In-studio Session with Anna Stine Music
My talented friend Anna Stine is currently crafting an excellent debut album, full of emotional, beautiful songs. A few weeks back, while in Minneapolis for a few weddings, I had the privilege of being invited into the studio with her and her studio band to document some of the recording process. As a musician myself, I am constantly looking for ways to merge my passions, so I jumped enthusiastically at the chance to help Anna out. There is something special about being invited into such a vulnerable space- a space I know well from past recording sessions with my own bands- and being granted creative freedom to document everything.
For any photographers/nerds reading this, I shot this entire thing (with the exception of the outdoor group shot) at 3200 & 6400 ISO and 1/500th of a second. I don't ever feel comfortable dipping too far below 1/500th of a second for shutter speed, unless the subject is still- I can't stand blurry images so I always prefer to bump the ISO to maintain sharpness and avoid blur. Even at those settings, most of these were slightly underexposed, but flash wasn't an option as it would have been way too distracting. Anyway, I'm sharing because whenever I read blog posts, I find myself wishing that the photographer would talk about technical deets.
In an effort to keep this short, I'll just end with a two-part shoutout. The first goes out to Anna and the brilliant musicians she was collaborating with- everyone is such a talented musician in their own right. The second goes out to the absurd amount of connections present in Minneapolis. As I was wrapping up my time in the studio with these guys, I discovered that the bass player plays in Nooky Jones, a really dope Minneapolis band. The drummer in Nooky Jones was my drum teacher many years ago and a former student of my dad's (my dad Fernando Meza is the percussion studies professor at the U of M). A lot of connections in the ol' hometown. Thank you Anna and band for inviting me in and for allowing me to share this space with you.
