Most photographers would rather shoot new photos than maintain their website. Me too. I pretend it’s prioritization, but really it’s procrastination. So after nine months of “prioritization”, I finally updated my John Shore Music Photography website!
I recently finished a cool project shooting documentary stills for the “MedStar Health 2012 Report to the Community” – a report that Vanguard Communications is producing for MedStar Health, a non-profit healthcare company that owns hospitals in Maryland and the Washington, DC, region. MedStar also supports numerous community healthcare clinics and outreach programs, and each year they highlight some of them in an annual report to the community.
The 2012 report will cover ten remarkably-diverse programs, including nutrition for diabetes prevention, fitness, pre-school vision screening, elementary school sex education, health screening for seniors, home nursing visits for cardiac patients, stroke recovery, stopping smoking, and others.
I really enjoyed this project. The programs are all needed, interesting, effective, and inspiring. Everyone involved was terrific. As you might imagine, some of the programs led themselves more-naturally to documentary stills than others. From that viewpoint, my favorites included “documentary friendly” programs like the pre-school vision screening:
Another documentary-friendly favorite was the home nursing visits for cardiac patients:
Others were more challenging, including fitness:
elementary school sex-education:
health screening for seniors:
stopping smoking:
and nutrition education for diabetes prevention:
I won’t bore you with all of them, but I’ll post again when the report comes out.
From the recent Thievery Corporation run at the 9:30 Club: Natalia Clavier (top) and LouLou Ghelichkhani (below). And, yes, that’s the dancing metronome Hash on the right in both. 
Inspirational messages in stained glass can be welcome and comforting – e.g., in this case when in church at a funeral service – but not so much if they’re made conditional by bureaucratic fine print that the architect didn’t anticipate!
As I mentioned here, Thievery Corporation recently played three sold-out nights at the 9:30 Club – a reprise of last year’s run that resulted in a photo book. Cutting to the chase, this is (bass guitar) Ashish (“Hash”) Vyas on all three nights building up to a final encore….
There’s no mistaking dancing to African Pop: 
Dancing with the audience is Bruck Tesfaye, charismatic vocalist with Debo Band, a large, brassy, Boston-based band with a unique take on Ethiopian pop music that combines traditional styles with American soul and funk rhythms. Fun!
“If George Clinton had come from Ethiopia instead of outer space, the result might have been what Debo Band gives you.” – Boston Globe
These are from a performance at the Artisphere in Arlington, VA.
This is Arthur (Rootz) Steele and his wife Maria Teresa Chimienti. Rootz sings with Thievery Corporation and See-I. You wouldn’t know it from the cool couple in the photo, but this is backstage at DC’s 9:30 Club right after the last of three, sold-out, high-energy nights of Thievery (17-19 Jan. 2013).
These days many DJs don’t just entertain with music, they put on a show. Datsik (a.k.a.Troy Beetles) is an example – here’s Datsik and his Vortex at DC’s 9:30 Club:
Just prior to this year’s 3-night sold-out run at the 9:30 Club (pictures coming soon!), Thievery Corporation and John Shore Photography released this book of 80 photographs based on last-year’s 3-night sold-out run.
