wheew.

i didn't mean to disappear for a week, really. last weekend was totally packed and then the week just got away from me.

so the concert went great. i shot all evening on the stage and around the theatre friday, and then a handful sitting in different areas of the audience during the shows on saturday. (i'm near the top of the "most obnoxious audience member ever" list - right behind the guy who sings along and the gal who loudly unwraps cough drops during every other number.) i walked away with about 8 GB of photos. many were duplicates - in this kind of an environment, where "do-over" isn't an option, i find the most success in making sure i can choose between a handful of photos. i also like having the option of different angles, which is why i shoot multiple shows and change my location in the audience.

enough already, on with the photos. i'm whittling my way through proofing, and i'm still very much ensconced in photos from the first half of the show. the theme was "Songs for the Open Road". the first half was "Americana" (think "Oh Susanna", and even Dixie Chicks), and the second half was "Route 66" (which included a medley from Chicago).

the show opened with a lone cowboy and his harmonica aside a campfire:

and included some square dancing:

and one of the gimmicks they used to set the scene was a bit of a flashback to the 30s and 40s (through the early 60s). not being remotely of that generation, i had to do a little research to fully appreciate these, but the audiences totally ate them up. a company called Burma-Vita manufactured shaving cream, and was made famous by their road-side advertising. short, amusing poems were broken into pieces and placed on highway billboards, spanning several miles.

so to mimick this, the choir used people instead of billboards. during transitions between scenes, a group of people would carry the signs across the stage, one at a time, as if you were driving down a highway passing them. great idea. i knew that photos of each individual person would be rather ineffective, so i arranged them into storyboards. i still feel that some of the effect is lost outside of the context of the live performance, but you get the idea. they're cute:

(click to see full-sized view.)





i'll post more tomorrow. :)

it feels like friday...

and it's not. how obnoxious.

sorry for being so quiet this week - it's been unusually taxing. but we're moving through it.

so, i'm here today to confess some anxiety. i'm shooting for Choir of the Sound again on friday at the dress rehearsal of their spring concert. from the conversation snippets that are floating back to me, people are excited to have me back after the work i did at last winter's show.

that show was not quite as nerve-wracking. there were no expectations. now i have myself a bit of a reputation with them, and so there are expectations. no room for error. hence the anxiety.

so that's what i'll be doing all weekend. i'll take the majority of the photos at the rehearsal tomorrow night, and then i'll watch the two shows on saturday - sitting in a different place at each so i can capture a few shots missed during those "wow, i wish i was over there when they did that" moments.

and i'll have an ad in the program. and they've asked me to display some of my work at a sponsor's table. aside from the website, this will be the first real "public" display of my photography.

yeah, the nerves are especially sensitive today...

3-day weekend ahead...

and i'm quite thankful, because i need every hour of it. on the list: date night tonight, a meeting tomorrow morning, prep for sunday, some scrapbooking, a little housework - including organizing a closet (or two) that is making me crazy, and observing a kids ministry program run by one of my mentors on sunday. wheew. good thing sunday afternoon and monday are free. i'll need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

so, i leave you with - my niece, beth:

{someone forgot to tell her that sensible black pumps weren't made for rock-climbing...}


{but look at that happy grin...}


{goofy kid.}

wednesday thoughts...

talking to an old highschool friend today, and we realized that we've now been out of highschool longer than we were in highschool. 6 years for me, 7 for her. given how central our highschool years were to our personalities, our friendships and our futures, it's kinda crazy to realize how far away it is from where we are now. it seems so major when you're in the midst of it, and yet, in the grand scheme of things, it's quite minor. 4 years out of, what - 80?

and speaking of 'old' friends, happy birthday to my best girlfriend and major co-conspirator, allie.

sadly, this is one of only two photos i have of us together - both of which are from 2001. allie, let's take more pictures when you're home, k?

monday again...

but that's ok, because i had a good weekend. not long enough - but when was the last "long-enough" weekend??

scrapbooked a little, watched Anne of Green Gables, one of my favorite movies of all time. (go ahead, laugh.) church was great - fewer kids yesterday, and that was okay - the kids were (mostly) well behaved, and we had a pretty laid-back day.

slept like a rock last night - now my shoulders are sore. good grief, you'd think i was doing chin-ups. (and i guarantee, i most certainly was not.)

thought i'd share a few of my more recent layouts with you today. these are three of my favorites. honestly, i scrapbook in bits now - a few minutes here, a few there. a layout can take me a few days, and that's if i'm inspired. i don't put out much quantity lately. but i'm okay with that.

{a few photos taken around my birthday. didn't really document the birthday "events" any other way, thought this would be a good milestone marker.}


{you'll remember the conversation i posted last week.}


{from my neices dedication last fall. the notebook paper is a verse from 1 Samuel, when hannah dedicates samuel to the Lord.

ok, that's it. another busy week ahead.

thinking...

it's rare that you hear from me on a weekend, but this morning i ran across something that i just feel like sharing, because it's cool.

a little background: i've spent most of my week at work writing documentation (think "owner's manual") for a project we did for a client. and it was not fun. but i got through it, completing the last of the editing within minutes of my deadline. anyway, in the editing phases, one spends alot of time thinking about how to make one's point clearly in a more concise manner.

so, this morning, i was reading in Genesis, and I ran across this verse (17:1) -

"When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless."

and i got to thinking... walk before Me and be blameless... two commands in one.

in the New Testament, Jesus tells us to simply "Follow Me."

so, now instead of walking in front and being blameless, we're now walking behind One who is blameless, and our blamelessness is implied. God made His point in a more concise manner.

it's almost like, as God was changing His covenant, He was editing His Documentation.

500 posts...

this is it - post #500.

i've always loved the romanticized notion of journal-keeping, but i've never been any good at it. i tried numerous times as a kid - when i got an especially lovely notebook with fresh blank pages, just begging for purpose.

but i was never consistent. and my sporadic entries were certainly never as interesting as Anne Frank's or Baby-Sitter's Club journal entries. so any attempt at regular writing eventually degraded to a less-than-fascinating record of the day-to-day of a typical childhood lifestyle.

when i discovered scrapbooking, my perspective changed a little. suddenly, words and memories - no matter how typical - were necessary. when i flipped through old family photos, i found myself wondering what life was like for my great-grandmother when she was my age. and then i was filled with this overwhelming need to document the typical.

at first, i scrapbooked for "them". that's the nebulous, future "them" that represents the intended generations to come. but that has progressed. i no longer scrapbook thinking "is that acid free? after all, i need it to still look this good in 200 years." now, i scrapbook for me. now, i think "does this make me happy?"

it's as much a creative outlet as it is documentation of a typical life. but it also serves as a sort of journal. it's just easier for me to "journal" with photos and artistic elements than it is with a pen and notebook.

so the blog is really an extension of my scrapbooking. sometimes i talk about my projects, but mostly, i'm documenting the typical for my projects. much of my "record" of events gets recycled as journaling on scrapbook pages.

and much like i don't scrapbook for "them", i don't blog for you. sorry - but it's true. don't get me wrong, i'm glad you're here. i certainly talk to you like i'm blogging for you. but the truth is that i don't feel a need to tell strangers (and some family and friends) about what i had for dinner last night or whether or not my freshly-planted poppies are sprouting. i do it for me too. call me selfish, but it's my way of taking care of me.

so there you have it. 25 months of blog entries. 500 posts. still loving it. and loving the archive i've built myself. and who knows - with technology being the way it is, it might just happen that my great-grandchildren don't stumble across my scrapbook in 70 years, but that they stumble across my blog archives instead.

i have photos to post, but i'd like to end this post here, being that it is what it is. i'll be back later. :)

goodbye tulips...

tulip season is over, and now i'm reminded of that very fact again - for i have totally exhausted my supply of tulip photos. well, of my favorites anyway.

say goodbye to the tulips...

but that's okay - i've got other photos to share too. like this one of my funny neice, who doesn't talk much, but sure likes grama's gee-tar:

look, she sings too!

it's thursday. hooray!

wednesday

warning: this post may not actually contain any real content. but at least there are tulips.

i'm really glad it's wednesday. my mood has marginally improved over the last couple of days, and by the grace of God, i'm getting through. and not a whole lot is going on this week - plenty, but not any more than usual. so it's life as normal, i suppose.

and we're halfway through may. kinda crazy. in 45 days, we'll be halfway through the year. even crazier. it feels like it just started.

the weather was beautiful yesterday, topping 85 degrees in the heat of the afternoon. i got home from a hot, muggy busride and camped out under our cherry tree. matt took me to dinner, which lifted my spirits immensely, then left me at home to enjoy the evening while he played basketball. a little productivity at least made me feel like i accomplished something worthwhile, after a day that otherwise felt like a waste of time.

so yeah, it's wednesday. tomorrow will be the last day of tulip photos... but that's fine, because i've got pictoral evidence of other stuff i want to talk about.

watching american idol...

home alone, so you get my random comments tonight. i'm watching american idol, and i have two thoughts.

jordin is so young. and ryan is so short.

ok, that's all.

(but do the math. she's 17. that means she was born in 1990. that makes me feel so old.)