michigan

Brian Vander Ark Live

Brian Vander Ark is one of my musical heroes. He’s a local guy (from Grand Rapids, Michigan) who has worked awfully hard to get where he’s at.

It starts with The Verve Pipe, of course. Everyone’s heard The Big Hit, but the whole Verve Pipe catalog is great. I catch them (almost) every year in Ferndale, Michigan, for their holiday concert.

Brian takes his solo show on the road, and a few weeks back he came to Albion to perform at the restored Bohm Theatre.

Channing and Quinn joined him on stage for a few trio songs, too, and the whole show was really great. Brian snuck a few Verve Pipe songs into the set, and lot of his solo songs and covers.

He put on a great show for the audience that turned out on a spring Sunday evening, and it was great to shake hands with him before the show and introduce myself.


VSCO Film 07: Eclectic Films

VSCO has been on a tear lately, it seems, with new film packs coming out every few months, and tons of updates on their mobile app ecosystem.

Now we have film pack 07, “Eclectic Films.”

I took the new pack for a spin using some photos from last Friday’s trip to the Liberty Mill Pond, with my photo pal John Neff (here with his Sony A7), where Michigan’s Grand River begins – about two miles from my house.

This is a fun pack because the film emulations are so subtle. Looking through the photos, you won’t spot huge differences in the look and feel – but when you’re actually using them, it’s refreshing to see the small differences in contrast, saturation, and mood.

I particularly like the Kodak stuff, like Ektachrome and Ektar 25. The Ektar 25 takes the saturation down a notch from Film 05′s version of Ektar (my current go-to emulation). The Agfa stuff is nice, too, because of how gentle it is.

You can try VSCO Film 00 for free (a great idea), and then pony up for a full pack. This Film 07 pack will be fun to play with.

Film 07 emulations are in the captions of each photo.