I haven’t had a chance to do more than a rough edit of my pictures from yesterday, when I went with the Hickman band to a marching festival in STL (in which the band placed a quarter-point out of trophy-level contention). Here’s one that, um, stood out a little from the others. I think there are at least three light sources competing for attention in this photo. 
Missouri
Picture Story: Character Profile first draft
I can’t embed Soundslides files in WordPress (gah), but here is the link to my draft of the Character Profile. The audio is pretty wretched (I was trying to make the recording levels of five different recording situations actually work together…they didn’t), but please please watch and tell me what you think! I get to rework it into a FinalCut show in the next month, so any and all feedback would be much appreciated.
The Soundslides file is here (it’ll open in a new window).
Also, a couple of images that didn’t really fit into the final audio narrative:
Mizzou vs. Nebraska: Sidelines
Stills from the MU-Nebraska game this past Thursday (I got to shoot pregame activities and the first half before going up to the press box to edit during the second half). I had the D2H, so most of my attention while on the field was actually focused on the people in the stands. D2H + downpour + night + action shots of football…not a combination I wanted to play with.
Strawberry shortcake, gooseberry pie: The Hickman Marching Band
These are some stills from the Character Profile I’m working on for Picture Story. My “character” is the Hickman High School marching band (I wanted to follow a drum major around, but Rita suggested just going with the whole group. Much better!), which is made up of some 120 people, including the color guard, and which currently has a better record in competition than the actual football team does.
My high school didn’t have a marching band, so most of what I already knew about band kids came from my best friend, who was a trumpet/tuba player all through high school–in Florida, where football and band are at a tier just below Friday Night Lights level. I’ve been up at Hickman five times in the past week, and can safely say that these musicians are hardcore. They’ve been simultaneously prepping for their Homecoming game (last night) and a marching festival, where they’ll be competing with other Missouri bands. Their field practices are at 6:30 in the morning, they have additional practices during actual band class and for two hours in the evening during a game week, they have to know their routines and their music cold, and on top of that, there’s the whole schoolwork thing. As one of the drum majors told me, it’s a lifestyle. I’m impressed.
Warming up during morning field practice.
It’s cold.
Woodwinds during indoor practice
Fourth quarter of the Homecoming game (Hickman won).
I have yet to hunt down everybody’s name…but the toddler is one of the band director’s daughters. Awww.
Going out for the halftime show during Homecoming.
Waiting for the buses to the band festival to load. Scant rest for the weary.
Picture Story: One Day Story/5 POVs
Fielding a Community
Five nights a week, from mid-August to mid-October, the Rainbow Softball Center at Cosmopolitan Park in Columbia, Mo., fills with recreational adult softball teams. Most league divisions contain more than eight teams. Thursday night Men’s Church League softball is one of the few exceptions to this rule, with just five teams rotating through the designated field each night. Playing in the Church League “has advantages over other leagues,” says Nathan Thomas*, manager of the St. Andrews team, specifically because of “the common thread that we share a love for sports and Jesus Christ” and “the chance to enjoy fellowship with your brothers…this is a good way for different churches to come together and not get so immersed on each other’s beliefs [and] practices.” For the teams of the league, fellowship comes both on and off the field.
While most teams in the league sport jerseys with their respective church names on them (or simply shirts matching the team’s color), the Disciples opt for a more broad design. The self-described “hodgepodge” team no longer has a specific church affiliation; several players have switched congregations since the team’s original inception. Nevertheless, the men continue to play for the Disciples. “They’re just a great group of guys,” says manager Chris Peters.
Shortstop and third base coach Corey Harden claps for his teammate at bat as other Disciples watch gameplay from their dugout. After a slow start, the team scored fifteen runs en route to a win over Fairview Church of Christ.
Scott Riley, second baseman for the Disciples, receives a dugout visit from wife Ginger and 10-month-old son Aiden. Riley, like many other players, also competes in the Church League during the summer months.
Kayanna Smith, right, slips away from the crowd of Rocky Fork Fellowship players and fans after the team’s loss to Trinity Lutheran. Smith, accompanied by her mother Amber, comes to “watch” her father Kurt play for Rocky Fork every week. Rocky Fork, despite the apparent setback of being located half an hour away, in Hallsville, enjoys a large fan contingent for each of its games.
Danny Jung, temporarily playing for Fairview Church of Christ, pitches to Nathan Thomas, right, of St. Andrews as umpire Charlie Schuster and Fairview catcher Rob Kallenbach look on. Jung normally plays for Trinity Lutheran; due to a smaller-than-normal roster on the Fairview team, he pitched in not only his own game, but also Fairview’s two matchups. Says Thomas of the league, “It’s not cutthroat competition.”
Members of Rocky Fork Fellowship and Trinity Lutheran Church gather in a prayer circle following the teams’ September 17 matchup. “A lot of the same churches play every year,” says Peters, “and you get to know the guys that you’re playing with.”
*all quotations taken from e-mail correspondence.
Saint Louis Zoo
Much like its Houston counterpart, the Saint Louis Zoo is located right in the middle of the city’s major park (Hermann Park in Houston). Unlike its Houston counterpart, the Saint Louis Zoo is free. Considering these two factors, I was pretty surprised to realize that the zoo is actually a very good one. I’m a zoo nerd–I judge the parks I go to all the time on all kinds of random things (creativity of exhibit design, size of exhibits, handicap accessibility (since I tend to go to zoos with my grandfather, who can’t spend too much time walking around), etc etc). I still can’t figure out how St Louis does such a good job despite not charging admission, but it passed way more of my tests than Houston ever did.
A bush dog. I’d never heard of these before, but apparently they live in South America, eat rodents called “pacas,” and have webbed feet. They’re also very cute.
I’d also never seen Bactrian camels (the kind with two humps) in a zoo before. This one’s a baby….awwwww.
For all of its great exhibits, though, the zoo had a weirdly constraining way of feeding the animals. These are the reticulated giraffes, having feeding time in the Antelope House (which looked like it was something out of the 1800s, what with all the steel bars and small spaces).
On the plus side, it was pretty neat to get so close to the giraffes. I flashed this one with the on-camera flash of my little Canon Rebel. Made for an interesting effect.
Maybellene, why can't you be true?
We interrupt this slate of summer-happenings posts for yet another concert post. I actually don’t go to many concerts; I don’t think I’ve been to more than ten in my life. But tonight Chuck Berry, aka the King of Rock and Roll, the guy whose sound basically created the sound of the early Beatles, (especially) the early and middling Stones, and the Beach Boys (“Sweet Little Sixteen”/”Surfin’ USA”), among others, played a free concert in Columbia as part of the Summerfest series sponsored by the Blue Note.
I had heard that previous Summerfest concerts didn’t allow large cameras in to the blocked-off street area, so I left my Canon at home before heading down to Ninth St. I then realized this was a very stupid move, as there was in fact no restriction at all on cameras, and I should have been practicing the ‘better to ask forgiveness than permission’ principle of photo-j. Fortunately, I got to the venue three hours before Mr. Berry came on stage (thinking he would play one, not three hours after the gates opened), so I had plenty of time to zip back home and get my gear. This, by contrast, was a very good move. I would have been so frustrated to not have any of my own images of the show. But now I do!
And, wow, what a show. I mean, Chuck Berry is going to be 83 years old in October, and here he was playing guitar for a 45-minute outdoor set, singing his heart out, and duck walking during “Johnny B. Goode.” If I’m in half that shape when I’m 83, I’ll consider myself pretty lucky. He wasn’t perfect–some chords were off, he sang in odd keys for some songs, blah blah etc etc–but there’s something refreshing about the lack of polish. Rock isn’t supposed to be polished. I saw the Stones play a few years ago in Houston, and while it was great to see them live, the concert was part of an arena tour, more of a piece of choreography than anything else.
On a similar note, the show tonight was, as mentioned, free. There’s something wonderful, I think, about watching a performer sing and play purely for love of the game. The something wonderful becomes all the more “whoa”-inspiring when you stop to consider that the love of the game has been such a time-spanning affair. The affair looks like it’s going to continue for even longer–Berry’s son Charles Jr. plays guitar in the backup band. Aww.
The problem with bringing a camera to a concert, however, is that I’m just too darn short, and I have to Hail Mary all the time while trying to get decent images. It’s hard to Hail Mary with a telephoto lens, though, so I had to wait until the bodies in front of me kindofsortof moved out of the way–for a hair of a second–so I could get a frame in. BUT…all of the masses in front also provided instant negative space to work with, which ended up working better than I thought it would. Exhibit A:
There are a few more that follow- again, here I am stuck in one spot at the concert and unable to really vary the images (I think this point is much more clear if you look at the previous concert post and compare it to this one). Or is this just a by-product of concert photography? Either way, it’d probably be good to bring my flash next time I’m at a show (whenever that will be) and try to play around with that, for something new and exciting.
