Alys Joplin

I was taking a bunch of pictures of some of my younger relatives (children, nieces and nephews and their friends) while they were playing Guitar Hero a couple of weeks ago.  For the most part, these young people were having a lot of fun, but their faces were not showing it.  Their eyes were glued on the tv so that they could play the game.  But their faces were rather expressionless.  However, there is always one who is not afraid to break free from the crowd.

I caught this moment of my daughter cutting loose and thoroughly getting into the part of lead singer.  In fact, she reminded me of a picture of an infamous rock star from the 60’s…

Not to say that my daughter is anything like Janis Joplin, but the pose reminded me of her…and since I’m reading Annie Leibovitz’s new book, “At Work”, I was more in the mode to think about rock star photography.  (I can’t find the name of the photographer who took the above photo but I do have a link back to where I got it.)  Annie Leibovitz is a very famous photographer who started out photographing rock and roll stars for Rolling Stone Magazine when they were both just starting out.  She’s taken absolutely fabulous photographs of some of the most famous people around…including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demi Moore (pregnant and nude) and the Queen of England.  She also has a fantastic series called “Disney Dream Portrait Series” using famous people cast as Disney characters.  Take a peek by clicking on the link.

At any rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it to the level of Annie Leibovitz or the photographer who took the above photo of Janis Joplin, but I do enjoy photographing people when they are having fun and aren’t aware of my camera (for my kids, I don’t think they would recognize me without my camera in front of my face, sad to say.)