September 9, 2012

This is my 25th blog today!!  Time goes by quickly.  Today, we have our first regular season Packer game of the year against the San Francisco 49ers at Lambeau Field.

The attached photographs include a couple from 1989 when a Chicago Bear football great named Walter Payton was racing sport cars at Road America in Elkhart Lake.  I remember Walter being very nice and really having fun driving his car.  If he was still with us, who knows what he could have accomplished in racing too.  He was one of the best in football even though he was a Chicago Bear!!

This past week we all found out that the American LeMans series and the Daytona Prototype Series will merge in 2014.  My hope is that we have some pretty race cars to watch because I never liked the look of the Daytona Prototype cars until this past year.  The new Corvettes looked good and fast but the ALMS cars really are more pleasing to my eyes.

Maybe Dan Gurney shown here on his motorcycle can help design some nice new cars.

Enjoy the football today and Go Packers!!

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

September 3, 2012

These are photographs from the second day, April 15, 1972, of the Wisconsin Music Festival, held at the University of Wisconsin Fieldhouse in Madison.

Day 2 was a big day with Linda Ronstadt, Kris Kristofferson, Pattie Santos with It's a Beautiful Day, and Ramblin Jack Elliott and Rosalie Sorrels returned for more fun.

There are a lot of photographs with this blog.  It was a great day and a very memorable show for me.  A lot of beer cans were on the floor of that dressing room!

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

August 27, 2012

On April 14 and 15, 1972, the Wisconsin Music Festival was held at the University of Wisconsin Fieldhouse in Madison.

The show consisted of about 10 acts performing each day. On the first day day I photographed Bob Brown, Nick Holmes, Dave Van Ronk, McKendree Springs, Rosalie Sorrels, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Richie Havens, The Earl Scruggs Review and Uncle Dirty who was the MC for both days.

Being just 17 years old and hanging out in the dressing room with these musicians is still a great memory for me.  I was a music photographer for the Bugle-American newspaper at the time, and with this two day show I got two pages of photographs in the magazine!   It was a wonderful time and everyone was so nice to me.  These days, it would never happen for a young photographer to be able to roam around and mingle like I did.

Enjoy the seven photographs attached of Bob Brown, The Earl Scruggs Review, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Richie Havens, Rosalie Sorrels and a photo of Earl Scruggs' sons.

Next week I will feature the second night of the festival in my blog which has some more memorable pictures that I took.

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

August 20, 2012

This past weekend the American LeMans Series (ALMS) was at Elkhart Lake.  This form of racing in 1991 was called the International Motor Sports Associations (IMSA) Camel GT and it was big racing!

Camel cigarettes sponsored the series and some of the major car manufacturers were really into this form of racing in a big way.  Dan Gurney had the Toyota Eagles with Juan Manuel Fangio II in one car and P J Jones in the other.  Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson were driving the Nissans  The Bud Light Jaguar of Davey Jones was amazing and Wayne Taylor in the Chevy Intrepid also tried to keep up the pace.

The days of Porsche winning everything by 1991 was done since Toyota, Nissan, Jaguar and Chevy were now racing with huge budgets.

Enjoy a few memorable photographs from the Nissan Grand Prix at Road America won by Davy Jones in his Jaguar on August 25, 1991.

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

August 13, 2012

Two weeks ago in blog #19, I had a story about myself and the band Queen with some color photographs that I took on March 7, 1975.  The response was wonderful from all of you and I appreciate the comments as always.  It made me dig into the archives a little further to find the black and white images from that show for you to enjoy.

We are spoiled in the digital world as a photographer in that we can switch from color to black and white very easily.  In 1975 you had to switch rolls of film!!!!!!!!!!  In digital, we can also change the ISO or film speed quickly and from photo to photo.  Wow, would that have been nice in 1975 because we were all using push processing on our film to get a faster ISO or as we called it back then, ASA.  I had to do special things in the darkroom in the old days and it was fun but you did not know what you were going to get right away like we do now.  It took a while to see what you photographed in the old days.

I miss the smell of fixer and stop bath in the darkroom and it was like being a magician sometimes.  The darkroom was a fun place to play and work with film, paper and chemicals.  Black and white versus color is like digital versus film.  They both work but are very different and people still argue over film being better and color being better than black and white.

What do you think and which do you like better, film versus digital or color over black and white?  It is a very personal choice I think and it will be interesting to see what you think.

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

September 17, 2012

After watching Neil Young doing his annual benefit for the Bridge School the other night, it made me go to the archives and dig out some pictures from a couple of his shows that I photographed. 

One show was January 5, 1972 at the Milwaukee Auditorium and another was November 14, 1976 at the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin.

Neil always comes with a good band and the shows were full of energy.  A picture I wish I had taken was of his bus which was covered in wood trim on the outside at the Madison show.  At the Milwaukee show he had on stage an amazing pipe organ.  I wonder why I didn't take a picture of that!

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

August 6, 2012

The week of August 26, 1973 I was thinking of college and my pursuit of an associate degree in photography at MATC.  Before school would begin, I thought a nice break was in order.

Friends were camping at the Jaycee campground close to Elkhart Lake's Road America that weekend and invited me to come and bring a tent and any high powered stereo gear I had since they had an audio power competition I believe you would call it.  I owned a Phase Linear 400 watt power amplifier and that is the real reason I was invited!  My Phase Linear had been tweaked and could put out about 500 watts of power, 250 a channel and it rocked.  It produced very LOUD, clear sound and I believe we won the competition pairing it with my McIntosh C26 Pre amp and a friend's HUGE Klipshorn speakers!

This was also the time for the Can-Am at Elkhart Lake's Road America.  Seeing and hearing Mark Donahue in the "Monster" Porsche 917-30 was amazing.  That car was so beautiful and had so much power with Mark driving. No one had a chance unless it broke down, which it did not, and he won.  The black Shadow cars were also one of the other wonderful sights to see that weekend.

After that break I was ready for college!

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

July 30, 2012

In 1971, Queen, one of the world's greatest rock'n'roll bands was formed.  Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon traveled the world extensively touring through the years.

On March 7, 1975, I had the pleasure of photographing Queen at the Uptown Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The night before they played Chicago and the night after Milwaukee they played Madison, Wisconsin heading west. 

For me it was a very memorable show.  I was photographing from the orchestra pit in front of the stage which was filled with equipment cases from the band.  During one of the songs they used a fog machine to fog the stage.  The orchestra pit and the front of the stage were filled with fog.  It was beautiful and I tried to get the perfect shot by moving over to the left a little on my knees.  I proceded to fall about 4 feet down off of an equipment case going off the edge of the case!  I was fine, the camera was fine and no one saw a thing because of the fog!  It was worth it too because the shot was exactly what I was trying to get.

I just got back up and kept on photographing like nothing happened and I will never forget that incident.

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Rich Zimmermann

July 23, 2012

My blog today is about Elkhart Lake's Road America.  The first road race was in 1950 going down the county roads and through the streets of Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. It totaled 3.3 miles.  In 1951 and 1952 a different 6.5 mile course was used.  One can still drive most of the original course which was registered on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.  Signs have been installed marking key locations on the course.  It is on my bucket list to drive the original course one of these days.

In 1955 Clif Tufte started what is now known as Road America.  The track is a little more than 4 miles long and reminds a lot of drivers of the tracks in Europe like Spa in Belgium and Monza in Italy.

A lot of trees have come down and fencing has gone up for safety but the sounds of the race cars coming through the trees is still awesome.

All kinds of food is available at every turn on the track and it's all great track food.  The food stand at each turn on the track, seems to have a different specialty and taste.  Turn 1 is probably my personal favorite.  It features Mexican food and the tacos are great.  At this track leave your food at home and enjoy the track food!

The attached photographs show the track in 1973 during my first visit.  The original start house had a lot of character. It was was replaced years ago with a nice air conditioned building on the other side of the track.  Pit lane is also a lot different now and has been moved up the hill. 

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Rich Zimmermann

July 16, 2012

He was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, N.Y. but adopted the stage name Jerry Jeff Walker in 1966.  Jerry Jeff Walker plays an outlaw style of country music that I have always loved.  I have seen him refer to his music as "Cowjazz"!

Jerry Jeff is most famous for a song he wrote called "Mr. Bojangles" that is about an obscure, alcoholic, tap dancing drifter that he met and not the actual Bill "Bojangles" Robinson the famous black, stage and movie dancer.  Jerry Jeff's song has been covered and performed by Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond and many others.

My personal favorite Jerry Jeff song is "Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mother"!  It's one of those songs that just gets you singing along with him and the band.  Jerry Jeff and his Lost Gonzo band also perform some Townes Van Zandt songs that I like and got to see them perform at "The Amazing Grace" in Evanston, Illinois on February 7, 1975. The attached photographs are from that show.

All blog photographs are for sale at a special price of $30.00 for a limited edition 8 X 10 or 8 1/2 X 11 gloss print which includes shipping in the U.S..  This sale is just during the week of the featured blog.  Contact us soon.

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Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann