ColinAke.com…until I write a book.

Been forever since I posted. Here’s what’s I’ve been up to.

Photography - been shooting whatever I can. Concerts, football, volleyball, portraits, musicians, etc. My favorite shoots include shooting the Velvet Revolver and Alice in Chains concert, the Shuttle Launch, and some of the portrait stuff I’ve gotten to do.

Speaking of the Shuttle Launch, we got to go watch STS-120 launch on October 23, courtesy of Astronaut Doug Wheelock. Doug was roommates with a family friend, Chuck Parker, at West Point, so that was amazing. It’s shocking how much flame and smoke is produced by the Shuttle. I was able to shoot pictures of the whole thing through Dad’s Celestron C-8 telescope. We were six miles away, so the telescope helped, even if it wasn’t the sharpest focus in the world.

Seeing Velvet Revolver was fun - it was nuts to be shooting at a major concert venue like Hi-Fi Buys Ampitheatre. Having only been there once before, it was a major blast to have a photo pass and my camera on the edge of the stage.  I got some good shots and felt really good about it.

By the way, if you haven’t seen my photoblog, you need to check it out.  http://www.colinake.com/photoblog

More to come!

So Jennifer Nettles from Sugarland contacted the GT Glee Club about singing with Kenny on the last night of their tour.  Apparently the last night of the tour is prank night.  After working the details out, about 12 guys from the Glee Club (and my roommate Lance) showed up the night of the concert at Hi-Fi Buys Ampitheatre.

We got backstage after Kenny went on-stage.  Kenny didn’t know we were there.  He began Living in Fast Forward, and I led the group out onto stage…  Kenny turned and looked at us with this confused look on his face as the band sung, and then took off his guitar, brought us to center stage, and sung the rest of the song with us, passing around the mic and such.  It was a blast.

After the song we walked out backstage again and passed around high fives.  The GT band marched in and did a song with Kenny, mostly drumline people.  After that, they left.  We were asked to stick around backstage to go back on at the end of the show for an encore.

After they looked around for a bit, we got escorted from backstage to side stage.  That’s right, just standing off to the right a bit, watching the performance from 20 feet away.  It was pretty cool.  Uncle Kracker, Pat Green and others went on stage and sung with Chesney as they played song after song.  At one point, Chesney’s keyboardist threw his sequined cowboy hat to the side of stage, and Pat Green caught it.  After he took a few pictures, he handed it to me.

Then came the crown jewel - Joe Walsh of The Eagles.  Ya know, the guy who did the Hotel California guitar solo?  He and Kenny sung a few songs together and then we rushed out on stage for the finale.  After singing and dancing with Kenny and Joe for the entire song, we went back off stage and waited for Kenny to come back by.  He signed our shirts, we discussed UGA’s loss with enthusiasm, and he told us we should come back next year.  What a fun evening!  You can bet that I’ll do what I can to pull it off again next year.

Thanks to Jennifer Nettles, Sugarland, Kenny and Joe for a great evening!

ca