The Last Week, at Band Camp...

Around here the forgotten two-a-days are the local high school's marching band practices. Not only are there good numbers of participants in the local football programs, but there are good numbers in the local bands too. Watching the way they put everything together between the precision marching and learning and putting the music together to go with the performance in just a couple hours a day and then putting it all together is pretty impressive.

I ended up having to shoot the whole thing in just two days, I was hoping for three, but a much needed rain shower lost me a day. The first day I went to Cooper, who was still putting their marching together without instruments. Then the second I got Abilene High outdoors, luckily they picked up their instruments towards the end of practice. After that I headed to Wylie to shoot them playing in the band hall, with hopes of getting the marching the next day (that got cancelled because of the rain). I did end up getting enough nice shots from each school that it turned out well, even with the wrench that got thrown into things.

I'm With The Band...

In my 11 years at the Reporter-News the one event I've never shot is the UIL State Marching Band contest. It's always on a Monday, which is my day off. Well, with some crazy staffing issues we've had of late, I ended up getting sent to San Antonio for the event. The state marching band competition is kind of an interesting event because the classifications only go to state every other year. Meaning, in four years of high school a student can only go to state a maximum of twice. One of our local school, Wylie was making it's second straight trip to state

Something else that was different about going to state band as opposed to the sports assignments I'm usually going for is, I was writing the story too. It's really not a big deal, I figured this would be easy enough, just write a color story on what it's like to be there. And after talking to both the band director and one of the students who had gone on Wylie's last trip I knew I had a great story. From talking to them they all told me that last time as the band was walking off the field they knew they had done awful. The echo of the Alamodome had thrown off their steps and beat. This time, however, when they were leaving they felt great about their performance. So, I'm thinking "cool, this story is about the redemption."

So, I go sit up in the press box of the Alamodome and start cranking out my story while I was downloading my photos and waiting for the results of the competition. Well, when the finalists were announced Wylie hadn't made the top 10. That's ok I'm thinking, I can still work this, I mean last time they finished second to last, and this time they were happier with their results. At this point, all I needed to do was plug in a quote from the band director and add what place they were in and I was relaxing and watching football and the World Series from my hotel room the rest of the night! Yeah, if only it could have been that easy!

So, I call the band director, and say, "Hey, sorry you guys didn't make it to the finals, but I just wanted to find out where you finished." Me, thinking that they probably just missed the finals, he tells me they finished 23rd... out of 23 bands. So, after my jaw dropped and I screamed inside of my head, and realized I just wasted almost two hours writing a story that will never make anywhere outside of my computer, the band director went on to give me a couple of nice quotes about how it stings to finish last and that's not something you ever hope for but hey at least we made it to state. Well, that wasn't exactly what I was hoping for but, hey, it's too late now and I have another story to write. Well, about two hours later I had story #2 done and sent. It was tough, not the story, but trying to tow the fine line between calling them losers and sounding like an apologist. Well, I think I did ok with the story, given what I had to work with. And given my normally procrastinating nature, I've learned my lesson from ever trying to get ahead of things again!

Strike up the Band...

The day I shot this was a slow news day and we got a press release from Hardin-Simmons University about the school's band "The World-Famous Cowboy Band" playing that weekend in a parade in Dallas. It also mentioned that the band was going to be marching around the campus and surrounding neighborhood for one final practice before leaving for the parade the next day. I didn't bother to ask how far they were going to be marching... that probably would have been a good idea. I certainly got my exercise for the day though.

It was pretty cold that day and everyone, including me was pretty bundled up. However, the cymbals player was wearing shorts, along with a scarf and the regulation cowboy boots the band always wears. Now, since it was just practice, the band's full uniforms weren't required to be worn, but I guess they had to wear their boots. That and the shot of the kid watching as the band marched by were my two favorite shots .

This one time... at band camp

Well, football isn't the only two-a-days I've been shooting lately. On Thursday after my original photo column idea fell through I got lucky and noticed the Abilene High band was wrapping up its summer band camp.

The original plan was to do a photo page on the three local high school's bands. The problem was, I was only able to get a hold of one band director. One of the school's websites said they were practicing at 4pm, so I left early from the AHS practice to go all the way across town. When I got there the band was no where to be found. So, I had to go into damage control and rush back across town and get some quotes from the band director, and hopefully get a few more shots.

Well, I guess I lucked out, as I pulled into the parking lot they had just finished practice, and I saw water balloons flying through the air. It was also the one shot I knew I was missing I had plenty of marching and playing instruments but had only one shot of a water break or anyone showing they were having a good time. Then after they doused each other with water balloons they pulled out their coolers and water bottles and doused each other with them. I guess things worked out well... now I just need to come up with a photo column idea for next week.