The Nelson Brothers

Neil Zazza and Matthew Nelson




Matthew Nelson





Neil Zazza and Gunnar Nelson




Neil Zazza and Matthew Nelson





Neil Zazza

I was on a cruise ship not so long ago and discovered that the Nelson Brothers, Matthew and Gunnar, were headlining a show billed as A Tribute to Ricky Nelson. I decided to grab my camera and see what I could do. Back in the day I shot with a fixed 120mm telephoto lens on B&W film. This would be a good opportunity to see what a DSLR with a zoom lense was capable of.

Matthew and Gunnar played a solid set of Ricky Nelson songs as well as one or two Nelson (hair metal) songs. Guitarist Neil Zazza was part of the band (the rest being Royal Carribbean Cruiseline musicians). The lighting was good and I had good seats front row center. I later converted all of the images to B&W. I miss the grainy gritty Tri-X effect but am otherwise pleased with the results.

I met Matthew and Gunnar later on and gave them some prints. There was one of Matthew by himself (see above) that he especially liked and he said he was going to give to Paul (McCartney). I was pleased that they liked them and kind of happy to have an opportunity to shoot a live show again.