shoot more than one full day of this would be like running a marathon. Eight bands in a single day with no three song limit equals a lot of pictures and a lot of time of constant camera time. I didn’t realize I was bending down so much near the stage (to keep from blocking the people who were up front) that my legs were totally burning! Also, a couple of times I smacked myself in the right eye changing cameras and almost came out with a black eye!

With all of the work, it was a great time as well. The promoter, Andrew, was a super nice guy and my credential was set up through Jill and Dave from Y&T. I shot a total of 6400+ images that day which equated to about 80 Gigs worth of data. I’m still plowing through all of the images but I started with the day’s headlining band... Y&T.

As you may know, I have shot Y&T a few times in Chicago. They are a great band and put on a great show. They have a new CD called “Facemelter” coming out soon so check it out. Great stuff! I’d say the biggest challenge of the day, photographic-wise, were the new LCD stage lights that they were using. They mixed red, green and blue together to create all colors including white. But, when the light was say... blue... it was ALL blue! So, white balance setting just didn’t really do any thing. So, when you see a black and white picture that’s because the color of the light was just too much so BW works much better!

Enough of my typing here... check out some of my favorite Y&T pics in the gallery below. I’ll post more of the bands soon as well. And... I have another very special show to shoot this weekend, too. So, I can’t wait to share that with you early next week! Stay tuned!

Jim Post - Live Solo Acoustic Performance

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:51:35 -0500

Here’s a quick music/photographic post (pun intended) about my friend, Jim Post. Jim has to be the hardest working musician that I have ever met and a really nice guy. Jim plays locally here in NW Indiana and plays four to five nights a week for three to four hours a night... without stopping. What I mean by this is that he has a theory on live performances. Jim doesn’t normally take a break even during a full four hour gig. He feels that if he takes a break then people start to leave and that’s bad for business. So, he just plays through the whole night. And, it really doesn’t matter if there are two people or two hundred people there that evening. He still gives the same performance.

Recently I saw Jim play at a small bar on a Tuesday night. There was one really drunk guy and another really drunk woman there along with a female bowling team that just won that evening... and me. That was about it. I brought my camera (D3s) and my Zoom H2 recorder and had some fun. Jim plays through a great system called a Bose L1 Compact and it has direct outs on the back for my recorder to plug straight into. So, I just hit record and let it go.

Then I took out my camera and started taking some pictures of him. He isn’t a big fan of a camera lens pointing directly at him which I certainly understand. The light in that bar was so bad that I had to shoot at ISO 12800 in order to just get something. Since there was really no color quality to the light I chose to turn the images black and white. The image below was my favorite of the evening.

I also wanted to share some songs that he did that evening... two cover tunes and two originals. He’s got a great voice and for being recorded directly which hides no mistakes... he did a great job! You’ll know the first two songs... the second two songs are Jim Post originals.

The Elms

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:18:38 -0500

Just a short post for you. I said that I had pictures of another group from last weekend called “The Elms”. A friend of mine gave me a CD of theirs a few years back and it is really good. I found out that they are from southern Indiana as well. They were a good band but I really don’t like shooting daytime shows that much. There’s very little happening with the lights on the stage if anything at all. So, it can be a challenge if you have to photograph a band in daylight conditions.

This is the time when you really need to watch for those “moments” so that the images are as interesting as they can be. Boring bands under great light still look good but boring bands under bad light are just... boring. This band had energy and I got a few that I liked.

I had no intention of shooting pics of them that day. I actually walked over to the tent that said “media check in” to see if I could get a pass. When I was handed a media credential they said that the next band was just about to go on in five minutes. I had a camera with me, so why not shoot some pics to get a feel for the venue. I’m glad I did. It helped me know which security person to go to near the stage for the Goo Goo Dolls later that evening.

Here they are... just a few...

The Music of Pink Floyd

Thu, 8 Apr 2010 16:35:58 -0500

I’ve been wanting to post these pictures for a couple of weeks now but I have to say that this was a hard show to edit. On March 20th I photographed a show called “The Music of Pink Floyd” which featured the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and was fronted by Randy Jackson from the group, Zebra on lead vocals. Randy has a couple of different types of shows that he does and you can see more about it HERE.

This was a great show and I would highly recommend seeing one if you can. I asked Randy for the opportunity to photograph it and when I got there I will say that I (and my wife) was treated like royalty. I got to shoot the entire show from pretty much anywhere I wanted. I just had to be very aware of people in their seats and not being a bother to them. Since this was a theater type of setting there was not normal “photo pit”. So, I tried to work it from both sides, up and down and some in the middle. I had a D3 with a 24-70mm lens and a D3s with a 70-200mm lens and that was a perfect combination. The lighting was very dramatic but it also was very challenging to shoot, too. The brightness difference between the main spot and the background was difficult to deal with. But, they came out well and Randy is such a nice guy. We got to talk to him after the show.

So, here they are... and I threw in an up-side-down pic of the set list so you can see what they played! Enjoy!

Goo Goo Dolls

Mon, 5 Apr 2010 14:14:14 -0500

Wow... have I been delinquent in my posts or what? Sorry about that. I actually have a bunch of stuff to catch you up on but I just have been so busy I haven’t even had the time to edit through everything I’ve shot recently. So, I’ll start off with a fun one from last night.

We’re here in Indianapolis working at the Final Four basketball tournament. Right behind the hotel they are having concerts in the park each day. Since I have a media pass for the Final Four... and I saw a Media Check In tent near the concert I went to see if I can work that angle to get into the photo pit. Sure enough, all I had to do was walk in and ask... no problem! It was almost too easy! And, the concerts were free! (The $9.00 beers made up for that!)

I shot two bands yesterday, The Elms and The Goo Goo Dolls. I’ve edited the Goo Goo Dolls pics so that’s what I have here. I’ll post The Elms pics in a separate post. The Goo Goo Dolls really are a great band and they were a handful to keep up with. They are constantly moving around that stage. So, there were a lot of images shot last night. I decided to do a mix of color and turning some black and white. The BW images were because I didn’t really care for the “color” of the light on them but I liked the image. Turning them BW is the easy solution for this situation.

I shot all of these with a Nikon D3s and a 70-200mm VRII lens. I didn’t expect to be shooting any shows this week. If I knew I would have had a second camera and lens with me but I made out pretty well with just the one...

ISAP = Cool Airplanes!

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:52:52 -0600

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the International Symposium for Aviation Photographers meeting in Las Vegas. This three day meeting is full of in classroom presentations by noted aviation photographers and one of the days is a field trip to someplace cool to shoot airplane pictures! If you’ve been hanging around this blog for awhile you will know that I love to shoot pictures of airplanes.

This year the field trip was to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas for the Red Flag exercises. This means a ton of different airplanes and not enough CF card space! I had the pleasure of working with Moose Peterson, Bill Fortney, Richard VanderMeulen, Richard Small, Dave Leininger and Larry Grace. These guys are great shooters and it was fun to share images with them all. The entire ISAP group is a fun group and we all really had a great time that weekend.

So, enough of my talking here... these images are long overdue and I just want to get them posted. Click the link below to see some of my favorites...

Until next time...

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 07:47:40 -0600

Hi everyone... For the next month I’m going to be posting some “behind the scenes” adventures/stories from the Vancouver Winter Olympics. I’ll be there with all of my NPS co-workers supporting the professional photographers that are covering the games. So, please click on the logo below to take you to my side-blog specially created for this event.

Wolf Hoffmann - Accept

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:39:37 -0600

With the string of musician posts recently I thought I’d post just one more... for now. Not only did I get to meet the legendary Ricky Skaggs at the Imaging USA show last week I also got to meet another “guitar hero” of mine as well. If you are an 80’s Heavy Metal fan like me then you will definitely remember the German Heavy Metal band, Accept and guitarist, Wolf Hoffmann.

I first contacted Wolf about seven years ago when I did a Google search for Accept and his personal website came up. Wolf just happens to be a working pro photographer in Nashville, TN. I remember having some good conversations back then and I decided to see if he would be around for the Imaging show. It just happened to work out that he was in town so we met at the Irish Pub at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and had a great time talking all things photography and Metal! He’s a really nice guy and a great photographer... check out his work at www.wolfhoffmann.com

Here’s a quick picture that my co-worker, Sara Moosbrugger took at the pub of the two of us.

Ricky Skaggs

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:05:46 -0600

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. It was a great Holiday vacation and then a real busy “back to work” time! Well, I’m here at the Imaging USA show in Nashville, Tennessee and it was a fun time at the booth today.

My dear friend and co-worker, Bill Fortney, has been working with Ricky Skaggs (14 time Grammy Award winning musician) on his photography for the past year or so and had a great idea for Ricky to do a presentation on his photography at the Nikon booth. So... Nashville + awesome Bluegrass musician + great photographer + really great guy = one heck of a good time! We managed to make it all happen and have it come together and I will say that there must have been 200+ people trying to squeeze around the sides of the booth to get a glimpse of Ricky.

First of all, this really was about Ricky and his photography. He has a great eye for detail and he has really taken hold of the whole HDR (High Dynamic Range) style of shooting and done a great job. He was even one of the featured photographers in the booth with a very impressive enlargement hanging in the Nikon gallery.

Randy Jackson

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:17:18 -0600

Last week I was in NY for a final set of year-end meetings for work and took advantage of a great opportunity to catch a local show. One of my favorite guitarists of all time was playing at a bar in Massapequa called the Blue Parrot... Randy Jackson. Randy also has a band that you may know called Zebra which he still plays in as well. This night he was doing a solo acoustic show and played for four solid hours with only a short break in the middle. He is so talented and he kept the place going the whole time! It was awesome... Randy is also a really nice guy as well.

Shooting-wise... this was a tough place to shoot. Besides a few Christmas lights there was only one overhead florescent light bank that is usually there for a pool table. In technical terms... the only lens I could actually use was a 35mm 1.8 DX lens on a D300s camera at ISO 3200. That only got me about 1/80 of a second shutter speed. The other lenses I had with me weren’t bright enough in this low light situation. If I couldn’t shoot at ISO 3200 then I wouldn’t have gotten anything. I didn’t want to use a flash...

Saint Nicholas

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:30:20 -0600

This post serves a couple of purposes. If you have been following my posts for awhile you’ll know that besides being a photographer I am also a musician. When I’m not posting stuff about photography then I am usually posting something music related instead. So, here’s a music related post for you today.

One of my best friends, Matt Brechbiel, is a very gifted song writer, guitarist, teacher, producer... and more. He wrote a Holiday song quite a few years ago called Saint Nicholas, recorded it and sent it to all his family and friends. Now, he has teamed up with a very talented singer/guitarist named Chris Hendricks and has re-recorded Saint Nicholas and it is a great new version of this song.

Matt and Chris live in the Raleigh, NC area. I’ve never met Chris but am looking forward to meeting him someday. My first introduction to his talents were in the following video that Matt sent me... It’s Chris doing a cover of the Lady GaGa song, “Poker Face”. It’s very cool...