The Lucky Ones

This is a composite of images taken earlier today at The Home County Folk Festival during a tribute to Willie P. Bennett, a Canadian music icon, who died this past February.  A number of performers and friends shared memories of Willie in what turned out to be a very touching tribute.

The Lucky Ones, is the title tune from the album of the same name.  Couldn't find a sample of the man himself performing it but did find a sample by Blackie and the Rodeo Kings whose name, incidentally, is also a song by WPB.

Born To Be Wild

(Click on image to enlarge)

The other night at the Colin James concert this bike parked across the street.  It had tiny blue lights all over it so I snapped a couple of images even though it was way too dark to capture any detail on the bike.  I just figured it might be fun to play with in photoshop - and it was.

Hear, and watch, Born To Be Wild as performed by Steppenwolf to the opening credits of Easy Rider.

Getting Higher (Click to enlarge)

A different take on one of London, Ontario's most photographed buildings, the same one which appears in many of my cityscape images.

Getting Higher is from Colin James' 2000 release, Fuse.  He's appearing at the local Bluesfest tonight so I'll definitely be wheeling over to catch his performance.  Sorry, couldn't find any sample for this tune.

Spread Your Wings & Fly

Another local festival happening this weekend, Sunfest.  The weather was perfect and the crowd's spirits were elevated even more by the upbeat reggae sound of this band.  They were performing when I arrived around noon.  The original image had some in-camera motion blur so I worked with that to come up with this version.

The video for the title song is available on the group's website.

Inside-Looking Out

Today is Canada Day so I went out in search of a suitable subcjet,  I took several pictures but none measured up to my expectations so we're stuck with this instead.  It's part of the entrance to a small Italian restaurant and I like the colours.

Inside-Looking Out is by The Animals.  Hear a sample HERE.

NEW IMAGE taking into account Ted's comments.  

One Bourbon, One Scotch & One Beer

Same wall, different posters.  These were black on white and very boring.  The challenge was to see what could be done in CS3 to add a little colour and texture.  My intent was to see how close I could come to the colour of, what else, beer.  After some selective motion blur was added I used a texture layer to add interest and the colour. From that point on it was trial and error until I came up with this which bears little resemblance to the original but is much more interesting.

Most of us first heard the title song, One Bourbon, One Scotch And One Beer, as sung by George Thorogood but I wonder how many of you are aware that George's version is actually a cover of two songs by John Lee Hooker the second song being House Rent Boogie.  Both songs as sung by Hooker are on Youtube: One Bourbon... HERE (some great footage of JLH) and House Rent Boogie HERE. And here's George if you still haven't had enough.

Look on Yonder Wall   (Click to enlarge)

Yup, it's another lock, this one also in a rather interesting location I thought.  Must be a door behind there somewhere.  So what's behind that door and how long has it been since someone actually went in there?  Did a lot of post processing on this one, a couple of filters, selective colour saturation and hue shifts.  And of course the lock enhanced to make it jump out at the viewer.

Look on Yonder Wall can be found on Ellmore James' Shake Your Moneymake: The Best of the Fire Sessions.  I recently bought this album for its slide guitar content and it's fantastic.  This song also has some great harp accompaniment.