Image of the Week for 01-30-12
“Oh, really? Really?”
It seems odd that certain people who are photographed probably far more than they realize are usually the ones that are the most reluctant to have their photo taken …
All-Regional Band, Day Three - January 18, 1987
(continued from here)
It was 25 years ago today that Shay Q, Joe B, Josh M, Chris S and I were in Danville, KY for the 1987 Bluegrass All-Regional Band. This would be our last day at this event: Sunday, January 18, 1987, with the concert taking place this afternoon.
We did not have any rehearsals that morning (to allow those who wished to attend church to do so), didn’t have to be at Danville High School until 2:15pm, and the hotel was going to let us check out later than usual, so we didn’t set a wake-up call (which wouldn’t have worked since Chris had taken the phone off the hook last night after Shay and Joe continued to prank call us). Josh and I woke up late in the morning to discover that Chris was extremely ill. He kept moaning that he was about to throw up but he had to get up and perform at the concert (such dedication and responsibility for the first chair percussionist). Shay and Joe were passed out from their late night and not responsive, so Josh and I trudged over to the Kroger to buy some breakfast food for ourselves as well as something that hopefully Chris could eat and keep down. We got some oranges, orange juice and stuff for us and returned to the hotel room. Chris, surprisingly, was able to keep everything down. Shay and Joe woke up and we appraised them of the situation, and they got mad at us because we didn’t bring anything back for them. How could we know what they wanted, since they were asleep, and besides, after yesterday’s donut debacle, I wasn’t wasting any more money on them.
Shay took a shower, and it was at this time that I discovered that the bathroom door in Shay and Joe’s room didn’t lock (although it seemed that it did from the inside). Shay came out and Joe got in the shower, and I told Shay about the door. Shay went and got the ice bucket, which was full, and quietly opened the door to the bathroom. He threw the contents of the bucket into the shower … however, Joe was in the process of getting out of the shower at this moment, and the ice flew over his head and missed him completely. Dammit! This would have been the most hilarious prank of the weekend had it been successful.
Shay had used the hairdryer and it had overheated, so when Joe tried to use it, it wouldn’t come on. He left the hairdryer switched on while he went in search of a working hairdryer. Shay, Josh and I were watching the Celtics-Rockets game on the TV when the hairdryer suddenly came on, much to our shock.
Shay and Joe got dressed and then they left, rather abruptly and without a word, to find food on their own, as they were still a little pissed at Jimmy and Josh for not bringing them anything. By now it was 1:00pm, leaving them a little over an hour before they had to be checked out of the hotel and at Danville High School. First, they went to Arby’s for breakfast, and then they drove to the Hardee’s for lunch.
Meanwhile, Josh, Chris and I changed into our band uniforms and we watched “Scholastic Challenge” on KET. Oddly enough, the answer to one of the questions was “Fidelio Overture,” one of the pieces that we were going to play that afternoon. Mr. Stephens popped in at 1:30pm and Shay and Joe returned at 1:45pm, and there was a mad dash as the two of them raced around their room, simultaneously changing into their uniforms, eating their burgers, and packing their suitcases.
We checked out of the hotel and that was when we found out that the satellite movies weren’t actually free. Oops. We also almost forgot to give the keys back. We then sped over to Danville High School and made it just in time. Chris was feeling somewhat better but he wasn’t at his best. We set up our instruments and warmed up, and then Mr. Mannerino had us set up in our same positions but in the band room and go through three of the pieces that he felt needed some last minute tune-ups. We didn’t have any music stands so we had to put the music on the floor or on our instrument cases. Of course, first chair Madison Central clarinet God Mickey had all of his parts memorized.
We went out onto the stage and took our seats … except for me, because my chair had mysteriously vanished! Also, Shay and I did not have a stand! When Mr. Mannerino motioned for everyone to sit down, I remained standing, because I did not have a chair! There were some quick adjustments made and they found me a chair, and they also found a stand for us … albeit a broken, warped one, and our music kept sliding off of it.
The concert itself went quite well. In the second movement of “Beowulf,” Mr. Mannerino STILL put in five beats in that one measure, and literally had to count out loud in order to get everyone back onto the proper beat.
I remember at the end, when they had all of the band members stand up by school, how it seemed that practically EVERYONE stood up when they announced “Madison Central.”
After the concert, we all received our copy of the program as well as our All-Regional patch, met our parents, and went home.
Joe, Shay and I after the concert.
Shay, Mr. Stephens and I after the concert.
All-Regional Band, Day Two - January 17, 1987
(continued from here)
25 years ago today, we received our wake-up calls at 7:00am on this chilly Saturday morning, and so we showered, dressed, and revived ourselves. Joe and Shay had worn themselves out and didn’t get much sleep, so they sent me to Kroger to get some donuts and milk. I couldn’t find any fresh donuts at the Kroger, and so I walked back, checked with the guys, and then went to the Kroger AGAIN and picked up some stale boxed donuts for $1.49 and a jug of milk. The donuts were disgusting and no one finished drinking the milk.
Meanwhile, Chris had decided that he was going to go to the hotel restaurant (ah, back when hotels had restaurants) and have a “real” breakfast. After eating those horrible donuts, Joe, Shay and I decided that Chris had the right idea and we followed him downstairs. We ordered coffee and orange juice, and Joe got a Coke which had some “serious carbonation.” Mr. Preston was eating down there as well, and he left at about the same time that we got served, so we knew that we were running a little late. To further compound the situation, the server calculated our bill wrong and didn’t know how to give back change.
We returned to the hotel parking lot, crammed ourselves into Joe’s car, and burned rubber on our way back to Boyle County High School. We retrieved our instruments and got into place at around 9:00am. After warming up, we were handed out parts for “Chant and Jubilo” (composed by W. Francis McBeth, the same composer of “Beowulf”) and this piece was directed by Mr. “Gym Teacher” Blevins, the Band Director of Danville High School. We also went through “Fidelio Overture” and Mr. Mannerino wanted to drop it, but the general consensus among the band members was that they liked it, so we got to keep it in.
At noon, we took a break for lunch. We all went to Wendy’s, where we started saying “yee-boys” way more than normal people would. Joe took a bunch of ketchup packets and arranged them on the table to read the numerals “74″ (for some reason). Josh wound up a straw and Shay plucked it, resulting in a very loud pop. Shay raised his hands in victory, noticed that everyone in the restaurant was staring at us, and then pointed to Josh and shouted “HE DID IT!” We all thought that this was hilarious and we couldn’t stop laughing for a long time.
We returned to the school for afternoon rehearsals at 1:00pm. On our music stands were the parts for “West Side Story,” which was to replace “A Tribute to Jermone Kern” (because every concert needs to have one number taken from broadway). We were quite delighted by this, because this piece was exactly the same as the one that we had performed back in 1986 with our high school band, and we knew it quite well. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough parts to go around, and so Mr. Mannerino grabbed a photographer who was standing around and made him direct the first page of the piece while he went to find the rest of the music.
We practiced from 1:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon, taking three breaks during this time. During the breaks, Josh never left the band room, as he was vigilantly guarding his brand-new trombone. He wanted to make sure that it was safe at all times. AT ALL TIMES.
Mr. Stephens arrived early in the afternoon and watched us practice for a little bit, then he went into the instrument room to set up his computer and work on that for the rest of the day. By 5:00, we were all pretty tired from rehearsing all day, but we were quite pleased that the music was starting to come together and all of the pieces actually sounded pretty good. The concert was starting to come together and it looked like we were going to play “Beowulf,” “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” “Manhattan Beach March,” Fidelio Overture,” “Chant and Jubilo,” “West Side Story,” and “Here’s That Rainy Day” (which I haven’t mentioned up until this point due to its overall lack of remarkableness).
After rehearsal was over, we loaded our instruments into Mr. Stephens’ car, because the next practice was to take place at Danville High School, where the concert would be held on Sunday. We then all crammed ourselves into Joe’s car and, with Mr. Stephens following, headed onto the Bypass to look for a place to have dinner. Joe then turned off the road and went back into the Boyle County High School parking lot, and Mr. Stephens dutifully followed. Joe sped up and began doing donuts in the parking lot. Mr. Stephens started to follow, then he pulled off to the side of the road, took out his copy of “Fantasy and Science Fiction” magazine, and calmly sat in his car and read his periodical while Joe spun us around in the parking lot. Joe finally exited the parking lot and got back on the road, and Mr. Stephens followed us. Joe considered turning back into the parking lot but we were hungry and wanted to get to dinner.
We argued for awhile as to where we wanted to go, and our discussion was disrupted by another freeze-out. We finally settled on Long John Silver’s. We pulled into the parking lot and sat in the car for a few minutes, singing along to the end of “‘65 Love Affair” — a customer inside the LJS watched us and thought we were all insane. Inside the restaurant, the wackiness continued as introduced Mr. Stephens to the competitive sport of straw plucking (he didn’t do very well as he kept missing the target).
After eating, we returned to the hotel — all of us. Mr. Stephens sat in room 220 the whole time. Some girls wandered in and Mr. Stephens joked along with the rest of us, as if he were one of the guys (which he was). Some of the girls who dropped by commented “He’s your band director? But he’s so cool!” After the girls left, Joe and Chris wrestled, with the end result being Joe flipping Chris onto the bed (which Joe did so well, having learned the move after being flipped over by Mr. Stephens on more than one occasion). Unfortunately, when Joe tossed Chris onto the bed he also succeeded in knocking the phone and the lamp off of the bedside table.
At this point, we left the hotel to go to Danville High School (or DHS, cough). Mr. Stephens lead the way but got lost, and we had to backtrack and drive around in circles a number of times before we finally found the correct road and entered the school parking lot. We retrieved our instruments, entered the school through a side door and went into the huge DHS band room, with trophies all over the walls. We got our instruments out and entered the school’s enormous auditorium. There was a huge orchestra pit in front of the stage with about a nine foot drop (allegedly, a DHS Homecoming Queen had plummeted off of the stage and into the pit at some point) but we were all set up on the stage itself. All of the chairs were crammed very tight together and the lighting was extremely uneven — some sections were very bright while others (oh, say, the third part clarinets) were shrouded in darkness.
We got into place and went through all of the pieces in concert order, one last time: “Jesu,” “Fidelio,” “Chant and Jubilo,” “Manhattan Beach,” “Beowulf,” “Rainy Day,” and “West Side Story.” Everything sounded okay, although Mr. Mannerino kept adding an extra five beats into the second measure of the second movement of “Beowulf,” resulting in a lot of confusion.
After practice was over, we were getting ready to put our instruments away and head back to the hotel when Josh placed his trombone on a chair and turned his back for a few seconds … and a flute player from the Laurel County High School Band accidentally sat IN THAT CHAIR. She stood up very quickly, but the damage was done — there was a dent in the slide. Josh, to say the least, was devastated. The girl apologized profusely and we all examined the slide and noted that it appeared to be a minor dent, but if you know anything about trombones then you will know that the slightest imperfection in the straightness of the slide can have drastic effects on the tone and sound of the instrument. Josh was very, very upset and we tried to console him, but he didn’t want to talk to any of us, and so we left him alone.
We left DHS and crammed ourselves back into Joe’s car. Josh sat in the fetal position in the back seat the entire time with his head buried in his arms. We did another freeze-out in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Josh was in his own world and didn’t respond. We made it to the hotel room and Josh flopped onto the bed and didn’t move for a very long time. We left him alone and went into the other room. Joe, tough guy that he was, shoved Chris onto the bed for no reason … and, in the process, broke Chris’ eyeglasses! Well, no, not really, but Chris’ frames were metal and when he fell onto the bed he managed to twist the frame. Joe thought this was hilarious but Chris did not, and Chris spent about thirty minutes trying to twist the glasses back into shape. He finally managed to get them set so that they fit onto his face once again, but one of the lens was now bent forward at a bit of an angle. Joe thought that Chris’ appearance with his glasses bent was also extremely hilarious.
We still had the box of donuts from that morning, and we tried to give them away, but they were even more stale and terrible (especially after sitting in our room all day). Finally, we resorted to throwing the donuts at other people. Joe flung one onto the plastic tarp that covered the hotel swimming pool (directly across from our room). I decided to throw a donut into the pool, and right when I did, one of the maids (named Patricia) walked around the corner, caught me in the act, and sarcastically shouted, “THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” Sorry, Patricia.
Joe and I then got into an argument (about what, I don’t recall), and Joe responded by picking me up and flipping me over his shoulder and onto the bed. This didn’t change my position in our argument, and Joe continued to respond by picking me up and flipping me onto the bed. I had the foresight to remove my glasses before any of this took place. When Joe got tired of throwing me onto the bed, he attempted to mess with Josh, but Josh was not in the mood and Joe reluctantly backed down. All this time, Shay managed to avoid getting involved with our wrestling matches (a wise man, that Shay). A number of other band members were making a mass pilgrimage to Kroger (to purchase what, hmm, I wonder) but we didn’t feel like going because it was pretty cold. B.J. passed by our room several times and she was constantly flipping everyone off, for some reason.
We calmed down and decided to turn on Showtime, and we watched “Runaway Train.” I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on in the movie, and I kept asking Shay questions about what was happening because I mistakenly thought that he had seen the movie already. Shay got pretty aggravated with me about this. The movie ended at around 1:00am and then a Van Halen concert movie came on (”Live Without a Net,” perhaps). Josh (who had finally come out of his funk but wasn’t saying much), Chris and I decided to call it a night and we headed off to our room. For the next hour or so, Joe and Shay kept calling us on the phone and hanging up (and vice versa) until Chris just left the phone off the hook.
TO BE CONCLUDED …
All-Regional Band, Day One - January 16, 1987
It was 25 years ago today that me, Shay Q, Joe B, Josh M, and Chris S, accompanied by Mr. Stephens, went down to Danville, KY to participate in the 1987 Bluegrass All-Regional Band. Having successfully made it through the audition process back in November of 1986, it was finally time for a weekend of non-stop rehearsals, culminating in a performance on Sunday, January 18th.
On the morning of Friday, January 16th, the five of us met at the Band Room during the break between second and third period class with our instruments, uniforms and luggage. Mr. Stephens, Josh and I were in Mr. Stephens’ car while Joe, Shay and Chris were in Joe’s car. We headed down KY 52, passing through Lancaster (site of last fall’s Garrard County Tobacco Festival with the Jefferson High School Band). In our car, Josh fell asleep and Mr. Stephens and I listened to 88.9 while Joe, Shay and Chris listened to Rush’s “Signals” album. At one point on that stretch of one-lane road, Joe revved up and passed us doing about 80, prompting Mr. Stephens to speed up and pass Joe so that he could remain in the lead. It was both exhilarating and terrifying.
We arrived in Danville at 11:30am and checked into the Holiday Inn. We ended up with rooms 220 and 224, which were not connected as we had hoped. We inquired about the possibility of getting room 222 but it was apparently already booked and couldn’t be switched. A roll-away third bed was added to room 224 for Josh (Chris and I had already staked out the other two beds) and Joe and Shay were in room 220. We dropped off our stuff and headed to the McDonald’s “on the hill” for lunch, where Mr. Stephens read the manual for his brand new Kaypro and the rest of us traded very bad insults with each other, the end result being that Chris was mad at us for awhile. We had about thirty minutes to spare before we had to be at Boyle County High School so we went back to the hotel and hung out in room 220. Mr. Stephens and I hid Josh’s brand-new trombone in the back of Mr. Stephens’ car along with the rest of our instruments. Mr. Stephens proceeded to fall asleep in a chair in the hotel room, going into one of his trademark comas, which lasted precisely 30 minutes before he snapped awake and we departed. Josh had a mild freak-out when he thought that his trombone was gone, and we all had a good chuckle (except for Josh).
We headed for Boyle County High School in our vehicles with Mr. Stephens leading the way, and he took a wrong turn which almost lead us into the local Whirlpool factory. We arrived at the school and went into their band room, where some of the other All-Regional participants were waiting. There were trophies on shelves lining all of the walls in the band room, commemorating their bands many achievements. We hung out for a few minutes until last year’s host, Mr. “Nice Guy” Preston, came over and made us exit the building and then come back inside so that we could register. This lead to another round of being lead in circles through the school and the band room, until finally everybody assembled and we could be properly seated. Joe was first chair baritone, Josh was first chair trombone, Chris was first “chair” in the percussion section. Shay and I were third part, fourth chair and third part, fifth chair in the clarinet section, respectively, which was quite a feat for two players from the same band who normally sat in the same positions (first and second chair, respectively) to be placed, but that’s how it ended up. Which also meant that I had someone to talk to the entire time.
We warmed up and then Mr. Preston introduced us to that year’s director, Mr. “Let’s Go Back” Mannerino, who was a dead ringer for Coach Eddie Sutton. We warmed up using a concert G, A, A-flat, and back to G pattern (which was completely new to us) and then we got into the music that we had been assigned back in November and (presumably) we had been rehearsing on our own. We started off with “Yorkshire Ballad” and that would be the only time that we would play the piece. We then went through “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (which our band had already performed at one time), Sousa’s “Manhattan Beach March,” and Beethoven’s “Fidelio Overture.” We then went through W. Francis McBeth’s multi-part epic “Beowulf,” which Mr. Mannerino was obviously obsessed with and was determined to have us perform in concert, in spite of the fact that we were really rusty in our first read-through. Much to our surprise, the second movement of the piece began with a percussionist playing a metal garbage can lid (ah, back when they made metal garbage cans), resulting in much laughter and amusement from all of us, as this was something we were not anticipating. We rehearsed for close to four hours. During that time, Mr. Stephens sat in the back and took another nap, and then he spent an unusually inordinate amount of time flirting with the female first chair trumpet player.
At around 6:00pm we took a two-hour break for dinner. We headed out to see what culinary delights could be found in the Danville scene (i.e. whatever could be found on the Danville Bypass, the main road between the school and the hotel). Joe wanted to go to Noble Roman’s Pizza, which is where his buddies from the Madison Central High School Band were eating, but we convinced him to go to Mr. Gatti’s instead. Upon entering Gatti’s and discovering that absolutely no one was there, Joe, Josh and Chris changed their mind and wanted to go to the other pizza place, but Shay and I had already started to place our order for a deep dish sausage & mushroom, and so the others were stuck there. Hah. The three quite literally argued for five minutes before deciding what they wanted. While waiting, Shay and I played Crystal Castles and I completely smoked him (only because Shay had no idea how to play). We ate our pizza and discussed how terrible the trumpet and flute sections were. We had some time left over so we went back to the hotel and watched a little bit of that cinematic 1985 masterpiece “Just One of the Guys” before heading back to the school for evening rehearsal.
We rehearsed for another two hours, dissecting”Beowulf” for an hour (Mr. Mannerino was determined that we would be able to do this). We also went through “A Tribute to Jerome Kern” but Mr. Mannerino hated it and decided to dump it. At some point during this practice, Mr. Stephens left to return to Richmond, as he was not staying the night in Danville, leaving us completely unchaperoned. Oh, that man was sooooo trusting.
After practice was over, we were directed to place our instruments in a separate classroom than the band room. We were never told why (because it was more secure than the band room?). Chris hung out in the classroom for a few extra minutes, studying the math problems that were on the chalkboard. We left the school and all crammed into Joe’s car: Joe driving and Shay in the passenger seat, and me, Chris and Josh wedged into the back. Joe floored the accelerator and attempted to ram into the Madison Central bus. It had been a more than typical cold Kentucky winter and the parking lot was frozen over, so Joe did several donuts in the parking lot (partially to show off in front of the Central Band and partially to scare the crap out of the three fellows in the back seat of his car) before speeding off. On the way back to the hotel, we had a freeze-out, in which we rolled down all of the windows while Joe did 60 on the Danville Bypass and completely chilled ourselves.
At the hotel, we found that there were some girls from Madison Central in room 222, and they offered to trade with me, Josh and Chris (in 224) because some of their band members were in 226, which made complete sense and why couldn’t the management at the hotel do this for us in the first place? We agreed to this and there was some hasty movement of luggage and stuff, and the door connecting the two rooms were quickly unlocked and opened. Awesome! The Central girls came by a little later on a traded soaps, as we had already opened and used the ones that were provided to us.
Shay and Joe began calling random hotel rooms on the phone. They had the uncanny ability to make conversation with anybody and then make it last. They hit some girl (don’t recall her name) who was in a room with some guy named Jim, and another room with a girl named B.J. They invited her over their room and she actually came over. She was from Powell County and she was the biggest redneck we had ever met (obviously, we didn’t get out of Madison County very often). She brought a Steely Dan tape over and we listened to it while we talked and she smoked. She was quite surprised to learn that I was a senior. Other band people started to filter through our room and Chris became the appointed doorman. Many of the other band members said that they were going to go raid the local Kroger (or go “Kwogerwing” as they put it). Some girls came back with some ice cream and chocolate syrup and whipped cream in a can that they couldn’t finish, so Shay and Joe took it off their hands. Joe had the biggest fun spraying the whipped cream around the room and at people (good thing the mess was in HIS room).
Some guys from the Central Band dropped by and mentioned that the Satellite (i.e. “pay per view”) movies were free for the band members that weekend. They weren’t, but we wouldn’t find out about that until later. We turned on the last part of “The Fly” and then “Stripper” (chosen by name alone). Shay briefly fell asleep on the bed, next to B.J., who left shortly after. Joe went off to visit some of the other band members. Shay woke up and smeared chocolate syrup on the doorknob to their room. Joe returned to his room and ended up with a handful of chocolate syrup. He proceeded to chase Shay around the room and quickly caught up, smearing the syrup all over Shay.
When “Stripper” was over, Josh, Chris and I retired to room 222, locking the adjourning door (a wise move on our part). We went to sleep, although Chris stayed up a little late reading his Physics textbook. Shay and Joe watched “Bolero” until they passed out. At 1:30am, the phone rang in our room. Chris answered it, and some girl on the other end (possibly B.J.) told him that she wanted his body. He conversed casually for a few minutes before hanging up.
And that was the end of our first day at All-Regional Band. Unfortunately, this was the one (and only) band-related trip where I chose NOT to bring my camera, so there is no photographic evidence of this weekend. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea, although there is always the possibility that my camera might not have survived the flurry of chocolate syrup and whipped cream …
TO BE CONTINUED
Random Yearbook Scans, Part VII (outtakes+1984)
Every Friday for the past seven months, on by Facebook page, I posted one “random” scan from my collection of Model Laboratory School yearbooks (the “Exemplar”) covering the years of 1974 to 1994. My self-imposed rules were that I cannot post something from the same year or of the same theme for two consecutive weeks, the same person cannot appear in a photo for more than two weeks in a row, and the image must contain at least two people for tagging purposes. The ultimate goal was to tag all of my Model Lab FB friends and to do so by the end of the year. That goal was reached on December 31st, with the posting of the 50th scan in the gallery, and so that is when I brought the series to an end.
At the beginning of every month (usually by or around the first Friday), I collected all of the photos that were posted in the previous month and re-posted them in this blog space, in the order that they were presented in the previous month. The following set of photos is the last batch from the original series as presented on Facebook. There are more photos in this batch since I did a seven-day set of single tag photos from December 10th through the 16th. As always, click on any of the images for a larger version on my Flickr page.
1989 - Mischa and the Christmas Window
1984 - Tracy and Anne at Maywoods
1983 - Julie and Tracy Painting Windows in the Middle School Wing
1985 - Tanya and Joe
1989 - Brian and Santa
1984 - Kim, Stephanie and Rhoda in Chorus
1983 - Mr. Stephens and Susan
1978 - City of Cards
1994 - High School Chorus
1978, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992 - The Last Batch of FB Friends to be Tagged
I still had a few scans remaining in the queue, but I wanted to end the series on a nice, round number (50) as well as at the end of the year (the last post was on December 31st). Here are the “outtakes” that never quite made it into the main feature:
1974 - First Continuum #2. This one didn’t make it in because I could only tag one person out of all the people on this page. Instead, I went with this one as the sole scan from 1974.
1982 - Sixth Grade Band. Having already posted the Seventh and Eighth Grade Band from the same year, I still could have posted this one, as it contains completely different people and plenty of potential tags, but I never quite got around to it.
1982 - Middle School Student Council. I had already posted a photo of the 1983 Middle School Student Council and would have tagged most of the same people in it, making this one a little redundant.
1989 - Senior Class. I would have only been able to tag, at the most, four people in this photo (with a degree of certainty that I was tagging them correctly, as there were no names with this photo), but ultimately it never made it.
1989 - High School Chorus. I wish I’d been able to get this one in.
1994 - Pop Choir. This one showed up late and never quite got in. Feel free to insert your own “Glee” joke here.
And now, as we have done for the last six installments of this series, a non-Facebook exclusive of a collection of random photos from a random year. For this month: 1984! As usual, no context, no explanation, just photos that I thought were visually interesting. See you on the other side of the cut.
Image of the Week for 01-02-12
Shadow of the Holidays
Image of the Week 2011: Top 10 Favorites
2011 saw an interesting shift in my photography as I shot considerably more photos with the iPhone 4 camera than the traditional standalone digital camera. I count 1,388 iPhone photos taken in 2011 as opposed to 868 Digital Camera photos (with 503 of those photos taken during a four-day stretch in Baton Rouge). The convenience and quickness of the iPhone camera being readily available for shooting was a big factor. The rise in iPhone photos can also be attributed to my Photo365 project, in which I started posting a photo-a-day in September. The other major contributing factor was the fewer number of out-of-town trips taken this year, which, in the past, have been the times when the regular digital camera have been the primary photo-taking device — the aforementioned Baton Rouge trip being the only major photo op (there was no Kentucky trip this year). Hopefully 2012 will bring a greater variety of images, especially considering I recently upgraded my camera (the first upgrade in five years) in anticipation of new locales to document in the coming months.
The photos featured in this year’s Image of the Week (IotW) certainly varied in their subject matter, although this was the year that contained the most images that were not shot in the year that they were presented … three images commemorated events that took place 25 years ago (a high school band trip to Michigan, a performance of Christmas songs, and #7 below), two were photos originally taken in 2006 and 2010, one was a photo taken in 1985 in remembrance of a friend who passed away this year, and one was a scan of a 35mm slide taken in the early 1960s (I liked it so much I had to swipe it).
Before we get to the regular IotWs, here are my favorite outtakes of the year — images that should have been an IotW but just did not make the final cut, for whatever reason (some technical imperfection, it was an alternate shot, I was out of my mind that week). This year yielded the fewest total number of outtake shots, either a reflection on my ability to take better shots (unlikely) or the fact that I was shooting far fewer photos on a weekly basis (more likely):
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And now, my ten favorite IotWs for 2011:
| #10 |  |
360 Degrees of the Riverbank Christmas Lights. Taken with the iPhone app “360 Panorama.” |
| #9 |  |
Ice Storm 2011 |
| #8 |  |
Quiet Reflection at the Hospital |
| #7 |  |
The Long March. Posted almost 25 years to the day that it was originally taken; never printed. |
| #6 |  |
Old Railroad Bridge, Still in Use |
| #5 |  |
The Contemplative Monkey |
| #4 |  |
Drowning in Sugar |
| #3 |  |
Oddly familiar name in that sign … and I’m not sure whether or not it is a command … |
| #2 |  |
Panoramic of giraffes at the Baton Rouge Zoo |
| #1 |  |
Kitteh Enjoyz Art |
