band photos

My fiance Arann Harris is a musician. And the start of our relationship, 5 1/2 years ago, also marks the official starting line for each of our prospective artistic pursuits. I went to work (for free) as an “intern” at a studio in San Francisco and he went to Open Mic Nights. He went to awkward studio parties with me and I went to even more awkward and off-key Open Mic Nights with him.

Now, 5.5 years later, it is amazing to see how much we each have grown… and every once and awhile we have to stop and remind each other of where we started, just to appreciate how far we have come.

Today was one of those important musical milestone days for Arann. Today Arann recorded his first album.

Above is the “studio” on the outside. Below is the studio on the inside where… 5 musicians, 1 sound man and 1 documentary film maker spent 10 rainy hours, playing each song again and again, until everyone felt they got it right.

When the crew finally wearily emerged from the old school house on The Green String Farm, they were happy and very tired. And now we wait, eagerly, to hear what all their hard work will come to, after the sound man works his sound magic…. and maybe, just maybe… Arann Harris will finally have his very first CD…. so stay tuned.

Congratulations, Arann! I am proud of you… of us.

On my last night in town before I flew home to South Carolina, I had to get a few more landscape photos for an assigment. So Arann and I decided to multi-task… date night with mussels and french fries, landscape photos, and photos of him in his chicken suit… of course. (The cows were very intrigued… it was not a typical Tuesday night event for them.)

For those of you who don’t know, Arann is the lead singer of The Bluebellies, and he writes and sings a lot of songs about chickens. He really wants everyone in the band to buy chicken suits for their next band photo… but chicken suits are not cheap… so he is having a hard time convincing the other members it is a worthwhile investment. This one came from Target and was about $70. I bought Arann’s suit, because I figured it can be a write-off, since, as you can see, it is for my very serious photo-business.

One funny detail… the tag says the suits are ‘one-size-fits-all,’ but as you can see, they weren’t expecting one of those All’s to be 6’4.