Whenever I have a session with a musician, I always ask them to play. It’s never really because I need them playing in the photograph…it’s because I selfishly want to listen. My dear friend Ben Powell is here performing in the Victoria JazzFest. This is a musician you don’t want to miss!! You should take a few minutes to devour his site (www.ben-powell.com). It has lots of clips and videos of him performing, and reading his remarkable bio will make any musician get out their instrument to start practicing…especially when you find out he’s only 24. It was lovely to spend an afternoon with Ben last week. Since he’s based out of Boston our paths don’t cross too often, but when they do we spend most of the time laughing (mostly at how he tries to mimic my accent and phrases with his English accent). Victoria JazzFest is underway…catch The Ben Powell Quartet playing July 2nd + 3rd at the Hotel Grand Pacific as well as July 3rd at Centennial Square!

On Monday I had a session with the talented Emma Beaton and Nic Gareiss. I met Emma a few months ago while I was in Boston shooting her group the Folk Arts Quartet. Nic is a fantastic musician and dancer (video here) from Michigan and together the two are playing some shows together on the Island. One additional image from the session is posted over on the Photographer Network blog!

My wonderful pal/fabulous fiddler Ivonne Hernandez was back in town for a bit in between graduating from Berklee College of Music and heading out on the road. We spent a whole day gabbing at the new Caffe Fantastico location at Dockside Green a few days ago. On the drive back to my place, I directed us to a slight detour so I could take a few photos of her before we parted ways. There’s one more from this series over at Photographer Network!

While I was in Boston, I had time to travel into the city for an afternoon. Michael had contacted me just as I had left Boston in the spring and wanted to arranged a portrait/couple session when I returned. With such limited time, one session was all I could manage and I was glad to have been able to spend it with Michael and Annette. Michael contacted me through my pal Ben Powell as they are both graduates of Berklee School of Music, while Annette, a current Berklee student, skipped school for the afternoon for our session.

My weekly post over at Photographer Network features the superbly-talented James Laughlin. James runs Come2Drum which offers both online pipe band snare drumming lessons and workshops worldwide. As part of the pipes|drums feature I’ve been shooting, James very generously spared some of his limited time during the Bellingham Games on Saturday for some photos. Head over to Photographer Network to check out one more.

A few weeks back I had a session with singer/songwriter/musician Paul O’Brien. Many of the images were taken at Maarten Schaddelee‘s studio before finishing up our session at the beach near Paul’s house. The images are for his upcoming album which was recorded during March in Germany with Stockfisch Records. With August as the anticipated release of the new album, Paul is heading back to Germany to tour in September. Until then, you can catch him playing at the Irish Times Pub!