A look back at 2008 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival

Charles Neville, saxophonist and founding member of the Neville Brothers Band passed away yesterday. I was fortunate to photograph the band with Charles many times over the years and most recently in 2008 at Jazz Fest. As I often do when a musician dies, I look through the photos. My search for images of Charles Neville after hearing about his death led me to the second weekend of Jazz Fest 2008. In honor of Charles and in the spirit of Jazz Fest 2018 which started today I would like to share a selection of photos from a decade ago.

This is a few years after Katrina and the city is slowly rebounding. The energy and talent of these artists was an important factor in this process. Many of the musicians shown here are no longer with us.

 

Walter Payton

Walter Payton with dancer

Walter “Wolfman” Washington and Ian Neville

John Boutte

Brett Dennen

John Bell

Kermit Ruffins

George Porter Jr.

Stevie Wonder with daughter Aisha Morris

Trombone Shorty

Art Neville

Michael Franti and John Butler

Uncle Lionel Batiste

Benny Jones Sr.

Aaron Neville

Herlin Riley

Shannon Powell

Jonathan Batiste

Diana Krall

Jimmy Buffet

Chick Corea with Bobby McFerrin

Bobby McFerrin

Snooks Eaglin

Stanton Moore

Big Chief Bo Dollis with June Yamagichi

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn

Jack White

Carlos Santana

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi

Charles Neville

Cyril Neville

Carlos Santana with Charles Neville and Aaron Neville

Looking back at these images after 10 years and so many of life’s twists and turns. I can honestly say this was a great lineup.

 

 

 

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Thanksgiving

I woke up on Thanksgiving morning with a sense of calm and I was so excited to have a much needed day off from work. Then I remembered how much I love the process of preparing the Thanksgiving feast. I also remembered how much I used to enjoy photographing food. With a rented 100mm macro lens from a shoot earlier int he week I decided to pick apart the meal frame by frame. Here is a glimpse at the process of getting the meal on to the table.

Everything starts with a clean cutting board and a sharp knife.

A few ingredients for the apple pie

These beautiful cranberries ended up int he food processor with dates and an orange

Thanks to SRSLY Bread we had a delicious gluten free stuffing this year

Need I say more?

We did not actually eat these pumpkins but they were so cute on the counter I had to make a picture

 

Cabbage

Cabbage salad

Fresh Thyme

Thyme, sage and salt for the stuffing

Yukon golds sautéed in butter

Starting young with some knife skills

This 14 pounder is still feeding the family

Don’t forget about dessert!

24 hours in the life of photographer Scott Chernis

Everyday in the life of a freelance anything is a bit different than the one before or after it.  Photography is one of those jobs that does not follow a steady rhythm, at least not my line of work.  Take a recent 24 hour period as an example that most likely will be repeated in the future with a completely different rhythm and result.  Drinking scotch and shooting out the window with renowned photojournalist Rick Friedman www.rickfriedman.com at the Starlight Room on the top floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in downtown San Francisco is a good way to start any evening. From there I walked three blocks to the Hotel Nikko where I was to meet Kim Nalley www.kimnalley.com who has taken up a five week residency at the Rrazz Room playing a 5 night a week tribute to Nina Simone. She requested me to come by and shoot the band. After a stellar set of music I met up with her guitarist Greg Skaff in from New York to play the gig who also needed some updated photography for himself. Around 11:00 we were atop the Ellis/O’Farrell garage setting up for a portrait. The lights of the Palomar Hotel framed the back drop as the city wound down another day and I finally headed home for a short rest. Thursday morning had me scrambling about on five hours of sleep to get the kids to camp, and my equipment packed for a three shoot day. Intersection for the Arts www.theintersection.org recently opened their latest gallery installation “Sweet Beans and Rice: Investigating a Chino-Latino Future”. As I have been doing for years I was hired to document the gallery. These shoots are some of my favorite moments when I get to spend a couple of hours alone in a gallery with incredible art and make pictures. Upon completion of shoot number one I headed across town to another rooftop, this time in Chinatown, where I was to meet a new client, with a new business and a need for headshots. Setting up lights in the Stockton tunnel and creating a striking portrait was a challenge and an experience. I had no idea so many people walked through that tunnel and the sidewalk is quite narrow. With the sun going down on another San francisco day I had just enough time to eat a bit of dinner with the family before heading south to the campus of Stanford University and the Stanford Jazz Workshop. In it’s 40th year the SJW www.stanfordjazz.org puts on 30+ shows and holds three separate weeks of Jazz Camp each summer on the Stanford University Campus. This night was legendary Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist Milton Nacimento and I was shooting for the festival as I have done for the past eleven years. A great performance and a perfect end to a busy 24 hours in the life of Scott Chernis Photography.
www.scottchernis.com

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