Hey, Hey!

"First I was afraid, I was petrified..." (Gloria Gaynor - "I Will Survive")

And I DID survive!

Actually, my adventures at CMU went very, very well. It was a long day (I had to up at 3:45 am in order to pick up Michelle Wise and get to the event on time), but both of us agreed taking photos sure beats a lot of other jobs out there.

For example - I'd never work as the person in charge of maintenance of Port-o-Potties at the fair...

OK - sorry for that reference... but that just made your own job look much more appealing, right? So now we all feel better.

Now that I've done this event twice, I feel like I'm quite prepared to take on other event photography when requested. My next plan is organize a photo shoot for our Cub Scout Pack. I plan to come in and take nice individual portrait images of the boys in their uniforms for their parents.

I hope you all have a nice weekend - looks like more snow and cold will be heading our way!

Live a little...

It's always good to challenge yourself. In my case - my challenge is going to be photographing large groups of people.

Tomorrow I will go up to Central Michigan University and photograph at least 40 high school jazz bands, who are there for an all-day competition.

Having groups of 20 to 50 students line up for a photograph on risers - when they are excited from having the whole day off from school - is the equivalent of herding cats!

It's good to push yourself beyond normal boundaries. This is really pushing it. There will be approximately a new band to photography - every 15 minutes - all day long. I did this event for the first time last year, but an ice storm kept over half of the schools from participating.

This year, I'm happy to have Michelle Wise, of Wise Photography, with me to assist in setting up the lighting. Once she helps me get set up, she'll be taking photos in another building where some of the competition is taking place. I'm confident we'll make a good team!

One "formal" and one "informal" pose is taken of each band. Of course, the "informal" ones are much more fun to take - as you can see here from this image I took last February.

Maybe I'll be happy to go back to photographing trees and birds and other critters once I'm through, but I can at least say, "I did it!"