The Wittliff Collections at Texas State Univesity hosted a big "Lone Star Sleuths" event at Alkek Library on Saturday. Since I knew one or three of the authors attending via science fiction circles, I made a point to swing by for a spell. Not to mention that I still haven't sent my poor, broken camera in for repair/exchange, so here was an opportunity to get a little more use out of it. I'm dangerous that way. First up is the obligatory signing table shot. I had others that did a much better job of showing how many people were in attendance (roughly 200 or so) but I'm still struggling with the whole depth-of-field concept. This was the best of the lot.
And here are the mad geniuses/editors behind the Lone Star Sleuths anthology itself: Rollo K. Newsom, Bill Cunningham and Steven L. Davis.
At this point, I decide to try and get somewhat artsy. Well, artsy for me. I'm a very pedestrian photographer at this point, remember. So using the 75-300mm telephoto zoom lens so generously loaned to my by The Wife, I set about taking close-up portrait shots of various authors in attendance. It's a slow lens, unfortunately, and the camera had trouble focusing in the low-light conditions of the library, but the beauty of 2 gig memory cards is that you take a hundred shots of a single subject to get one keeper. Needless to say, I filled that card up. First up is Bill Cunningham.
Neal Barrett, Jr., is a great writer and a nifty person. He's also got a great face for photography. I took a bunch of Neal for that reason. A bunch of them turned out really, really sharp. However, I loved the expression in his eyes here, and went with this one even though it's softer than I'd like.
There's something to be said for taking a series of photos from a distance. Mary Willis Walker gave me a fantastic sequence while chatting with a fan. Very animated, very relaxed. And she never knew I was shooting. Almost all of her pics were keepers, and this is my favorite of the lot.
Some might wonder why I keep taking pictures of Bill Crider. This photographer might wonder the same thing as well. He's got a nifty new mystery out, Of All Sad Words, though, which has some of the coolest cover art I've seen in a long while.
Here's Rollo K. Newsom...
And Susan Witting Albert...
And Paula Boyd (again, a little soft. Heck, who am I kidding--a lot soft. Almost all of her's were blurred, taken farther away from the big picture windows than the other authors. Live and learn).
The main event--apart from the massive book signing, that is--was an "acoustic noir" concert. Groovy. First up was Kasey Lansdale and the Dale-Tones. Not all of the Dale-Tones could make it, but the two that matter are pictured below.
Kasey, in case you missed it, is the daughter of Joe R. Lansdale his Ownself. She says her singing sounds like herself, but other folks who grasp for descriptive comparisons often resort to "Patsy Cline meets Janis Joplin." And those folks wouldn't be too far off the mark.
The second half of the musical double-header featured Jesse Sublett. Not only did he play a crackin' guitar (check out that smooth motion blur on his strumming hand. I must admit I blundered into it, even though I sorta vaguely wanted to try for that effect)...
...but he also had that "Too Cool for School" acoustic bass player attitude down pat.
I hope you've enjoyed this little recap. No need to thank me--I'm sure I'll be terrorizing your neighborhood with my camera sooner or later.
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