Jerzy Biń Photography Blog: Stanley Jordan Interview and Concert... When To Pull Back.

I will carry on with Cornwall pictures in a day or so, for now I wanted to share story from yesterday.

Stanley Jordan Solo

We (my friend Richard and me) asked for an interview with Stanley Jordan some time ago, and we got final confirmation on the day of the concert! I love those short notice calls.

I had basically few hours to have all the gear ready and charged, and off to Porgy & Bess stage in Vienna. This is THE stage for Jazz music here.

Now for those who do not know who Stanley Jordan is, well, he is a legend guitarist famous for his unique two handed tapping techniques. His solo performance blew me away, never heard something like this live.

But idea for this post came at different moment. This is about pulling back and not pushing too far. I will get to that in a moment.

Back to interview, it was scheduled for 5:30 p.m., but as usual such sessions are never on time. We were ready though, had extra few minutes to setup cameras, plug in microphones and test the lot. Here great thank you to Porgy & Bess Crew, who helped us with power and light. We shot interview on actual stage where Stanley performed few hours later. There was very little time, it was still before sound check, and we were not really sure how much footage we will get in the end. Stanley was great, we got way over 30 minutes, and he completely did not show he was really in a hurry. We really appreciate he gave us so much of his precious time before the show.

Stanley Jordan mounting his microphone

You have to watch the video, when it is ready. His way of life is quite inspirational, and can make you think wee bit deeper about your current life. Video will be released soon.

Later on, second part of the job started, I was about to shoot his concert. It was very different to what I have been used to. First of all chairs were all over and there was no real space to move around, no pit in front of the stage. No pit, is not really such a problem, but sitting people are. When you somehow get to the front to get some close shots you simply obstruct view for those sitting behind you. I stood for few seconds longer, and audience started to be impatient, some guy even started to wave at me to move away, not very polite... or he was short on patience. It is not rock concert where everyone screams and you cannot hear yourself. I took literally 3-4 shots and had to move further to find different angle not disturbing the audience.

You have to be careful in such venues, where audience is as important as artists. People come and pay heavy money and they do not want crazy photographers disturbing them.

Stanley Jordan playing piano and guita at the same time

I had another problem - noise, not pictures' noise, I shot between 6400 and 12800 ISO, and I know camera can handle them. Camera itself was so loud, I could not believe it. When you shoot in other situation, you do not really care about that. But all of a sudden I found myself in very acoustic hall filled with clear - quite silent - music of Stanley, and as soon as I pressed shutter button, I had a feeling it would wake up dead man. Very not nice. You cannot disturb performing artist. I could also see people around me turning their heads in disapproval. Great, I thought. I ran above to take few shots from the gallery, found good spot, and waited for Stanley to move a bit closer towards me. He was deep in his tunes and I think when he plays he is wandering in different world. I framed, pressed the shutter 3 times, and for a brief moment, Stanley looked up at me, our eyes met. That was it, I knew I am disturbing him, I immediately pulled back. You cannot push your luck to far. Later on during break, I walked up to Stanley and apologized, thanks God he went easy on me. So be careful.