Here is my photo story related to band activities. I thought it would be interesting to give a little point of view of what it is like behind the scenes of band activities. I know it isn’t a real point of view, but you get the idea. I also wanted to show these photos to maybe even spark interest in other people who are not currently involved to consider joining. I think band events are very interesting and more people should care about them. So how better to do so than showing people what they are missing out on. 

The main story I suppose I want to tell is the process of a concert and or a performance. Obviously people have to grab their instruments out of the cases in order to play them. And as interesting that band is to me, I still dislike the utter mess of cases everywhere. Specifically when people leave them right in the middle of a popular area to walk like High Schoolers did as pictured. But that leads me into the events Morningside does for band stuff. We had a Concert Band Festival that took place in April that brought many new faces to explore campus. I think it is a great recruiting opportunity for all that are interested. And the events are fun to participate in. Usually we prepare songs for a concert and we can play a few of them during these events to get people more hyped for coming to Morningside. Like I captured in one of these photos, we had several bands from Sioux City North come play at the festival. I don’t remember the specific one that I have here but I still thought it was cool. 

But getting back to my main story of a performance, then you have to get the stage ready with chairs, stands, sound shells, and bigger instruments like percussion and piano(s). I focused a bit more on the balcony because most people do not go up there. The balcony is where we set up the lights and sound. And even if someone doesn’t want to play an instrument and still help out, there is always a stage crew position available on campus payroll. Stage crew mostly sets up the stage and deals with lights and sounds. I do a bit of all of it, but I also have to play in the ensemble so I don’t work it for actual performances. I was actually working with the stage crew when I took the All America band Picture, but I hope to play in it next year. 

Once the stage is set, then all we band kids do is wait for people to show up for the designated start time. Again I pictured the balcony because no one really goes up there. Then comes the actual time we band folk get to play. It can be really fun if you sit by your friends, but lately I’ve had to sit by some real pieces of work. Usually this isn’t a huge problem, but the Trumpet section has been a pain this year. Here is hoping next year is better. But I think it is really fun when you sit by cool people. I would say about half of the people in the last picture are actually cool. But the other half is the bomb.com. 

I think I captured all the subjects in the photographs accurately and neutrally. I did not consider people viewing the subjects in the pictures as anything else, unless, of course, you personally know the person that was captured. Otherwise I do not believe there is a correct way to view these images. Like I said they are very neutral and I think you can make up your own interpretations of what is pictured. 

To be honest I had no idea what to do for a Photo Story. I have had a rough couple of months to say the least and I did not want to take pictures of that subject matter. Not to mention I haven’t been on campus much to get a good idea for a story. So I thought I could do it on a couple of the performances I was able to attend because that is the only interesting thing that has been going on for me. And as I said earlier, I think it is good to get more words out there for people to gain interest in an ensemble. Then I just took pictures I thought were interesting. I was initially going to take pictures while sitting in the band, but they don’t like it when you have your phone out during practice/performance time. So I decided to focus on other ensembles that I do not have a part in. I tried using different angles to make the subjects of the pictures more interesting. 

I will say I think my pictures are better in this assignment. I think at the beginning of this semester I was a lot more point and click, but now I put a bit more thought and effort into making the photos look interesting and, dare I say, dynamic. I think it could be very easy to make these pictures look boring, and I think I did an okay job at making them a little more interesting. Even with the limited ideas and insufficient space to capture photos, that’s part of the challenge I suppose.